By Dean Emerson ’14

I’ve only been writing for the school paper all of a semester, and already I’ve hit a major writer’s block. Like actually, this is my fifth attempt at writing my senior column, so hopefully I finish this one successfully.

Let’s backtrack a little. My first column was about how I’m always tired, which I am, and how I’m just annoyed with a lot of things. I may or may not have slipped in some political commentary about former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, showing great disdain for her. I took that to Mr. Huck after finishing about 350 words. To no surprise, he rejected it saying that it “made me seem like an angry person and the commentary about Pelosi is completely irrelevant to high school.” So I scratched that idea and learned that Huck may or may not be a liberal extremist. Also, I realized that nothing I do is actually relevant to other high schoolers, which probably explains why half of my friends at this school are teachers.
My second column was about man’s perpetual fear of urinating next to another man in a stall. I questioned the trepidations that we as men have, whether it’s based on (this next part has been censored by Huck). Naturally, Huck viewed that as too crude for the paper and censored me (again). I’ve learned that not only is Huck possibly a liberal extremist, he is also an avid censor, censoring anything that contradicts with what he views as inappropriate. Ironically, he is also an avid supporter of free speech.

My third column I just didn’t even finish because I realized it would be too self-revealing since it basically revealed my “secret” identity on Twitter. Yes, I have a secret twitter. Yes, my handle is @SkeeverOfRiften. No, you cannot follow me. No, I will not follow you. In truth, there really wasn’t much to write about, so I just kind of stopped writing. Shout out to Lizard Boscolo and the rest of the Shire for being some of the few people that I actually let follow me on Twitter.

My fourth column was about my brief acting stint in seventh grade. My inspiration to write that column was even briefer.

So here I am on my fifth column, struggling to write a good, heartfelt senior column that is completely finished and is