Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my final opinion piece for The Reflector. Unless something goes horribly wrong in the future, it’s also the end of my journalistic career.
Now, normally I’m not a big fan of sentimental farewell articles, but then again, normally those articles aren’t written by me. So forgive me, but I’m going to devote this article to a look back over the time I’ve spent as a writer. (Does maundering about nothing for 3,000 characters qualify me as a writer? I like to think it does.)
I’ve written 27 articles this year. (4 if you don’t count the ones that were completely pointless.) Over the course of that time, I’ve had a chance to tackle the tough issues that needed to be discussed, a chance I regularly ignored so that I could write about lake monsters instead.
In spite of that, though, I’d strongly encourage you to be mindful of the issues affecting our society. Form opinions, listen to other people’s opinions and read other people’s opinions, whether you agree with them or not.
Just don’t read someone’s opinions when that person is in the room, because that’s incredibly awkward for the writer. Yes, I’m talking to you, guy who sat in front of me in that statistics class last semester. (Seriously, dude. I know you’re reading this.)
Or at the very least, look behind you before you tell someone there’s nothing good in the opinion section that day. Those pictures at the top of the articles are there for a reason. Yes, I’m still talking to you, guy who sat in front of me in that statistics class. Or at the very, very least look around before saying McNeill Williford is the worst excuse of a writer to ever walk the face of the earth. (That one’s not directed at anyone in particular; it’s just a good rule to live by.)
That reminds me; to those who are bothered because they think my articles have been a waste of time, I’d like to apologize wholeheartedly. It’ll never happen again, I promise. (Trust me.)
I’d also like to take a second to thank a few people. First up, thanks to my editors for resisting the weekly temptation to fire me. Also, thanks for being cool about the zombie incident last November. (Sorry about that, by the way.)
Second, thanks to all the ridiculous things happening in the news, because they made it much easier for me to do my job. In particular, I’d like to thank the fast food industry, Canada and Glenn Beck.
Third and finally, I’d like to thank myself. Couldn’t have done it without you, bro.
As for me, I’m headed to Illinois, where I’ll either attend graduate school or become Chicago’s unemployment problem. (Either way, I’ll be sleeping under a newspaper.)
Hey, speaking of newspapers, I hear there are about to be a few openings in The Reflector’s opinion section. Have you considered submitting an application? Seriously, if I can do this, anyone can.
And that about wraps up everything I have to say. Goodbye, my dear alleged readers, and thanks for playing along. It’s been a pleasure to waste your time this year.
McNeill Williford is a senior majoring in industrial engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].