you know the world of academia isn't right for you when...

... all you can think about during a prestigious leadership luncheon/discussion about journalism, communication, and new forms of social media is not the future of the news, or the cultural implications of online media, or possible business models for the journalism industry, but how you would much rather be at home playing Meerca Chase II on Neopets.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.

it's a zoo in here. literally.

I've witnessed/experienced so many bizarro things this year that I've learned not to question anything. 

For example: I've had a homeless-looking man sketch me on the LA Metro (see picture below)... a homeless-looking man spit on me on the street... a homeless-looking man compliment me on my nails (verbatim: "I like your sexy black nails, mama")... You get the point.

Call me a sketchball for taking this picture, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't the sketchball in this situation. And that bike? The purple kid's bike with sparkly streamers and 3 different locks attached to it? Yup. That would be his (my portraitist's) bike.

I don't even raise my eyebrows anymore in reaction to the random, weird things that seem to occur with alarming frequency in my life/on campus/in LA... like the gigantic, useless foam parties that materialize at random times in the middle of the Quad (pictured below)... or the strange items I often discover in even stranger places, like the squirt gun I found hanging from the bathroom door several days ago (it's still there; also pictured below).

I actually walked into a clump of bubbles on my way to Spanish.

Someone is apparently stockpiling weapons in the women's bathroom.

But somehow, I was still taken aback when I saw what I saw in the Leavey Library fountain the other day: two frattilicious guys standing knee-deep in the water, playing with a tiny, adorable little pet duckling as if they were a gay couple spending a day in the park with their adopted child. (Let me remind you that USC, which is located in downtown LA, is not exactly vibrant with wildlife.) It might not compete with the sketchball on the LA Metro, but it was by far the cutest "WTF" thing I've seen all year.

Yes, I out-sketchballed myself and took a pic of them. (Blue Shorts is holding the duckling.) I wanted to get another picture of it swimming in the fountain, but people were already starting to look at me questioningly, so I decided against taking more pictures and promptly fled the scene.

Apparently, the New/North dorms (AKA the party dorms, which, like all dorms, outlaw pets, but which are constantly filled with such foul, unidentifiable odors that you could probably hide not only pets, but decomposing bodies, in there) are currently home to the following creatures: the aforementioned duckling, two turtles, a kitten, and a hedgehog.

I mean, I'm all for whimsical, illegal dorm pets, but really? A hedgehog?

Why would anyone even want a hedgehog?

if you ever need to seek sweet, sweet revenge...

Present your victim with a platter of Atomic Chicken Wings from WingStop. Or, if you're the type that derives pleasure from excruciating, tear-inducing pain, eat them yourself.

Deceivingly tasty-looking yet mind-numbingly painful, these little fuckers could probably replace waterboarding as America's go-to form of torture.

After just one bite of these satanic little wings, I was almost in tears. Jenny was forced to submerge her face into a tub of ice cream. And after a few (she's obviously one of those masochistic types I was talking about), Felicia proceeded to make sounds I've never heard her make before (and never knew she was capable of making).

Since I'm a) not white and b) Korean, I'm pretty sure you can trust me on this one. 

obviously, i win at college.

College is supposed to heighten your academic standards and push you to achieve at a level befitting the expectations of higher education, right? Wrong. 

Case in point:

I just finished and turned in a term paper 20 minutes after the deadline- a deadline that was already extended by almost two weeks. Lacking black ink/the time to find someone with black ink, each page of said paper was printed in a different color: purple, red, blue, grey, and faded combinations of all of the above. And on top of all this, since I obviously couldn't print any additional copies, I fixed the typos I found in bright blue gel pen. Can anyone say epic failure?

This atrocity is just the cherry on top of a gigantic, fatty-sized ice cream sundae of term paper-related failures that occurred this week. 

If you'd like some evidence, let's play a fun game called Find The Errors I Discovered In My Term Papers... After Turning Them In. In case you are even more of a pathetic failure than I am, I bolded them to help you out.

1. both had their minds on one goal, the ver same goal that

In Spanish, ver is a word. Sadly, in English, such is not the case.

2. Many of these societal fears and anxieties were expressed in dystopian science fiction films like The Sixth Day (2000). In The 6th Day, Roger Spattiswoode explores

Two different movies, or blatant failure? I'm gonna say... blatant failure.

3. the clones were initially raised in terrible conditions, treated them as sub-human, and

Grammar at its finest. Can you believe I came into college as a Print Journalism major?

4. in response to rapid innovations in medical technologies as genetic engineering and cloning

This is just stupid.

5. Indeed, persuasion s an incredibly important element of human communication

Another important element of human communication? Completing your words. Oh, the irony!

... And these were just the few that I noticed.

Obviously, I spent a lot of time on these papers. 
Obviously, I read them before I turned them in.

Obviously, I take my college education very seriously.