When I finish my last day of classes each semester, feelings of happiness and relief sweep through me when I think about how I no longer have to wake up early, no longer have to speed-walk to class and come close to twisting my ankle on the Locust cobblestones.

I wish I could say that 53 were some significant number in my life — my home address, my lucky number, something like that — because that would be one hell of a lede.

There are many ways to be end up at a place like Penn, but I suspect that my own path was not a particularly original one.

Back when I was in middle school and I hadn’t even heard of the name Donald Trump, my science teacher gave the class a lesson on how to search the internet — specifically, how to tell the good sites from the bad.

The world’s most successful notion of free government arose from what was called “the principle of the sovereignty of the people.” This principle viewed government as a regrettable necessity.

On November 9, the American flag stood at half-mast at Hampshire College as a “reaction to the toxic tone of the monthslong election.” The following night, though, the flag was burned by an unidentified individual or group of individuals.

2016 will not, I suspect, go down in the history books as one of humanity’s great success stories.

As a misanthrope, there’s a truth I’m beginning to accept, and that is that my day is made better by the kindness of strangers.

I received a lot of well-meaning advice and aphorism in my early college years: “early to bed ...” and “beer before liquor ...” among other things.

The month of silence mandated by the monk class will be over by the time this column is in print.

On November 21, the conservative activist group Turning Point USA announced their latest creation: the Professor Watchlist.

I’m a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the collection of superhero movies including titles like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers.

While everyone was buying sweaters 50% off at their local mall this weekend and eating turkey sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner, my parents and I were having our first honest talk about depression. I wasn’t depressed until I came to Penn, so I never had to tell anyone about it until now.

Writers like me get a lot of mileage out of poking fun at college students making big deals out of fairly minor ethical transgressions. Doing that with integrity, however, requires retaining the ability to tell the difference. The delivery of racialized threats to a number of black freshmen was no minor transgression.

First, I’d like to acknowledge that I was wrong. About a month ago, I published a column about what I called the lazy voting epidemic. People use gut-checks, self-identification and emotional appeals to dictate their vote, and that can cause real problems when it comes to the outcome of emotionally charged elections.

“So how’s school going?” After the hello’s and how-are-you’s, those are probably the first words you hear from everybody you see when you go home for break.

I’m not sure if it was because of my general air-headedness, or a product of the post-election fallout, but for whatever reason, I completely forgot to sign up for courses by the end of advanced registration.