the five enemies you meet in college

The Biggest Circle of Friends (BCF)

The Weekly Sillimanian

June 25, 2008

College is a time to meet friends, lovers, acquaintances, future mates, and…of course, enemies. Yes, your favorite game of flames personified and dehumanized. With the 6000 plus population of our university, you’re sure to bump into people who will cause your blood pressure to rise. To equip you with the proper defense and tactics during the ill-fated time that they will cross your path, here is a prophecy of your college fate.

Enemy #1: The Perky Freshman

Be it your achingly innocent smallie bombarding you with questions from “Te/Kuya, where’s TBA?” to “Do you still have your Math 11 workbook, ‘kanang naay answers ha’?”; or your kabsi with his wide-eye amazement about how big the campus is and whining that pedicabs be allowed inside; or your overly-eager seatmate in Filipino 11 hysterically waving his right hand at every question the teacher throws in class—you just cringe in annoyance at their fatalist take on optimism and that’s that. And don’t even be intimated by the seemingly flawless coño speak, that’s just their way into the kingdom of social butterflies.

So to our dear Upperclass men and women, just play a deaf ear and press the mute button when the situation calls for it. Better be the dependable Te or Kuys and don’t whine too much or you could be Enemy #2.

Enemy #2: The Messy-Whiny Roommate

This icon is the easiest to spot in college. Unlike the rest of the enemies listed here, this is the only person whose problem radiates in outlook and lifestyle. This Messy-Whiny Roommate is downright dirty and lazy—with the sole contribution of grunts and complaints for the rest of the Enemies. Though only found within the four walls of your room (unless you live alone, of course), this Messy-Whiny Roommate easily strikes a peculiarity in collegedom for its effortless act of making a disaster: from the unmade bed to the shaky closet that would fall on you anytime if not for your efforts of cleaning up. If undies have their way of accepting defeat like what human beings do, they would surely pull themselves up and head towards the nearest sink to wash their soiled and mildewed beings. Basically, this person’s treasure is someone else’s trash while the ability to trash talk appears to be their forte.

And most definitely, if this unique character is skilled in creating mayhem in the room, it would be very possible that this roommate would naturally bring out chaos in the classroom that no Pseudo Teacher could straighten out.

Enemy #3: The Pseudo Teacher

Nothing beats the human sanity more than a teacher who ought to settle in the fields and plant kamote rather than stand in front of a class and bore students to an untimely death. If feisty innocent-looking freshies or sock-smelling roommates tend to heat up even your coldest nerves, brace yourself for a more mind-numbing foe you’ll meet in this university. This is the Pseudo Teacher. This fabled character gives out the most number of reading requirements than any other teacher you’ll meet combined. To add more insult to injury, you poor little wounded soldier of promising education, this Pseudo Teacher emanates an air-head superiority that creates an atmosphere easy enough to suffocate you in minutes.

Serious Tip: Be a Know-it-All and you’ll easily pass the subject. As far as your intelligence as a knowledge-hungry student is concerned, this Pseudo Teacher usually gets impressed when you breathe out flame while explaining why Lapu-Lapu didn’t become our national hero.

Enemy #4: The Ghost Groupmate

You’ll meet this infuriating specimen of a classmate in one of your subjects under Pseudo Teacher. With the mountain of requirements, groups will be arranged and unfortunately for you, Ghost Groupmate or GG is one of its members. GG will seldom attend meetings, or during the rare and miraculous event that he does show up, he will surely be gone in a blink. You’ll use up your entire cellphone load trying to contact him just to attend a single meeting. Be it your BC 25 paper, Speech 11 choir, or PE 12 dance presentation, GG will definitely be absent, uncooperative, and unmindful of the hard work that you’ve put into your little project.

And you know what’s worst? GG will probably pass the subject or even ace it on your account. What’s the thing to do? There is nothing you can do honey, GG will certainly ride on your coat tails until the end of the semester unless you kick him out of the group (which is not an easy thing to do).

Enemy #5: The Know-It-All

Not so many thanks to Mr. Darwin, the Know-It-All still exist and they could be your groupmate, Mr. and Ms. GG notwithstanding. He could be the debater who seemed to have swallowed the entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica and have memorized the Webster’s Dictionary from A-Z, yes, a 160 GB iPod Classic worth of too-much information imposing the Know-It-All throne of being group leader, commanding you to do this and that and ignoring your moans and groans of protest without further ado.

There’s nowhere to go when dealing with this exasperated-sigh-worthy kind of species. Just ignore and endure the awestruck glare when you can’t spell mnemonics and can’t explain why Burma changed its name to Myanmar. Be fortunate you have a life, after all, most of them don’t.