Well, boys and girls, it’s that time of the semester again; the flower beds are being replanted, the flights home have all been booked and the student body is collectively mentally preparing for the let down of how much they’re actually going to get for their books when they sell them back to the bookstore. Oh, and there’s that whole reading day thing.

Ed Board has always wondered about reading days. We’ve had such questions as: What are these reading days of which you speak? Where do these reading days come from? Why are they here? Why do we have one on Saturday? Like anyone really reads on Saturday. It’s pretty much common knowledge that the best studying is always done at 3 a.m. the night before your final over a pot of coffee or tea while you try to fight off the thoughts of sugar plum fairies dancing in your head.

So really, what are reading days for anyway? Ed Board likes to think that reading days are best used for recuperating from the last parties of the semester on Thursday night. Or possibly they’re for just catching up on the sleep you’ve been missing from the constant barrage of parties, projects, papers, tests, labs, shows and/or rehearsals being crammed into the last remaining days of the semester.

Maybe Ed Board isn’t fairly representing the entire student body of the Hilltop. There are some who actually use Fondren Library for things other than naps and have also been spotted arguing with the librarians over the 30 book maximum check-out policy and dueling other students over the best study rooms. Ed Board never really understood these people, but then again collectively, we’ve only been at SMU for 21 years. On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t listen to our advice on how to, or not to, use your reading days.

So on Friday, when you wake up and realize you don’t have class, what are you going to do? Catch up on your Christmas shopping? Laundry? Sleep? Camp out in front of the bar until they let you back in? Or are you in one of those rumored classes that actually holds a meeting on reading days? No matter what you do, we at Ed Board would like to wish everyone good luck and we hope to see you all back next semester. Until then, stay classy SMU.