UGA Wants To Know How Your Term's Going

In the interest of keeping track of your overall mental health and creating a positive living environment for all of his residents, your UGA Phil Lee ’10 is reportedly planning on stopping by with some cookies to find out how your term’s going. While he plans on talking casually while leaning on your door frame wearing a backwards cap, Lee admits that his questions will actually be directed towards gauging your stress levels and determining if the combination of pledge term and three courses is causing you to become depressed or consider suicide.

With a “big” floor meeting planned for Sunday evening, Lee decided to make the rounds of his floor with his “happiness barometer” to get an idea of how to handle the weekend gathering. “I usually just pass around a bag of candy or get a few 2-liters of soda, but if people are feeling particularly down this week I might break the bank and dip into the cluster fund for some EBAs,” Lee explained, “maybe even hot chocolate and trust falls. I don’t want to get too crazy though.” Lee also notes that he is always open to suggestions for how improve the community gatherings, though as of yet he has made no moves toward the submitted themes of “strippers” or “hookers and blow.” Despite consistently low attendance at floor meetings in the fall, Lee believes that the combination of new residents and the “winter blues” will cause record participation in icebreaker games from residents seeking a “fun and relaxed brain break.”

 In addition to getting a read on your overall comfort with your courseload, Lee plans on making jocular comments about the bleak winter weather to determine whether or not you may be suffering from seasonal depression. “I think I’ll say something along the lines of ‘It’s pretty freakin’ cold out there, huh? Sometimes all I want to do is go to Dick’s House and rent one of their free sun lamps’ or something like that,” speculated Lee, “and then observe their reaction to see if I need to send them a personal blitz about seasonal affective disorder.” In the event that you are feeling down as a result of the cold weather, Lee plans on organizing a few “on-floor” activities for weekend nights so his residents can stay inside and still have fun without “going out to the silly frats and feeling pressured to drink too much or have non-consenual sex.” Ideas for “stay-home” nights include a How I Met Your Mother marathon, Boggle Night, and a politics roundtable, all featuring cookies and hot cider. “College isn’t all about partying, you know,” observed Lee, “and since none of their mothers are here it’s clearly my job to remind them of that.

The number one goal of Lee’s visit to your door, however, remains a surreptitious mental-health check. “At UGA training they taught us how to intersperse mundane reminders about check-in deadlines or floor meetings with discrete but pointed questions about the student’s psychological well-being,” claimed Lee in an interview, “almost like tricking them into admitting they need to seek counseling.” So far, response to Lee’s efforts has been fairly neutral, with most responses grouped in the “Yeah I’m doing fine” and “Sorry I missed the floor meeting, totally thought it was at 9 AM” ranges. Initial reports also indicate that the lacrosse players in room 213 are not suffering from seasonal affective disorder or homesickness, nor do they have any issues with “dicks in [their] butts, in case that was the next question.”

-John Merrick '12