Dear David,

Exams are wearing me down, and I’m not very motivated to finish my outstanding work. Do you have any REAL study tips for humanities majors? You seem to be a good student and of sound mind.

See you space cowboy,

Cultural Stud 

‍

Greetings, fellow CUSThead! 

I correspond to you from the moments before my exam for my year-long second year Cultural Studies course. This is a site of some temporal and spatial significance, forever trapped in the confines of this fine screed, so bear with me as we barely study together and look over our collective shoulder, only to whip back around to the present and scream very loudly. 

As I pensively sip my Orange Dreamsicle Monster® Reserve in the basement-bunker of Gzowski College, I too reflect on the previous semester and think to myself: why did I willingly sign back up for this? 

Devoted acolytes of the Dear David franchise of Patent Pending advice and related merchandise will know that this is my fourth time at-bat on the academic plate. After dropping out a grand total of three times, the General Manager of David’s Terrible Baseball Allegory (the interests of capital) put me on probation (working a retail job) until I moved my way up out of the farm league (begging Trent University to let me study video games at their tax front).

Almost eight years later, I find myself at my first choice university, preparing dutifully for an exam that would mark my last appearance on Symons campus until I have to dole out this newspaper (you’re lookin’ at it!) for the last time this beloved volume.

In hindsight, it’s been an emotional year: I’ve been the test site for many personal changes in my personal life, and I could not have done it without the Monster® Energy brand of Zero Sugar carbonated drinks. Monster: one of the most drinks ever. O giver of shakes! O great meal replacer! How could I have written a 2000 word screed on Deleuze without you?

Speaking of vibes, allow me to dole out some healing counsel for you through the calming ministrations of my words. I’ll throw in an image or two, because most pieces of writing should include pictures, but only if you behave. 

Look Directly at the Sun During the Eclipse When Everyone Said Not To Do That

As Google searches for “why do my eyes hurt” and “eyes hurt” reach their apex in the immediate aftermath of April’s total eclipse, we find ourselves at our first suggestion: now here’s an excuse to use! If you had some forethought on April 8th—shocking, all things considered—you could’ve stared directly into the sun and given yourself sun-induced migraines, just in time for the term to end and for you to squint at a booklet waiting for phrases like “normalization” and “data colonialism” to suddenly appear on the page. 

Worry not! If you don’t, you could always just stare into the sun during regular sun hours and claim it happened on April 8th. The sun is always there for you to do that, and you really don’t need a special day to scorch your retinas because you saw it on Reddit. What are you, some kind of posting shitheel? Get a job. 

‍Sacrifice Your Professors To Become God 

Have you recently come into possession of a weird, egg-shaped necklace with a permanently tormented face on it? If not, skip this one and read Berserk. If yes, I’ve got some exciting news for you. 

This bad boy is your ticket to becoming a God, dear Readership! You’ve got yourself a Beherit on your hands, a very sacred stone that allows its bearer to draw council with the Godhand, a quinquevirate of demonic sovereigns who only appear every 216 years during an eclipse and will grant a petitioning Beherit bearer (this is you!) immortality.

So: the next time we have an eclipse, you have the opportunity to get revenge on those who have inflicted this suffering unto you. There’s a couple of things you need to do:

• Invite all of your professors to a department mixer in the next eclipse’s path of totality (ideally Greenland) on August 12, 2026. They’ve got the cash flow for it.
• Reach a point of profound and deep despair: this will activate the fucked up egg necklace. This is easy, taking into account your circumstances, but consider getting kidnapped and/or tortured before this step, ensuring maximum personal pain. 
• Get transported to a temporal junction point with all of your professors and meet with the God Hand. You’ll know it when you see them.
• Utter “I sacrifice.”

And bingo! You’ve got some demons chowing down on a tenured smorgasbord while you get to ascend to Godhood and get a cool new outfit/body/personality. This prospect is so much cooler than repaying your student loan or getting a “real job” like your parents and I keep asking about. Your mother is very worried about you. 

Either route you choose, I hope you do fine on your exams. Going blind or becoming a God (why not both?) are great tips that I have yet to test, but know this: I’ve put a lot of thought into this advice cashcow, and if these methods don’t produce results for you, you can pick me up by the scruff and shake me like a baby. I will cry very loudly, making an uncomfortable scene for everyone involved.