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Penn Introduces Summer Stay, Graduation Stay: You're Staying Here Forever

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Photo by Stuart Watson with Edits by Darrion Chen /  CC BY-SA 4.0

First you stay here for spring break and labor tirelessly studying for your fifty-four midterms next week. Then you stay here for the summer, slaving away in some obscure lab researching things you don’t understand. And then after that, you think you are free as you walk across the stage and they hand you a shiny piece of paper. 

But as they hand you the paper, time distorts. You feel the continuum of time rush past your face. You fall backwards and then find yourself sitting in a tan chair in DRL. It’s your first Math 114 midterm, the one that you failed. 

You look at the paper and read the questions, you know the answers but you can’t stop yourself from writing nonsense and gibberish on your test. You try to stand up but you won’t let yourself stand up. You try to scream at yourself, but you can’t scream.

You resign and accept the fact that you are here again, and that you are staying here forever. The days and years pass again, and there’s nothing you can do about it. 

As they say, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. 

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