Good Riddance

– THE SENIORS

Amanda Andrade
Film Editor

Come awards time, the simpering starlets who pile on sufficient poundage and pay enough in PR reps get to give their thanks to the Academy. Slowly. With tears.

Getting to be Film Editor at the Daily is a bit like that. When I first walked into the Arts room my junior year, this place looked like a black hole of music snobs and pop culture fiends – this odd amalgamation of unshaven movie geeks and Polo rap thugs.

And then I realized that the Daily was kind of awesome. Kind of amazing, and kind of the place that I really wanted to be.

So thanks to Adam, who recognized that we were in Great Books 192 together. Fuck yeah, Virgil. Thanks to Alex for being so caustic and funny, and Melissa for having fathomless reservoirs of strength under the veneer of your typical nice girl. Thanks to Victoria for being the easiest drunk. Thanks Emily for being unspeakably luminous, Punit for being a gossiping bitch, Bernie for being my cuddle buddy, MK for being my dear, dear friend and Sarah Segerlind, my Daily groupie. Thanks to the film staff for being the best writers at this place. Thanks to Jeff, for more than I can say. Thanks to all my friends who I don’t have room to name. My time here has been short and rewarding. I. I just want to say thanks.

Michael Gurovitsch
News Reporter

In a torrent of blind, foolhardy passion, I left the Daily a year ago to pursue other opportunities. Jim and Barb Gurovitsch – or Barb and Jim if you are into that – always raised me to follow the fife and drum of my heart and relentlessly pursue my passions. They couldn’t teach me, probably because it’s innate and only detectable by oneself, the ability to recognize and cultivate those passions.

The joy of working at the Daily was something I didn’t realize until it was too late, but at least I did realize it. It’s still kind of sad.

Victoria Edwards
Fine Arts Editor

So I came in here as a freshman. This place has been my second home for four years and I don’t really know how to say goodbye. I remember how you could go to any computer in the Daily and see me signed on, or all the times I lost my phone when my mom would call the Daily looking for me. I remember editors stalking me through classes and convincing me to skip classes to cover events. In the vastness of the University of Michigan I found my haven in these four walls, behind these ivy-covered bricks. I’ve researched crack, pot laws, met Mary Sue – done everything worth doing in this University and all though the Daily. So I want to give a shout out to those who have been with me for this amazing experience: my amazing ex-beat partner Michael Kan – I know I drove you crazy but I love you and you’re a great reporter! Good luck in Kansas! My Sooj, who was my managing editor when I was an editor the summer of freshman year, the whole arts section who embraced me as I came in my last year, my whole arts staff, Jesus – everyone . L’chaim and drink a shot for me.

Sarah Peterson
Arts Writer

I walked into the Student Publications Building four years ago as an unawares freshman, and the rest, as they say, is history. I’ve watched friends graduate year after year, never believing that it would eventually be me. And now, I’m writing my senior goodbyes. So, without further ado: Melissa, Adam, Niamh, Jason, Bernie and Doug, it has been a pleasure working with and getting to know each of you. It’s because of all of you that the Daily was the good experience that it was. Cadi, Brian, Mark, Kate, Ian, and Jason, thank you all for helping me maintain my sanity and being my family away from home. It has been an honor to count you all as friends. To my Irish girls, may the wind always be at your back and the road always rise to meet your feet. My years here would not have been the same without you. And finally, to my family, thank you for always supporting me and being there to listen and to laugh.

These last four years have honestly been the best of my life and I will miss Ann Arbor dearly. To everyone at the Daily, I have no wisdom to offer other than to keep writing. Enjoy your time because it will too soon be over. I wish you all the best of luck in the years to come.

Michael Kan
News Editor

I went through so many ridiculous nicknames here: Can Can, The Khan and Kan Sheh Jah. But I could never help but smile each time I heard them. I will miss hearing them so much.

I owe the Daily everything. I’ve found my calling here and I’ve accomplished things I would never had imagine when I first entered the University. To have the chance to make a difference – that’s what the Daily gave me and so I will forever be grateful to it and its people.

Farayha, Jameel and Donn, my ultimate news editors, I will especially miss you guys the most. All of you are truly some of the greatest people I have met in my life and I’m so lucky to have you all as friends. Don’t ever doubt yourselves because I know that you will all succeed and become amazing journalists. Keep in touch.

Go above and beyond Karl, Annabelle, Annie V., Tina and Jeremy, you have the chance to do what I believe is the most important thing in life: helping people. And thanks Ali, Ian, Victoria, Jason, John Lowe and all the previous news editors for helping make the Daily my best college memory.

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.” – Calvin & Hobbes.

Alexandra M. Jones
Associate Arts Editor

Okay, fuck. Time to write my senior goodbye. Right. Fuck.

Jesus god.

If you can believe it, I’m really not drunk enough to write this. Trying to communicate the deeply-felt sentiment of your typical “Thanks for the trite-ass memories”-style goodbye via a precisely calibrated series of shoutouts (or is it shout-outs?) and Pavement references (I’m totally tearing up to “Gold Soundz” right now. Fuck) is difficult to create with the obligatory spontaneity and inebriation that a missive like this requires.

I confer upon the following personages recognition for their outstanding influence on my Daily career and, therefore, my quality of life over the past four goddamn years:

Scott Serilla, for liking all the same bands as I did and, though he didn’t know or intend it, setting an initial fucking standard for my performance as a writer.

Andrew Gaerig, for being the nicest person in the goddamn world and taking me to shows and being the most relatable, most inspiring, hands-down best fucking music critic I have ever read.

Adam Rottenberg, for putting up with what ended up being so much histrionic shit. You’re a pal.

Melissa Runstrom, for being the constant depressive (or, in this case, stable) to my manic. Shit, I wish I was still an associate.

Chris Gaerig and Lloyd Cargo, for making me wish I could be more like them.

Forest Casey, for caring about me more than I think any other Daily staffer ever did.

And to Shaun, who always waited up and loved me anyway.

Melissa Runstrom
Associate Arts Editor

The Daily taught me how to go beyond myself. This institution got me out of my room and out of my comfortable social circle. I’ve learned much from my four years here, and went further here than I had ever planned because others believed in me. I’ve found a community that has kept me sane when everything else seemed off.

Adam I owe you the insurmountable debt of getting me to come into the Arts room and write when I was still scared of Scott and Todd, and of also convincing me to join the top Arts brass last year. Doug you were my first Daily friend. The three of us were so inseparable freshman year that all the editors thought two or all of us were dating.

Bernie you’re my heiress; I couldn’t be happier. You are genuine goodness. Evan, I stand by claim that you are the most offensive person I know, and I mean that in a good way. Bloomer, I’m so excited for you. Sarah and Niamh, you’ll always be my arts girls. Jason= hugs. Suhael and the edit team – your passion is inspiring. Victoria my housemates are still scared of you. Alex, the fragels rock. Michael thanks for your help with the commission. Amanda, the attic was amazing (we are the only ones who will ever know what happened up here). Wise words I can’t claim as my own: There has to be an end, otherwise why start?

Aaron Kaczander
Arts Writer

So Woody Allen once said, “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” Well working at Daily Arts has shown me that, damn, this list is virtually endless. I mean, let’s examine this. I now wish I were: Malkmus, Morrissey, Big Baby Jesus, G.O.B., I. Curtis, P. Banks, Casablancas, McGarvey, Ocasek, Klosterman, Sedaris, Shrigley, Ghostface, those dudes from Leeds, or uh, Manchester or something, P.J. Harvey, or wait, what am I doing? This is supposed to be about ME! Fuck it. I really don’t even work here. I just write the reviews. Pay attention to those bylines from now on, people. It makes us not have that last regret. I’ll miss you.

Jameel Naqvi
News Editor

As Long

As long as I have Tchaikovsky’s heartbreaking pathos

And Kelly’s knees have ample wax

To swift him headfirst into Cyd’s synecdochic legs

And Fred has poise enough

To face a cavalcade of mutinous shoes,

As long as Biskind’s withering prose

Leaves no hubristic auteur unsullied

And Christina’s gyroscopic hips

Still compete with her earnest eyes,

As long as the virgin of the napkin

Arrests me with her pleading gaze

And Picasso’s splintered horse

Cries for my belated mercy,

As long as my beloved co-hyphenates

Find no privacy in the house of their God

While his revelations yet languish unknown to me

And Gershwin’s expressionistic tone poem

Echoes the discords and grotesque asymmetries of his 42nd Street,

As long as no obfuscation of Pound or Eliot

Escapes Levi’s exacting didacticism,

And aching nostalgia for Ava’s affections

Rings out in Sinatra’s dejected phrasings

As long as a gangly poet from the squalid ghettoes of Karachi

Can essay an answer to Emerson’s call,

I win.

Donn, thanks for teaching me how to “Paste Special” in Microsoft Word.

Aymar Jean
News Reporter

32 stories about why black people always get into college and white people don’t.

22 stories about gays/women/minorities and other assorted activists upset at the U president, the President, budgets, administrators, each other, Michigan, the world.

12 stories about that blonde bombshell who runs this place with an iron-fist, and who has an inexplicable love of grits.

7 stories about the go-go world of University housing.

5 columns about the abominable practice of wearing fleece.

5 stories about students illegally sharing too much Kelly Clarkson, and, worse, not regretting it.

One probing expose on the temporary closing of Mitch’s bar.

Countless memories of endless late nights, terrible editing, tight deadlines, new friends, talented journalists and of way, way too many hours spent in one building.

Gabe Edelson
Senior Sports Editor

I’ll graduate in April with a bachelor’s degree in history. But my diploma won’t exactly be telling the whole truth. You see, I’ve learned more at The Daily than I ever have in any classroom or lecture hall.

When I started writing at the beginning of my sophomore year, I figured the paper was just something on the side, a breather to pass the time and prevent boredom. But school still came first, second and third.

It didn’t take long for that to change. Before I knew it, I was spending over 13 hours in a single weekend watching Michigan play Minnesota in baseball. I blinked, and I was covering the hockey team – 35 hours a week for the entire year – and desperately trying to keep up with a full load of courses. Of course, when I really did need to spend time working on my thesis, I was putting in 50 hours a week covering football.

Still, I don’t regret neglecting to open so many wasted textbooks, scrambling to do homework at the last minute, or falling behind because of all those late nights spent in the bowels of the Daily sports office. I guess that’s my message to everybody reading this (if you’re still paying attention): Find something you love, and stick with it. Don’t let school, TV shows, or going to the bar get in the way. I promise, you won’t be sorry.

Megan Kolodgy
Senior Sports Editor

I’m going to be honest – sometimes I thought the Daily was going to kill me. I primarily felt this sentiment when we learned that the basement, where Sports has been relegated, had a serious asbestos problem. But there were other times too –