The Northern Plight

Two months ago the first episode of the critically acclaimed Travis-TV weblog was showered with Youtube views as well as praise. Then disaster struck, along the same lines as most other fads and crazes its popularity and creative content has recently gone the way of the buffalo. (Not to Wyoming but to obscurity) The person most effected by the recent decline in Travis-TV ratings has probably been Travis’s agent/manager/merchandise coordinator Lucas Henjum.

“This has all happened at the worst possible time. Travis and I just dumped over 800 dollars into t-shirts, messenger bags, collectible plates, and even Travis-TV mouse-pads.” Henjum complains, “We ordered ‘em at the height of his popularity. We stood to make some decent cash. I honestly didn’t think the bottom would fall out this fast.”

Analyst’s believe Travis got too confident about the immense early success his weblog. Some say it all changed when he refused to record an episode specifically for the Youth Major Department Chapel on March 12, 2008. A member of the Youth Committee comments, “Yeah, we tried to contact Travis a few times, we just wanted him to talk about a few topics and kind of do a creative announcement for some upcoming events we had. He completely ignored all our phone calls and emails. We ended up having one of our own members record his own lampoon and it went over really well.”

The revelation that anyone can throw together a similar weblog and see similar success opened up the campus to other, better produced and more entertaining weblogs like the one mentioned above and The Baias Blog. A simple history lesson can prove the point that even though people will always remember the “first”, it rarely remains the best. Just look at The Backstreet Boys and N*SYNC, we all know who won that contest.

The bottom line is that Travis-TV will have to innovate or dissipate. But regardless Travis, we hoped you enjoyed your 15 minutes of fame as much as we enjoyed your first episode. God speed.

-Bernstein

It’s that time again. Spring College Days at NCU is upon us. So hide your Rated R movies and conceal your booze filled mini-fridge, it’s hosting high schoolers time. Here is a quick survival guide for both the attendees and college students on how to make the most of this wondrous weekend.

 Survival Tip #1- College Days is not about figuring out if you want to go to NCU. It is about figuring out if there is a member of the opposite sex pretty enough to make you come to NCU. (The chance that you will actually end up with that person is very slim, but don’t let that detour you from making the most impulsive and least cost effective decision of your life.)

Survival Tip #2- It is not your responsibility to babysit the High Schoolers who are forced to sleep in your dorm room. It is your responsibility to make them feel as uncomfortable as possible at all times. For instance, make up words and meanings to those words and use them with such frequency that the high schoolers start to use them too. (Words like Twaddle, Fuddle, or Grundel work wonders.)

Survival Tip #3- Making out should be your primary goal at College Days. If you are a high school male, plan on trying to make out with a college girl for the first few hours, then settling for a high school female after three or four rejections.

Survival Tip #4- If you plan on attending all the NCU sanctioned events, you should just plan on staying home. College Days is a time of freedom, unsolicited make out sessions, and bad choices derived from good intentions.

Survival Tip #5- If you sleep, you’ve wasted valuable time. If your an attendee, sleeping is wasting video game, flirting, eating, and meaningless socializing time. If you are a college student, sleeping is wasting video game, flirting, eating, meaningless socializing, and relentless pranking time. If you have a high school student that wakes up without BALLS, or a drawing of a penis on his face, you’ve fallen short of God’s plan for your life.

Survival Tip #6- Attendees: The excitement you feel towards NCU during these two days does in fact exist outside of the College Days bubble. It is referred to as Welcome Week and will quickly fade the first day of classes.

College Students: The disappointment you feel towards NCU during these two days does in fact exist outside of the College Days bubble. It is referred to as Every Other Day and won’t ever fade away.

Survival Tip #7- Anything that happens this weekend, or anyone you meet this weekend that seems to good to be true most likely is. For instance, he has oral herpes, she has a boyfriend that plays football, and everybody was actually laughing at you, not with you. Welcome to NCU!

Add you own Survival Tips in the comments…

Haha got ya! You were all just freaking out for a second, just admit it.

Alright, as sad as I am that Woodward has thrown in the satirical towel, I for one still have a semester (or two) left at NCU and definitely want to keep the Plight alive. As Woodward said, it has been an awesome ride and one of things I will cherish when I look back upon my years at NCU. With that being said, anyone who would like to contribute content for the Plight is more than welcome.(Now more than ever) I am not trying to replace Woodward, but having different perspectives is what has kept us fresh and new and I would like to keep it that way.

So if anyone is interested in writing for the Northern Plight, please send me an email a northernplight@gmail.com. Thanks so much for reading, it’s meant a lot to one inspiring writer and one future NCU Professor. (lol, totally kidding)

The plight was born out of some sly chat between Bernstein and I while reading the Onion in a coffee shop in Minneapolis last summer. Giggling to each other noisily and probably annoying everyone around us, we dreamed innocently of our own “NCU Onion.” It was Bernstein who first put our prattling jokes into actual stories and me who got it all into a blog.

I still have the crumpled piece of yellow legal paper where I wrote my first six headlines, 2 of which made it on the site as “Student Can’t Hack It As A Rock Star, Releases Worship Album” and “2 NCU Students Slain In Spirit, Funerals Monday.” I remember writing them in the confused twilight somewhere over the Atlantic while coming home from a missions trip. I had no idea what that sheet of paper would become.

That was less than a year ago, but the nostalgia and the unexpected success of our blog makes it feel so much further.

Let me apologize for my silence recently. I haven’t posted in over a month and it’s largely due to my own impending graduation. In the past my mind defaulted to thinking of funny ways to say things everyone knew about NCU—but simply didn’t know they knew about NCU. But recently, idle thinking has given rise to more pressing matters like growing up and all that. It’s exciting, certainly, but I still do miss my fervor at the keys in the early hours of the morning, editing and re-editing the scathing details of some poignant article I’d just crafted.

After returning from Spring Break, I felt my satire sense waning. Many of the things that used to annoy me at North Central actually emerged as mostly harmless, and even strangely endearing in their own way. Alumni readers might know what I mean but I don’t think it’s necessary. It’s like living away from home for a few months, than coming back on a visit and finding the creaky stair, the neighbor’s noisy dog, and your mother’s scolding look at your muddy shoes on the carpet, all make you happy—though you recall very clearly they’re once making you upset.

I’m not graduated yet, nor has the abundance of plight fodder ceased to seep from NCU’s policies and characters. But I simply feel like my time with The Northern Plight has come to an end.

I can honestly say there’s nothing I posted on this site that goes against the mission statement we outlined from the beginning:

The Northern Plight exists to create healthy conversation with
the intent of generating positive change at North Central University.

That’s one reason that the plight is easily one of the top five things I’m most proud of from my four years at NCU (two of the other things being feats I accomplished naked or near naked while living in the dorms).

Thank you for reading all this crazy stuff that I wrote. Especially those of you who’ve been reading since the beginning. I hope to be a writer some day, and your support has encouraged me to continue practicing.

I leave you now in the capable hands of my cohort, Schroeder Bernstein. As always, be awesome.

Yours,

Linus Woodward

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WOODWARD’S FAVORITE PLIGHT MOMENTS:
My First Controversial Article
NCU Institution Backlash (Did you know they banned us from advertising on campus?)
My Most Underrated Article
Bernstein’s Most Underrated Article
That Frickin’ Emo Article (It still gets more hits than any other post on the site!)
I Always Liked This One (Not sure why)
1 + 2 + 3 (3 posts I wrote that actually meant something.)

Hello Plight readers. I am going to try and post these every Monday. And King of String and Anon-dyne or whatever, I’ll try to make them awesome for you.

front page:

MAN FINDS JESUS EXACTLY WHERE HE LEFT HIM

local:

FRESHMEN CAUGHT MASTURBATING FORCED TO WEAR “PURITY GLOVES”

sports:

TRUST FALLING CLUB PETITIONS FOR REAL SPORT STATUS

arts & entertainment:

NARNIA MOVIE NOT QUITE AS EPIC ON 12″ LAPTOP SCREEN

business:

RISE IN TUITION COST TO FUND BIG BUCK HUNTER FOR TEACHERS LOUNGE

source:

MINISTRY CREDIT CLASS TIME UTILIZED SOLELY FOR CELL PHONE GAMING

opinion:

“God told me to tell you that Matt isn’t the right guy for you. But that he is the right guy for me.” -Abigale Elijah