Hello, Orient readers! I am Katherine, your newly minted advice columnist. Advice questions have been fielded via an anonymous online submission form. Welcome to my first column.
Dear Katherine,
How do I become a successful advice columnist?
Sincerely,
Meta in Mac House
Dear Meta in Mac House,
There are a few simple steps to becoming a successful advice columnist, which I will now share with you:
Prerequisites: You should possess strong, mostly unfounded opinions on things. You should have already made enough medium-sized life mistakes that you harbor a mild sense of regret. This will make you seem perhaps wise, or perhaps like a very bitter batty aunt. At least one of these mistakes should have been published in the Orient two years ago. It should be a column entitled, “Boys bedding blunder.” In your defense, you did not choose the title.
Step one: Wake up one Friday morning abroad. Feel the mattress springs digging into your ribs. Look around at the squalor that is your room. Think, “I want to be an advice columnist.”
Step two: Twiddle your thumbs for six plus months. Harass the editors of the Orient via Facebook message. Tell them “I want to be an advice columnist.” Tend to your blog, which, like the television show “The Big Bang Theory,” should have ended several seasons ago.
Step three: Tell enough friends that you are going to be an advice columnist that you can’t back out now. Worry about the internet commenters. Wonder who is Old Bear? Think that perhaps you should just revive your blog. Remember what happened when "Arrested Development" released that revival season on Netflix. You really can’t back out now, sucker.
Step four: Wonder if this column is going to crash and burn like season two of "True Detective." Ask yourself why you compare everything to the arcs of TV shows. Ponder how you are going to field advice questions. Blatantly copy the anonymous online survey method of Bowdoin Missed Encounters. Scroll through the newly posted Missed Encounters. No, none of them are about you.
Step five: Wait for the questions to roll into your Google form. The first question is not a question. The first question says, “I feel like you should use yik yak to find advice.” Find this “question” rude. This is not a question. This is advice. I’m the one giving advice here! Wallow in your subverted authority.
Step six: Wade through the joke questions from your friends. Laugh a lot. Meditate on whether you can put some of the funnier ones in the Orient. Receive the question, “what is an example of a lemon.” Receive the question, “I'm a guy. I sleep on a bare mattress, use dirty laundry as a pillow, and leave my window open all year. No one wants to sleepover with me! What can I do to change??” Laugh, then feel chills. Your Orient article from two years ago haunts you still.
Step seven: Receive the question, “How do I become a successful advice columnist?” Feel like Leonardo Da Vinci must have felt upon first seeing the model for the Mona Lisa. Feel the angels descending from the heavens. Return to watching a "Tiny House" on TLC.
Step eight: Write the column days later as you procrastinate the Biochem reading for your INS requirement. Fear the internet commenters. Submit your article to your editor. To celebrate, eat three individually packaged servings of microwave mac-and-cheese.
Congratulations! You are now an advice columnist.
Until next time,
Katherine