For the graduating class of 2017, and the aspiring future college students.
Early September is always sunny on the east coast. The leaves are greener than ever, the skies are a light ocean blue, and the clouds are white and fluffy. It is a typical late summer day, and the streets of East Coast University campus is bristling with people. It's move-in day for the university, as evidenced by the jam-packed parking lots full of family vans and parents that are helping their sons and daughters with the luggages. Student volunteers could also be seen walking around helping the newly arrived with directions and carrying their heavy bags.
A coach bus stops near at the entrance gate to Timothy College, one of the seven residential colleges here on campus. Once the bus door opens, a wave of students flushes out onto the sidewalk. Among them, a Californian teen skips off the bus. He is wearing an ocean blue and white T-shirt that has a little pine tree clipart drawn on the front and an unbuttoned red flannel jacket with the sleeves rolled up to elbows, a pair of skinny jeans and dark grey sneakers covering the bottom half, and a lumberjack hat on the top. He has a dark Roots backpack and carrying a light duffle bag, and after pulling out his two large pieces of luggage from the luggage compartment, he starts walking towards the gate.
"Hi! Are you a freshman in Timothy?" A junior year looking student volunteer intercepts him.
"Uh, yes," the young man replies.
"Cool! I'm Jeanne, what's your name?"
"Uh, Mason, but Dipper works too."
"Alright, nice to meet you, Dipper! Which building do you live in?"
"Uh, third floor of Mac-Lamb?"
"McLam? Sweet! The quiet, tea-drinking introvert building. I know the way, follow me!"
Jeanne starts walking towards the college's entrance door, while Dipper struggles to keep up with her pace.
"Need help with the bags?"
"Oh no no no, I'm good."
"Oh by the way, the welcome briefing is gonna start soon so you might wanna head straight to Graeme Hall—that's the big hall here—after you dropped all your stuff. Oh and, lunch is gonna be right after that. It's gonna be an outdoor barbeque in the quad which is that open space in the middle of the building. And then, there's gonna be a complementary campus tour. After that it'll be dinner, and then you'll have free time to roam around for the rest of the night. You'll get a schedule of events that are happening this week today, as well. Sounds good, eh?"
"Wonderful," Dipper replies.
"So where're you from?" The girl asks.
Dipper hesitates a little before saying: "West coast. California."
"Oh, cool! I'm from Canada, born and raised in good ol'Toronto. My mum was from Quebec. Our only Major League Baseball team sucked, but everybody loves them nonetheless. I originally planned to go to U of T, but I figured trying a university over on the state's side shouldn't be too bad of an experience, so I came here. Those SAT tests you guys do here were torturous, let me tell you that, but it paid off! I'm going into my junior year this year, majoring in social science. I transferred from the History Department last year and went head-on into my new-found passion, and frankly I'm pretty enjoying it..."
It's gonna be a long day, Dipper whispers under his breath. As the girl keeps on rambling, Dipper drifts into his own thoughts.
It was a Friday afternoon in mid-December. With Christmas just around the corner, the small Californian city of Piedmont had already gotten into the spirit, with trees full of Christmas lights and shops filled with eager customers trying to figure out what presents to buy for their loved ones. Though it rarely snows in this part of the country, the weather still made people wear heavy clothing to accommodate the occasional cold winter breeze.
On the sidewalk of a small neighbourhood street, a teenage boy and a teenage girl were talking and laughing with each other as they walked down the path. They were none other than the seventeen-year-old Pines twins. People who are familiar with this duo—close friends, family members—called the boy twin Dipper, though his real name was nowhere close to resembling that nickname; the girl twin is known as Mabel, and a lot of people mispronounces it as "Maple", but she never corrected them, probably because she couldn't tell the difference, either.
Dipper has been wearing that brown lumberjack hat ever since that one summer trip he took with his twin sister up to a sleepy town called Gravity Falls, Oregon to stay at their great uncle's place in the woods four years ago. When people ask about that summer, the twins will always look at each other first, say that "fishing with great uncle Stan was fun", and nothing more. Both Dipper and Mabel were wearing sweaters hand-knitted by the girl twin, except that her sweater was purple and has an image of a shooting star leaving a trail of rainbows on it and Dipper's was dark blue with a huge white outlined pine tree symbol. Dipper was wearing a dark Roots backpack, while Mabel was carrying a medium-sized fabric bag full of her arts stuff and other school things she used to spend her time in school with.
And nothing was better than a Friday walk home from school for these two, as they enjoyed each other's company.
"...and then I was like 'Gurl, step up yo game!'" Mabel finished her story with the punch line.
"Hahaha Oh My God you really said that to her!? Hahaha!" Dipper was laughing so hard he could barely walk with his back straight.
"I think you are laughing harder than you should, bro." That being said, Mabel couldn't help but grin at the sight of her brother laughing like an idiot.
"Haha- ouch, oh, I think you just gave me a belly cramp!" Dipper was holding one hand over his abdomen, while the other wiping away the tears.
"Is that so? Do you need Doctor Mabel to check you over?" Mabel said with a mocking deep doctor voice, "belly cramp, eh? I have a cure that had in my thirty years of doctoring never failed to fix a belly cramp. It's called… TICKLE'EM!"
"Wat? NO WAI- HAHAHAHA" Dipper was completely caught off guard with the surprise tickle attack, and his entire body was jerking uncontrollably as Mabel mercilessly tickled Dipper's armpits and chest. The battle lasted two minutes.
"There! How's that?" Mabel finally gave Dipper some breathing time as she stopped her tickling.
"... It actually got better," Dipper finally caught up his breath.
"HAHA! Once again Doctor Mabel has saved the day!" Mabel threw her arms up and made a victory pose.
Just like that, they walked and talked and laughed. It was almost dinner time when they arrived home.
"Hi mum," Dipper and Mabel said in synch with each other as they entered the front door.
"Hey, sweeties! Oh, did you guys check the mail on the way in?" Asked their mum from the kitchen.
"Your turn today," said Mabel, as she continued walking into the room and up the stairs that led to the bedrooms.
Dipper walked back out again. He approached the mailbox and opened up the lid.
A couple of junk mail at the top, as usual. There was this one commercial pamphlet that talked about immigration to Canada, and another one was an advertisement for discounts at In-N-Out. Buried underneath the junks were the actual mail, and one of them seemed to be a small package. Dipper threw the junk mail into the recycling bins and carried the mails into the house.
Heh, my email inbox is probably overflowed by now, Dipper thought, as he remembered that he hadn't checked his emails for the past week.
He put the mail down on the family room floor and sat down. "Okay, let's see. Letter for mum. Letter for dad. Another letter for mum. Another letter for dad…" Dipper went through the letters and categorised them into different stacks for different recipients of the mail.
After sorting through the letters—all seven of them—the small package sat in front of Dipper. "Welp, one more lef- wait, whoa!" On the cover of the package, a dark green-coloured coat of arms was printed on the upper-right corner, and below it read East Coast University Office of Admissions. The recipient name was his name.
He immediately grabbed the package and ran upstairs to his room, which was right next to Mabel's. He unpackaged the whole thing like a five-year-old tearing open the wrapping of Christmas presents, and revealed a stack of documents hidden within it. On the very top was a booklet that read in bolded text:
Congratulations!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Mabel rushed into Dipper's room:"Bro what the coo coo bananas-"
Dipper was holding the booklet and jumping around the room flapping it, "I GOT IN I GOT IN I GOT IN!"
"What? Got in where?" Mabel was confused for a brief moment before realising it could only be one thing. "No way! NO WAY! Lemme see lemme see! HOLY SPARKLING GLITTERS DIPPER! YOUR DREAM SCHOOL!"
"AND EARLY ACCEPTANCE, TOO!" Dipper shouted. He then held his arms up to make a victorious pose and said: "THIS DAY SHALL BE LONG REMEMBERED AS THE DAY DIPPER PINES BEGAN HIS JOURNEY TO THE WONDERFUL LAND OF ACADEMIA!"
"What the heck is going on here?" Their mother popped into the room, attracted by the noise.
"MUM LOOK!" Mabel literally shoved the booklet into their mother's face.
"Hey, hey, man! Wake up!"
"Zzzzz...hehehue hmm?!"
Dipper is abruptly awakened by a push on the shoulder. He immediately sits straight up in his seat and, for a brief moment, does not recognise his surroundings.
"...And like what we have said in our school pamphlets, East Coast University is ranked the second best university in the US, if not the world, second only to West Coast Tech! And that was totally not because we didn't pay University Board Ranking Committee the not-mandatory good-rank-guaranteed application fee like WCT did!"
The loud and excited middle-aged voice through a microphone that stands at the front rows reminds Dipper that he is sitting in Graeme Hall of Timothy College. The hall's design resembles that of a church—with its high ceilings and stained glass windows—and could easily sustain a crowd of 400 people. Dipper is currently sitting at the fourth last row, and the female voice speaking is that of Timothy College's Dean of Students, giving an enthusiastic but rather dry first-day welcoming speech. Timothy might be the smallest of all colleges, but it also has the most notorious reputation amongst other colleges. Let's just say that Timothy didn't get "Slytherin" as it's nickname by accident.
"You almost started snoring, and was like, laughing? In your sleep? Anyway, I had to push you awake."
Dipper looks to his right, and it is another freshman that was talking to him. He has blonde straight hair, and wearing a white t-shirt with the phrase prime statistical anomalies over 37 but not exceeding 51! printed in dark lettering on the front.
"Oh gee, thanks, man," Dipper says as he scratches the back of his head.
"Heh, no worries," the other freshman chuckles. He then extends his hand to Dipper and says: "Name's Jack."
"I'm Mason, but Dipper's fine, too. My family calls me that," Dipper says as accepts the handshake.
The lady at the front is still rambling, and has now moved on to talk about program selection in sophomore year.
"UGH! Still no word from the college!"
Mabel let out a loud sigh of frustration. It was almost noon on an early April Saturday and Mabel—still wearing her pajamas—was sitting on the floor in the family room, just finished sorting through all the mail and letters the house received this morning. She threw herself backwards on the floor as she sighed in disappointment.
Dipper—also in his p-jays—was lying on the couch three feet away from Mabel reading another one of his sci-fi novels. Seeing his sister was being "let down again by the mailman," he sat up and tried to comfort her: "Aww, don't feel bad, Mabel! You still got one more month of time to wait!"
"But I don't want to wait until then! The anxiety would've killed me by the time it was April thirty!" Mabel exclaimed, still lying on the floor. "What am I gonna do? I applied to this one college and one college only that happens to be one of those schools that refuse to use modern ways of communication! If I don't get in I'll end up become a hillbilly!"
Dipper was trying so hard not to laugh. "Well, Backupsmore is always looking for new students..."
"WHAT? THAT SHANTY TOWN? NO! Even their liberal arts degree is just as worthless as Quentin Trembley's minus twelve dollar bill!" Mabel let out another sound of annoyance.
"But Trembley's negative bill is at least an antique that probably worths way more than it appears, and Great Uncle Ford is an alumnus there..."
"BLARG YOU GET MY POINT!" Mabel jumped up to her feet in one swift movement, "oh, this is bad, this is really bad…" Mabel started pacing around the room in circles.
Dipper couldn't hold it back anymore. He burst out laughing so hard that Mabel jumped.
"BRO what's wrong with ya?"
"Well, guess who sneaked out earlier this morning~~" Dipper said with a mocking tone as he took out a letter that he hid inside the novel and dangling it in his hand. Boldened gold characters spell out State College of the Arts on the front cover.
"WHAT DIPPER HOW DARE YOU-"
"It's April Fools, Mabel! Haha, I can't believe you forgot about it- Whoa!"
Mabel threw herself towards the letter, with Dipper barely managed to dodge the attack. Mabel landed beside Dipper face first on the couch, and immediately got up to try to get the letter out of Dipper's hands.
"GIVE THAT TO ME YOU LETTER THIEF!" Mabel leant onto Dipper, both hands extended in a struggle to reach for the letter.
"'Letter thief'? Weak! Is that the best you can do?" Dipper said as he pushed on Mabel's face with one hand while holding the letter away from Mabel with the other.
"LETTER NINJA! SHAMELESS DORK! WORST BROTHER EVER!" Mabel shouted loudly, with a broad grin on her face. The letter was still so far out of her reach. "DON'T MAKE ME USE MY SPECIAL ATTACK!"
"Oh yeah? Try me!"
"ALRIGHT, YOU ASKED FOR IT! Taste the power of… TICKLE'EM!" Mabel's hands immediately retracted and started to tickle Dipper's armpit.
"OUCH NO WAIT HAHAHAHA" Dipper desperately tried to defend himself from the waves of tickling, which to no extent was successful, "NO STOP NO HAHAHAHA OKAY OKAY STOP! I SURRENDER! I SURRENDER!"
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.
.
"'Dear Mabel Pines,' so far so goooood, 'It is with great delight,' so far so veeeeery good…" Mabel was reading her letter as Dipper was still trying to catch up with his breath and recover from the tickling.
"'...with great delight that we are here to inform you that your portfolio and application to the College has been' GASP! ACCEPTEEEEEED! WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
It was Mabel's turn to jump up, down and around the room, waving her letter around in her hand.
"YES! HAHA! I GOT IN! OH I GOT IN I GOT IN I GOT IN I GOT IN I GOT IN!"
After doing three laps around the room, she finally jumped onto the couch Dipper was sitting on and held up her arms in a triumphant pose: "THIS IS THE MOST GLORIOUS DAY! THE MOST GLORIOUS! THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT!"
"Calm down, Mabel! You don't want to leave a mess for mum and dad to see when they get back tomorrow!" Dipper had to grab Mabel by the shoulders to sat her down beside him on the couch.
"Hah! So this is what you must've felt like when you got your letter, huh!" Mabel said as she continued reading her letter.
"Heh, yeah," Dipper chuckled as he remembered how ridiculous he looked like when he got his letter some five months ago.
"But OH MY GOSH! I'm going to State College for the freaking ARTS! I will get to be where Taron Nefeli and Alice Hersch used to study! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Mabel continued to squeal loudly.
"Yeah, yeah, cartoon producers…" Dipper said, teasingly.
"Hey! Their cartoon shows are the best on this Earth! You know that!" Mabel turned and held up her hand like a claw to intimidate Dipper.
"Just kidding! Just kidding! No more, please!" Dipper's entire body jerked as a conditioned response to Mabel's hand motion.
"Plus, you know it yourself how much we enjoyed binge watching those shows at night together," Mabel said, putting down her hands.
"Yeah… during the sleepovers. Fun times," Dipper said in a nostalgic tone, "I'm gonna miss those."
"Oh boy, damn. How times flew." Mabel sighed. The letter was still in her hand, but it was all wrinkled from Mabel's excited movements earlier.
"When was the last time we had one? Few months ago? Christmas?" Dipper squinted his eyes.
"Shoot, I don't even remember," Mabel scratched her head. "When was the last time you slept on my bedroom floor…?"
"Heh, remember how you used to sneak downstairs at night to get more chips because we always eat up everything before the show ends?"
"Oh my gosh yes! Ha! And how you always have to go down to fix the wi-fi routers because the darn thing always randomly disconnects at night?"
"Oh boy, we tried so hard not to wake up mum and dad!"
"Oh! And that time when we watched so much Netflux that we went over the internet usage limit by twenty GBs at the end of that month?"
"Haha! And remember how mad mum was at us because of that?"
"And how dad was just shrugging and like 'meh, we'll just extend our monthly limit by 25 gigs' and mum got mad at dad as well?"
"OH MY GOD HAHA!"
"HAHAHA those were the days!"
The twins laughed for a good five minutes before they were able to get themselves back together.
"Say," Dipper asked, "wanna revive the old tradition tonight?"
"Sure! Your room, though. Mine looks like the murder scene of a unicorn and I'm too lazy to clean it up," Mabel said, "but right now, I need brunch."
"...and on the right side we could see the Robert's Library, one of the biggest university libraries in North America!"
Dipper snaps back into reality from zoning out. He now finds himself with a group of students touring the campus. An enthusiastic sophomore girl is their guide. It's not like he hadn't toured the place before, it's just an optional activity for the afternoon, part of the first-week orientation, but Dipper thought it is better than sitting in his dorm doing nothing.
Dipper notices that Jack is standing beside him. He seems a bit bored by the tour as well, as evidenced by his lazy eye rolls every time the guide attempts to make a joke. He figures that he could try to strike a conversation with him just to stay awake, even though starting a conversation really isn't his thing.
"Hey, Jack! So, uh, what made you choose to come to East Coast?" Dipper asks.
"Oh me? My family lives like half an hour away from here. It's close to home, and just a nice school in general, plus it has that 'Oxbridge' vibe, ya know?" Jack chuckles. "What about you?"
"I was going to apply to West Coast Tech, but then I realised that school sort of bribed its way up to the number one spot on the ranking board and wasn't as legendary as many has praised, whilst East Coast has a pretty solid Faculty and good foundation courses for undergraduate education, so yeah, I came here," Dipper replies.
"Haha, nice! Putting a lot of thought into that one, eh?" Jack says, jokingly.
"Heh, yup," Dipper chuckles. "So, you play DDMD?" Dipper looks at Jack's T-shirt, and asks.
"Yeah dude! You recognised this, eh?" Jack says as he points to the words on his shirt.
"Gotta know his weakness to defeat good old Probabilitor!" That being said, Mabel's wild imagination was probably the better way to defeat him.
"Aye! Yo, I have a couple of my own buddies that are here in the school with me and we were planning on doing a D, D & More D night tonight. You wanna come?"
"Really? Su- sure- Yeah! Totally! Of- of course!" Dipper stutters with excitement.
"Awesome! Okay, here's my room…"
The tour continues as the group move towards a gigantic Hogwarts-esque meal hall.
"You got your toothbrush?"
"Yes…"
"...Shampoo bottle?"
"Yeah…"
"...Lunch money?"
"Yes! Mum, I know what I packed, and I double-triple checked everything this morning with Mabel!" Dipper grumbled from the backseat of their family van.
It was the evening of Dipper's departure. The bright orange glows from the street lights on Highway 101 and the dark blue colour of the sunset skies made the scenery all the more nostalgic for one to remember. The Pines family's light brown SUV was speeding down in the southern direction of the 101, as the family share some last minute laughter before they arrive at the airport.
"Just tryna help! I'm your mum, you know," Mum said semi-teasingly, with her eyes still on the road and hands still on the wheel.
Mabel giggled loudly at the exchange between her brother—who's sitting next to her—and their mother: "And that's another thing I'll miss hearing to every day."
"Hey, don't worry!" Their dad said, sitting in shotgun with his head turned to the twins, "you won't have to deal with your mum anymore once you get to East Coast!"
"DILLON! DON'T SAY that!" Their mother screeched, and teasingly slapped the father's shoulder with her right hand before immediately refocused her attention on the road. "I can still call your dorm phone every night. Getting three thousand miles away won't stop a mother!"
"Hehe, of course it won't, mum!" Dipper let out a wholehearted laugh.
As their conversations continued, the family van arrived at the San Francisco International Airport, and pulled up to the side of the Departure entrance. The trunk lid flipped open.
.
.
.
"...and that's all the bags!" Dad said as he put down the luggage and closing the trunk lid.
The family all gathered around Dipper, as they each gave him their personal farewells.
"Stay safe, eh? Don't get into trouble or I'll fly over there and kick your butt personally, got it?" Dad gave Dipper a hug, and a light punch on his right shoulder.
"Have fun, and stay connected with us, alright? Don't go hide in the library and play dead on us, you hear?" Mum said, jokingly, while wiping away the light tears in her eyes.
"Don't worry mum, I'll let you guys know I'm alive every once in awhile," Dipper joked back, as he hugged his mum.
Dipper let go of his mum, and turned to Mabel. She had her arms crossed, and a smirky face coupled with a funny stare. Dipper paused.
"Well, I guess the time has come, eh?" Mabel chuckled.
"Heh, the time sure has come," Dipper followed Mabel's chuckling.
"Wanna make the hug awkward?" Mabel said, opening up her arms.
"Oh you betcha! Come here- oof!" Dipper got cut off by Mabel as she leapt forward and gave Dipper a bear hug. Dipper returned the embrace firmly.
"Things change, summer ends, eh?" Mabel whispered. Dipper let out a small laugh and didn't say anything in response, but Mabel knew he understood her. They held their embrace for a little more.
"Wanna pat now?"
"Alright, let's do it."
"Pat, pat."
"You rolled an 8, it's too low even with the +5 modifier. You charged at the wizard, but he cleverly dodged out of the way and you ran straight into the wall behind him!"
"Ouch!"
"Oy!"
"That's gotta hurt."
"Aw, god dang it! You got lucky this time, Harry the Wizard! But I will sure not miss my hits next time around!"
Inside a small but spacious dorm room, five people are sitting on the floor amongst the stacks of graphing papers and 2B pencils. Dipper, Jack and his three buddies Chris, Alex and Kevin are currently going for a Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons' level 8 campaign in Jack's room. Jack is the Dungeon Master of the game, and while Dipper is the Wizard of the team, Chris, Alex and Kevin are the Fighter, Ranger and Cleric, respectively. That's Chris who just left his face print on the dungeon walls.
"Your move, Marlamin. You chose to fire a 'Hellfire Spell' to fight the wizard, so go ahead and roll your damage check," Jack says as he throws two d4s at Dipper.
"Alright, don't mind if I do then," Dipper says as he rolls the pair of dice. "Ignis pluviae de caelo!" Dipper chants as the dice lands on the floor.
"Wow, a three and a four! Add that with your intelligence modifier and you not only bullseyed your shot but you also completely obliterated the poor wizard!"
"YAS!"
"Boom!"
"Target eliminated."
"Nice shot! I wanna be a wizard now. Permission to change my role, DM?"
"Not in my dungeon, Chris," Jack responds with a slight annoyance, "unless you wanna restart the whole game and make all those three hours of gameplay go to waste."
"Wait, three hours? What time is it right now?" Dipper asks.
"Ten till eleven," Chris replies.
"Shit, I'm gonna be late," Dipper starts to stand up from his spot on the floor.
"Late for what?"
"Oh it's some personal business. Sorry about this, guys, but that will be the night for me. Thanks for having me!" Dipper walks towards the door and waves at the gang.
"Aw, what a shame! I guess I have to save the best part of the campaign for later, then. See ya, Mason!" Jack waves back at Dipper.
"Bye, Dipper!"
"Later!"
"Player 4 has left the game."
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Dipper closes the door behind him, and hangs his jacket on the back of it. The room Dipper was assigned to is a single-bed dorm, located in a building specifically for those who preferred quiet evenings and stylistic tea parties. The room is still a mess since he had barely done any unpacking today. The only few things that he did take out of his backpack are his laptop and the charger for it, which he had already set up and ready to use. The room is a bit big for a single room, but that's the opposite of a problem. He's just glad that he got what he requested when he applied for residence—a room all to himself.
Dipper proceeds to do some further unpacking while still keeping an eye on the clock. It's almost eleven, now. After some cleaning up, Dipper sits down in front of his laptop and opens the Skipe app which his sister forced him to install some days ago. He pulls up the contact list and clicks on the name at the top of his very short list of people.
The ringing tone rang once before immediately being answered on the other end. A laggy video stream is also established, and Mabel's grinny face fills up Dipper's entire screen, which almost gives him a heart attack.
"OH JESus!" Dipper jumps from his seats.
"Hey bro!" His sister's chirpy familiar voice speaks through the stereo.
"Don't ever put your face that close to the camera again, I almost died!" Says Dipper, while laughing uncontrollably.
"Not even a 'Hello'? Is that how you greet your twin sister?" Mabel replies with a slight touch of sarcasm in her tone.
"Alright, alright," Dipper then clears his throat, and said: "Good evening, Miss Mabel Pines, how's college so far?"
"It's SO MUCH FUN! There are SO MANY artsy people here just like me! And they are all such wonderful people and have such interesting personalities I could basically make a friend out of everybody there and whooo my roommate is such a cinnamon roll she showed me her sketchbook today and BOY was it AMAZIIIINNNNG! The cafeteria also has the BEST FOOD in the state I ate soooooo much it even has unlimited supply of glitter this place is like HEAVEN!"
Mabel rambles with so much enthusiasm and talks at such high speed her tongue almost made a knot. Dipper, however, has no problem catching every single word she spews out.
"So what about you?" Mabel asks.
"It's a 'serious' university, what do you expect?" Says Dipper, humorously, "in the morning we moved in, the dean of students or the registrar lady or whatever almost bored all of us to death with her speech, and the campus tour in the afternoon was pretty 'meh'. The only actually fun part today was me playing Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons with a couple of new friends I made. At least I think they consider me as friends…"
"See? I told you this place is full of dorks like you."
"We prefer the term 'nerd' better."
"Yeah, yeah, whateverz."
The video stream is getting so laggy to the point where the motion of Mabel is blurred like a still frame in a cartoon for a brief moment. It then returns back to normal.
"Oh geez, this video is lagging so hard," Dipper says.
"Really? It's definitely your end, my dorm's wi-fi is pretty amazing."
"Yeah, it was my end. Goddamnit, you would think that with a tuition fee of almost sixty-five grand a year per student they would actually have good dorm wi-fis, but 'JoKEs! We aRe TaKInG tHoSe MoNEy to FUNd a cOUrsE oN UNderWAter bASket WEAviNG aNd ChaRGe yOU EVEN MORE TO USE THE SCHOOL PRINTER!'" Dipper raises his voice a little during the sarcastic rant.
"Capitalism at its finest," Mabel says, jokingly.
"It has its moments," Dipper says with a neutral tone.
"Your classes starts next week, too, right?" Asks Mabel.
"Yup. This week is just chilling and partying—the calm before the storm," Dipper replies.
"Nah, you'll do fine, I'd be dead before I memorise those physics formulas."
"And I'll be dead before I even begin to draw every part of the human skeleton from memory!"
"How's drawing the skeleton from memory hard? You just get a feel of the shapes of the bones and attach a name to it and make a jingle out of it to help you remember!"
"You know what? Never mind."
Almost an hour has passed as the twins tirelessly exchange sarcastic insults and their first-day-of-school experiences before the fatigue starts to get to them. For Dipper, the drowsiness is caused by having to get off the plane, switch to a bus and finish the moving-in process all on a Monday morning and just a tiring day in general; for Mabel, travelling from home to her school only took an hour of flight and wasn't really effective as a means to tire her—it is from over-consumption of caffeinated drinks in the morning and having too much fun in the evening.
"Oh, man, it's already 12 here on the east coast," Dipper says after a yawn.
"Damn, do you have to wake up early tomorrow?" Mabel asks, before she catches Dipper's contagious yawning and also gaping her mouth.
"Nah, the college is planning something in the afternoon, so I have the morning off. I'll probably just go out and tour the town, practice my photography techniques."
"Yo, send me some of those photos, I might need it in the future for my art assignments. I'm serious."
"Haha, will do!" Dipper replies cheerily.
"Hey, Dipper, before we call it a night, can I ask you something?"
"Fire away."
"Can we do a Skipe chat at least once every few days? Or maybe once every week if we get too busy with school?"
"Of course! Sure!"
"Thanks, bro! Sleep tight, eh?"
"Yeah, you too, Mabel!"
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Dipper closes his laptop, and stands up from his seat. He stretches a little to loosen up those tensed muscles he got from sitting in the same position for over an hour. As he stretches, he walks towards the window and looks out of it. From here, the gate of the college and the small road that goes in front of it is just beneath the window. Looking directly across on the other side of the road is the Faculty of Arts & Science building, a major landmark of the university. In front of that, a huge grassland sits between Timothy and the aforementioned building.
Every May, the Faculty's graduating class of the year would hold their commencement ceremony on that grassland. Famous alumni would be invited, celebrities—because the university promised money—would occasionally make an appearance to say a few words, excited and emotional parents would look on with pride, and of course, the graduating Bachelors would proudly launch their caps to the sky when the Valedictorian finishes their speech. It is a moment many lived for, though not everyone craved it. It may be a symbol of achievement for most, but only the graduates themselves knew how much that piece of paper they got from the school truly weighs in their hands.
Dipper gazes at the grassland for a while, and then he closes the blind. He changes into his more comfy pajamas, turns off the lights, and climbs into his bed. He lets out a satisfied sigh.
"Goodnight, Mabel."
Author's Afterword
Holy shit, that was the longest story I have ever written. Even my longest finals paper was only around 4000 words. Welp, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
I originally conceived the idea for this story more than a year ago back in May of 2016 not long after I received my university acceptance letter. I was jumping around my room basically in the same manner Dipper was in this story when I found out that I got in. I quickly created a google docs file and wrote down some quick ideas and kinda set it aside for some weeks before I got serious about it and started to expand the concept.
Ever since then, I've been adding more and more details to the story. Though I had to put this one on slow cook mode because of university, and had to delay the publishing deadline I set for myself at least three times, it was worth it in the end. The original draft wasn't as light-hearted and long—it was full of cringe-worthy angst. I'm just glad I got rid of them before I moved on and found a way to avoid being too sentimental. I have made many obvious references to the original Gravity Falls episodes (e.g. Quentin Trembley, Backupsmore, etc.), but I also have made some subtle references to other GF fanfics that I have read, even fanarts that I encountered.
Many things and events described here in the story were based on my own experiences as a freshman. I didn't simply create "East Coast University" as my parodical version of West Coast Tech, it was also modelled after the university I attended: almost all of the names you have encountered here (other than the ones borrowed from/inspired by the show) were inspired by some real life examples—some names I changed the spellings, others I replaced it with a lookalike name; Slytherin was also the reputation my residence college has among other colleges in my university.
If you are reading this and you are a high school senior graduating this year and going off to university/college, thank you for reading and best of luck to you! It's gonna be one hell of an experience. Many people went through college only to find themselves stuck studying something they dislike and hate with a passion, while for some university was a breeze because they already got it all figured out. If you think you are in the later category, then kudos to you and never give up chasing your dreams! I was one of those "I thought I was good at something but turns out I suck at it and now I hate my major" people, and my freshman year was really frustrating because of that. It was a good thing, however. It was a good reality check for me (even though it costed me like 20 grand), and now I am on my way to pursue a career that I really care about. It is okay to feel defeated sometimes, as long as you learn from your mistakes and never stop. That will be my advice.
Once again, thank you to all of you for tagging along, and I will see you again... some sunny day~~
P.S. Writing in present tense hurts my brain. I had to prove read this thing a couple billion times just to make sure I didn't accidentally slip back into writing in past tense in places that I shouldn't. UGH
P.P.S. Just for the record, I do not claim to own Gravity Falls or any of its original contents. Disney owns the show, Alex Hirsch is a God, and Bill Cypher is my boss. s̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶