A BEAT MANIFESTO: I'd like to wish all those still in the house a successful senior year.

At the risk of sounding like a ridiculous alumnus, I offer the following thoughts about how life at the Beat could get even better (btw, thanks to everyone: despite any troubles, it was a lot of fun living at the Beat with y'all):

*Study more, pray more, clean more, party more.*

That's pretty much my advice to y'all. You'll get more out of the house and more out of your senior year. The times when I was doing such things with consistency (as opposed to here and there, when my life and the Collegian would let me) were the best. And now, in retrospect, I wish I could do so with even more practiced dedication.

More could be said about how and why these things help, and in what way they should be balanced, but I imagine everyone at the Beat has the wisdom and experience to intuit the proper relation of one cause to another (to borrow from Aristotle). Many people will tell you to make sure you "don't waste your senior year," or "to treasure it, because it goes by so quickly," all of which is true and good. But I'll couch things in a bit more helpful terms (at least they have been for me this summer). Adopt the motto of St. Anthony when it comes to planning, organizing, and living your weeks and months: live as though dying daily.

Live as though dying daily.

If you possess such a mindset, then the studying, the prayer, the cleaning, and, yes, even the partying, will fall into a regulated and inspiring pattern.

Keep me in your prayers. May the Lord, through the prayers of His Mother, protect you, and grant you all things needful for health and salvation.