This is the final issue of the Advance-Titan for this semester, and this final column marks the end of my first year of, assuming it takes me as long to graduate as I think it will, 18 consecutive years of me being the LighterSide editor.

During my first year as a wannabe-humor columnist, I did not write too many things about my personal life. This is because I, of all people, know that my life is painfully boring, and nobody, least of all me, could possibly give a crap about the asinine and pointless events that make up my life.

Hell, I can barely tolerate how boring my life is without wanting to throttle myself. I can’t even imagine what you people would want to do to me if I wrote columns detailing my day-to-day activities.

People wouldn’t brake when they see me crossing the street if the only thing I wrote about were things like the exciting trip to the dentist I had or how wild and crazy my family is and all the great wild and crazy hi-jinks that happen when we all get together for Thanksgiving.

It is because of the tedious state of my life that most of my articles were focused on insulting other people or things, such as student government, the university administration, third-party gubernatorial candidates, Vin Diesel, national holidays, major Hollywood movies, reality shows and the elderly.

Besides my horrifyingly monotonous life, the reason I attack things such as these without having even close to an understanding of them is because I am trying to make up for my obvious deficiencies in other areas. That is obvious, and nobody is here to deny that.

But during this year when I produced poorly written columns, obtuse helpful hints and a pie chart, I feel I have had a lot of personal growth. For example, I think I’ve finally succeeded in killing-off my inner child.

But that’s not the only thing I’ve accomplished. I have grown spiritually so much. And because I feel I should open up more to my readers, and also because there is diddly crap to write about during the last week of school, I have decided to share some of the things I have learned.

The first thing I learned is that you people are bigger idiots than I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always assumed you people are about as sensible as third graders at a school for slow kids. But now I know that you’re all about as sensible as dropouts from a school for slow kids.

For example, if you had asked me 10 months ago if I thought people would call the gripe line and leave messages that, despite the fact that they tried too hard to be funny, would in reality be as funny as a swift kick to the teeth (a kick to my own teeth, not a kick to someone else’s teeth. That would be pretty funny) and then complain that the gripe line isn’t as funny as it usually is, I would have said “no, of course not, nobody could be that stupid.”

However, as is usually the case, I would have been wrong.

The toe-headedness of the students here isn’t the only thing I was informed about during the year. I also discovered that when people don’t understand sarcasm, they get offended and complain about it and end up sounding as stupid as someone complaining about “The Adventures of Huck Finn” because they think it’s racist.

Not that I’m saying the garbage I pull out of my ass is comparable to the garbage Mark Twain pulled out of his ass. Obviously, his garbage was much more fragrant than mine. The point is, however, that you people are still stupid, whether you’re complaining about Mark Twain or me.

I also discovered that people from places more worldly than Oshkosh read my columns. I’ve gotten e-mails from people across the country who have read my columns and feel the need to tell me how much I suck and how they would improve my work. These people aren’t any smarter than the people here in Wisconsin who complain about my columns.

Actually, now that I think about it, the only thing I have learned is that almost everybody who reads my column is a lot dumber than I give them credit for, and it’s not like I thought you people belonged to Mensa. I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing. In fact, I think I’ve actually forgotten more things than I have learned this year.

So here I am, whoring out my talents for a demographic that would think I suck unless I wrote like a Maxim men’s magazine columnist. Apparently I’d be a much better columnist if I wrote about which girl from the hit show Friends is the HOT, HOT, HOTTEST and if I walked with my knuckles dragging on the ground behind me.

You people still make me sick. I’ll see you bastards next year.