After I wrote my first piece for The Miscellany News, I got the most wonderful email from the then-Humor Editor, Madi Donat. I had written about a variety of deer encounters that I experienced throughout my first weeks on campus, and she told me that the entire Misc staff loved the piece. I quite literally jumped for joy on the path up to the Deece while reading that email.
I had hit a low-point in my not-yet-one-month-long career as a campus comedian, having faced a slew of audition rejections in the weeks prior, so hearing that anyone had found something I did funny was cause for excitement, let alone The Misc’s many editors. In that email, Madi also asked if I wanted to write a consistent column for the section discussing Vassar nature. I was incredibly grateful for that opportunity. This is how my email back read:
Yes,
Thanks,
Nick
For the following two years, I wrote a nature column weekly titled “The Nature Report.” It was my thing: Birds sing, beavers eat wood, I write the Nature Report. At the same time, I slowly moved up in the paper, eventually to an editing role. Then, when Madi graduated in 2023, I became the sole editor of the Humor section i was the first instance I had truly felt the passage of time in college. I would be replacing the person who had brought me on to the paper. Madi left a big hole as a leader and as a writer. She has over a hundred pieces credited to her (insane) and was a far more insightfully honest humor writer than I’ve ever been.
In my third year, a ton of new writers started contributing to the section and it was a blast managing editing the work of so many passionate first years and longer term writers. For the first time in my college life, I felt like I had an important role on campus. I was The Misc Humor guy. That was my thing. Soon enough though, as Madi had done for me, I offered an Assistant Editor position to Oliver Stewart. Olly had a really witty style that I admired and he was very consistent. I had someone very funny to pitch jokes to now.
I started writing “The Nature Report” less and less during that third year as well, for a variety of reasons. For one, I was a pretty lonely kid for much of the first two years of college. I was doing a ton of solitary observing of campus nature and not hanging out with people consistently. Birds sing, beavers eat wood, I write about nature sometimes. Luckily, I met more people and made more friends and so I just spent less time thinking about nature and wrote about other things. I was just becoming acclimated to Vassar’s fairly lush environment too. I didn’t realize this fact until recently when my brother came up to campus to visit this semester and only wanted to look at the trees all day.
In my fourth year, Olly moved up to co-editor and we offered assistant positions to Emma daRosa and Josie Wenner. Josie has a great sense of dry and often absurd humor and Emma shares a lot of Madi’s honesty, and so it was fitting that she took over Madi’s long-running horoscopes series. Suddenly, for the first time in my time on the paper, the Humor section was a team. Having more Humor section people on The Misc Exec board was important to me. To put it lightly, Humor has always been a different section amongst the rest of the paper, and it was fun introducing others to that contrast. Laying out the Humor section on the same night as the News section (who are often anxiously navigating last-minute changes) was quite a jarring experience this year. On the other side of the room was the Humor section, making each other laugh to the point of tears. It’s what we’re good for.
School was getting harder, and so I wasn’t as deep on managing the section as I was when it was just me, but that was more or less how it should have been in year four. It was the slow passing of responsibility to others. I was one of the longest serving editors on the paper during my time—joining freshman spring is pretty early for most people. I’ve watched The Misc Exec board change hands more than most, with the last being a very good longtime friend, Allen Hale. The paper is finally leaving my hands too. I couldn’t ask for a funnier team to pass it on to.
In college-years, I am quite old now, expired even, but something I’ve learned over and over again in four years here is that Vassar’s strength is its orgs. Sure, the academics are good, the food is… food, but the orgs have been incredible for me. It’s not just The Misc. It’s four years of doing stand-up comedy jokes in front of big crowds, playing jazz shows and watching other great student events on the weekends. Write for the paper, sing acapella, act in a play, see a show. I don’t care how, but make use of your orgs!!!!!!!!!!
I kind of alluded to this earlier, but college wasn’t really fun for me from the start. I think going through college is a lot like seeing a movie in theaters. You might not be enjoying it, but you made the choice to go, you paid a ticket and you’re in a nice venue so you keep watching. And then maybe the third act really brings things together. Then in the parking lot, you say to your somebody, “well, that was actually pretty good.” That was college for me. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but maybe that’ll be college for you.
Goodnight college.
Goodnight comb.
Goodnight paper.
I will Misc you dearly.
Thanks,
Nick