To read a freshman’s take on State Patty’s Day, click here.

I may wear a green hat this weekend. I may not.

I may have my first drink before noon (let’s do Jameson on the rocks). I may not.

But you bet your ass I’m going to get drunk. Not because it’s some made-up Irish drinking holiday. Because I’m a college student with a bad case of senioritis and it’s the weekend.

Don’t lie to yourself Dear Old State. People getting blasted in broad daylight isn’t something new to Happy Valley. I mean, honestly, do you think we got Happy in our name for our punctual buses or cost-efficient living?

In the 80’s they had the Phi Psi 500. People were blasted on Coors Original in their short-shorts and fuzzy mullets sprinting down a closed-off Beaver Avenue. Imagine if we did that on Saturday. There would be cops on horses locking kids up left and right in the same prison that Jerry Sandusky calls “mi casa.”

Yeah, you can make the argument that the Phi Si 500 was raising money while State Patty’s Day is only notorious for its property damage, but that’s just because we’re so backwards in our discussion of drinking that it’s only acceptable for people under 21 to drink when they’re at tailgates with alumni or getting plastered in a frat house behind the veil of construction tarps. At THON we dance for 46 hours to raise money for kids. Where else do you dance? Indigo.

It’s all connected to this “Penn State can party harder” image. I’m not suggesting that we should start taping kegs on the floor of the BJC, but what if we could actually use this bullshit drinking holiday for good rather than evil?

My first State Patty’s Day I got drunk. My second State Patty’s Day I got drunk. Can you guess what I did on my third State Patty’s Day? (If you guess “joined the community task force,” stop reading the article now.) I got drunk.

It wasn’t because I really wanted to throw up in the shrubs of the Dorito Church. I did it because it was this cool, rebellious, student-created beer fest that everyone just knew to celebrate. It was a holiday that didn’t have to be on the university’s calendar of events to be observed. We, the students, decided that we’re all going to wake up at 8 a.m. and start slinging back shots of Vladdy and no email from Damon Sims is going to stop us.

You know what else was completely created by the students? The HUB and almost every club and organization that operates out of it (yes, that includes THON). You know what was completely created by the administration? That anti-State Patty’s Day video that the “student leaders” put out to kill our Guinness buzz.

I’m sick of State Patty’s Day because I’m sick of fighting. I did the opposite of what was good for me enough in high school. Now I’m 21 and the university I go to decided to pay bars off to deny me service of a legal substance. If Penn State really wants to go that far out of their way to keep me out of a green “Kiss Me, I’m Shitfaced” shirt, then I won’t visit People’s Nation in between classes today. But no amount of your dirty, stinkin’ money is going to stop me from getting drunk.

Not because it’s State Patty’s Day. Because I’m an adult and I’d like to start to be treated like one.