NEWTOWN, Pa. – As a prominent ’80s metal band so poignantly sang, “I’m sailing away.”

I’ll… NEWTOWN, Pa. – As a prominent ’80s metal band so poignantly sang, “I’m sailing away.”

I’ll be spending the entire spring semester aboard the S.S. Universe Explorer, participating in the Semester At Sea program. For three months, I’ll traverse the oceans on a massive cruise ship, exploring the far reaches of the globe in pursuit of adventure, enlightenment and the world’s stiffest drinks. And I will do it all for college credits – 12 of them, to be exact.

Does anybody else feel like I’m getting away with something illegal? Like academic fraud or extortion?

Of course, my study abroad will not be without its sacrifices. After all, missing a season at Pitt is kind of like missing a whole season of your favorite reality television show. And while I’ll certainly long for the dirty snow and fries from the “O,” I’m mostly going to miss witnessing the high-class drama bound to erupt in the coming months: a beautiful disaster of political scandal, athletics department folly, administrative smooth-talking, couch-burning and general shadiness rivaled in shock-value and entertainment only by the Paris Hilton sex tape.

From the sunny top deck of a cruise ship, coasting gently through the deep blue bosom of the Caribbean Sea, I’ll raise my glass of wine to you, Pitt students, and offer my following predictions for the spring:

The athletics department, realizing that losing to Virginia on national television is unacceptable, will fire head coach Walt Harris. Men’s basketball coach Jamie Dixon, who, like Harris, has proven that experience means nothing, will replace him.

Dixon’s first move will be to find a quarterback to replace departing senior Rod Rutherford. While Tyler Palko seems the logical choice, I’ll put my money on alumni point guard Brandin Knight, whom I’ve seen on the sidelines more than once this season, and who always kind of looked like a quarterback when he threw those alley-oop passes to Julius Page.

Larry Fitzgerald will enter the NFL draft. Chancellor Nordenberg will cry like a baby at his feet and offer him 7 percent of his yearly salary. Coach Dixon won’t fret, though; he’ll replace him with Julius Page, who always looked like a wide receiver, anyway, when he caught those alley-oop passes from Brandin Knight.

The athletics department, in an effort to increase media coverage of the basketball team, will feature “The Oakland Petting Zoo” in the lobby of the Pete before every home game. Along with real animals, it will feature prominent University officials in cages. It won’t smell good. Nor will it boost ratings the way a remotely challenging home schedule might.

Rather than cut another varsity sport due to budget problems, Pitt will can the entire Slavic Languages department, citing a communist conspiracy.

Scientists in Pitt’s animal testing department, in an effort to dispel claims that laboratory primates are unhappy, will undergo the treatments they administer to their test animals. After weeks of electroejaculation and confinement, they will admit that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was right, and that being a laboratory animal sucks. But this will not stop them from continuing their experiments.

Someone will get caught masturbating in Tower C.

Semple Street will declare independence.

Chancellor Nordenberg will get another raise. The Pitt News will freak out and make a big stink over it.

Pitt will announce its continuing commitment to diversity by admitting fewer dumb people and more smart people.

Pitt basketball will finally get its long-awaited No. 1 ranking. Semple Street will burn for weeks. Demolished and economically distressed, it will ask for assistance from neighboring streets. McKee Place will come to its aid, but only if Semple enacts stringent laws preventing its partiers from peeing in McKee’s alleys and back yards.

Penn State will suck, harder and longer than it has ever sucked before.

Jonathan Check, a former senior staff writer, is now the official foreign correspondent of The Pitt News. Look for his periodic dispatches from around the world, and e-mail him at [email protected].