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What’s the Point of Thursdays? One students opinion

(Photo courtesy of typecalendar.com) Thursday originates from Thor’s-day, named in honor of Thor, the god of thunder.

Jeff Therriault
Connector Editor

We all seem to be able to grant solid identities to the days of the week: For many people, Mondays are like a smack in the face or a day of grumpiness. Friday is usually the exact opposite, being, to most, a cheery day of freedom and possibilities.

Most people can similarly define Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, but what about Thursdays? What are Thursdays? They do not seem to have any identity whatsoever. One might claim that Thursday feels like nothing. However, more often I hear the notion that Tuesday is the day of the week that truly feels like nothing. I agree with this, but I would argue that Tuesdays, unlike Thursdays, derive an identity from this lack of meaning.

Thursday is enough of something to not be nothing, but it is so little of anything that it is quite nearly nothing. It seems impossible to have an identity. So I ask again, what is Thursday?

Thursday as I see it is whatever it needs to be. It can fill more roles and play more parts than any other day of the week.

In its unique position of near nothingness, it is the perfect blank slate to be filled in with anything. In high school, I had a teacher who claimed Thursday was his favorite day of the week because Thursday felt like the day before Christmas every week. This was a shock when I first heard it, but now that I’ve been able to process the position of Thursdays more truly, I realize that this is perfectly valid and reasonable.

Many people are dissatisfied with Thursdays. Often the given reason I hear for this is because Thursday is almost Friday, but you have to wait a whole day for it to be Friday. On the other side of the coin, many people quite enjoy Thursdays. Frequently, the given reason is that Thursday arrives when Wednesday ends, imbuing Thursdays with a sense of relief knowing that the week is on its denouement.

As I see it, Thursday is the only day of the week that can hold such disparate identities regularly. Of course, holidays and changing work and school schedules create conflicts in the identities of other weekdays (if I have work on Saturday then Saturday no longer occupies its role), but these conflicts in identity are always temporary and circumstantial.

The only other weekday that can challenge Thursday in its blank-check role is Tuesday, seeing as the two days are so similar in their non-substance. However, there is a prevailing spirit of hollowness on Tuesdays that keeps it from ever filling Thursday’s shoes. A Tuesday can sometimes be whatever you need it to be, just as all weekdays can; but Tuesday will always be a little too insignificant and emotionless to permanently hold that spot in a person’s life.

Maybe in the future there will be a cultural revolution that raises Thursdays on a pedestal, but for now, we must be content with Thursday being the least impactful day of the week. Don’t let Thursday pass you by, though– in its deficiency, it becomes the perfect day to start yourself down a new path.

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