Do I really appreciate this pin? Does this piece of metal really fill my heart with joy and happiness? I am rather experienced in answering such very philosophical questions. When I was just a little boy, I asked my parents to buy me the things that I wanted. Especially when I menaced through toy shops, I let go of most of my politeness and challenged their altruism while waving with shiny toys.

Their wallet didn’t turn out to be Mother Theresa. My mom countered my outcries for gifts by asking me: “Would us buying these toys really make you happy?” When I responded to her by nodding uncontrollably, my mom replied: “Alright then, but only if you wake up tomorrow morning thinking ‘I am really happy that I received these gifts’. Could you promise me that?”

I usually thought that making such a promise was weird, but if I just replied: “Yeah, sure”, my dad wouldn’t buy me the toys.

Contrary to my own expectations, I did, however, experience such a ‘postponed sense of joy’ on the Saturday following the TU/e beer cantus in 2012: “That was really awesome!”.

Now that the upcoming introduction week has removed the cantus from its programme, I feel like a child that did not nod happily enough to his mum. Last year’s organisers, the central introduction committee (CIC 2014), presented us an alcohol-free cantus, but were met with criticism and cold shoulders, partially due to the freezing outside temperatures of 15 degrees Centigrade. Apparently, this year’s CIC therefore concluded that we wouldn’t be interested in a cantus at all and no longer gives us a cantus toy to play with. This was, however. never the intention of the skeptical students, including myself.

So obviously, I accepted the TU/e pin with a big smile: “I'll cherish it every day”.