Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Spartans. If it’s Monday and you can still read this, congratulations!

Considering our status as a well-respected party institution with the main school color of green, it’s as if St. Patrick’s Day was created with us in mind. I look forward to hearing many of my fellow Spartans speaking in cursive by the early afternoon.

There are plenty of reasons to love St. Patrick’s Day. First of all, it has got to be the food coloring market’s Black Friday. That’s good for the economy. Second, if there was ever a holiday designed for college students, this is the one. It’s never more socially acceptable to be drunk on a Monday at 3 p.m. than when you’re 21 years old and still in school.

But you have to watch out, because with the mix of about 50,000 college students, a lot of beer and a good excuse to drink it, mistakes are bound to be made.

Some of the best times I can mostly remember have fallen on March 17, but I’ve also messed up on this day. Like that time on St. Paddy’s in undergrad when I ran out of beer at 8 p.m., or that other time on St. Paddy’s in undergrad when my girlfriend of three years and I broke up.

You win some, you lose some. But from my experience, there are a few ways to help make sure you don’t ruin anything today (such as your relationship).

Wear green (duh)

To the people who attend this school and choose not to wear green today ... what are you doing? Stop being the March version of Scrooge and play along with the rest of us.

That said, the people who pinch others who don’t wear green are the worst. So don’t do that either.

Don’t go to class drunk

Speaking from experience here. I’ll just leave that right there.

If you ignore that last point, do it right. What I’m trying to say is that if you haven’t ever put whiskey in your coffee, today’s a good day to try it out.

Drink lots of water

Being hungover is never a good feeling, but being hungover on a Tuesday morning stings a little bit extra. If you hydrate well throughout the day, you have a much better chance of making it to class tomorrow, so don’t look at it as consuming “water,” look at it as consuming “GPA points.”

I’ve heard that “experts” recommend drinking a glass of water with every drink you consume to stay hydrated. I call that a waste of valuable stomach space, but that’s probably why I’m a journalism major and not a scientist.

Eat lots of starch

Eating starch is another great way to prevent hangovers. Which is why I would’ve hated to live in Ireland during the potato famine. I don’t know how they did it, especially since potatoes go so well with beer. The only potato famine I’ve ever had to worry about was that time I went to Crunchy’s when they ran out of tots. It’s OK, I can make a potato famine joke. My ancestors were Irish.

But seriously, I don’t want to live in a world without potatoes. Lucky for me, we’ve gotten so good at growing them that we now use them to make our vodka.

I wish I were having fun today, but I’m a boring graduate student and it’s a Monday. So my St. Patrick’s Day will consist of going to work and then class until nine at night. Growing up is awful.

So if you can, go out and have fun (blah blah, as long as you’re 21, blah blah) before you’re old and have things like a job or proper priorities.

Just remember what I said about hydrating. Oh, and you probably shouldn’t break up with your girlfriend, either. Bottoms up!

Greg Monahan is a journalism graduate student. Reach him at monaha32@msu.edu.