Most changes happen gradually. A tree grows with the accumulation of years. The seasons change in time with the imperceptible drift of sunrise and sunset. Big, important changes arrive slowly. Over the course of four years, no one will tell you when you are at the single, defining moment of your college experience — or even if that moment exists.

At WEEKEND, however, we are faced with a change that is impossible to ignore. Three new editors: Yanan, a Canadian cat girl; Elaina, a fierce, high-blessed, girl from Alabama; and Jackson, an over-preppy Californian with a penchant for poetry under the influence. Will things suddenly become more real and less vague? Will the lounge, now home to birds and belugas, prosper with its new inhabitants?

Last year’s editors dedicated themselves to a wholehearted renovation of the WEEKEND brand. They dived into daring reporting, gave no quarter to the machinations of the administration and championed both nudity and student activism. They said they were fading, but the thread was strong.

This year, we sit pledged to the changes that our forbearers made. We believe in their causes, and live with the roughness (wot? oatmeal, porridge, slipped) of their language. But for all their greatness, we cannot be the same as they were, and we don’t intend to be.

So here’s to the future — to pitch meetings in the lounge, to Thursday night dance parties, to a redesigned ticker and to interactive doubletrucks. Here’s to checking our bless and naming our baby bamboo. Here’s to whatever comes next.

WEEKEND, as we see it, is set for another round of changes. We’ve proposed some of them already, having made our champagne-soaked pledge to fight for the good of the lounge. As the year draws on, we’ll build our staff of freshmen and sophomores, find new and unexpected voices around campus and refine our own editorial styles.

Still, the precipice exists — the break that will surely exist before and after our tenures as editors. Maybe it’s just the difference between having our names on the masthead. Maybe editors from years past will return to their home and find other differences: rearranged seats, added decorations, conversations held entirely in Chinese.

But there is one good thing to do when you find yourself balanced on the brink-jump. We can’t stay still forever. We have deadline to make, reporters to email and pages to layout in the future. All this is to say that here at WEEKEND we’re not about to deny the future. It’s coming, not just the drift of seasons and the march toward graduation, but the big moments: our first issue, our first time on the masthead, our first (hopefully not fatal) errors on K4.

The future may seem scary, but up in the lounge, we’re perched and ready.