Approximately 357 days, 5 hours and 34.63 minutes ago, the three of us became YDN scene editors. Since then we’ve sent a reporter to China, finagled American Apparel into giving us free clothing and made our headlines as raunchy as possible.

And now the nights of endless arguments over punctuation and suitable iterations of “fuck” are over.

In a way, it’s fitting that our final cover is on mothers in academia, and not just because we all happen to have two X chromosomes. Working on scene has been a little bit like giving birth — every week. (Yes, that’s exactly what you want to be thinking about over your Cheerios).

Much like raising children, worrying about every semi-colon is infuriating, painful and, ultimately (after they move out of the house/are sent to the presses), rewarding.

And we only pissed off a few members of various study-abroad programs in the process.

So, like all good college-age single mothers, we have a supportive family to thank.

First up, our parents — the scene editors of yore: We might remember your names Steve and Zander, but we’ve repressed everything else. Claire, Max and Susan: you nurtured our poor freshman selves, made us feel irredeemably inferior and got us roped into the insanity that is the YDN. And David, Kevin and Steph: What more can we say? You’ve already taken all feasible allusions, alliterative puns and anecdotes for yourselves.

Next, all of our scenester children — the reviewers, columnists and users of the English language we’ve deigned to feature in our pages: You’ve tolerated our spamming and answered our pleas for more sourcing. We apologize for showing up to edit before showering, and/or under the influence of various substances, even if we’ll never remember or acknowledge any such occasions.

And the rest of the Board of 2008 — fellow consumers of greasy Ivy Noodle: You may not understand what haute couture or décolletage mean, but you’ve stuck by us through our crises, both existential and punctuational. We’ll miss you on Thursday nights, maybe.

Finally, our descendants — the future scene editors: Consume more alcohol, play your music louder and use diction you would never get away with in section. It might not snag you a Pulitzer but you’ll probably get a keyboard with arrow keys that work.

We bequeath our beloved scene room to you. scene ’08 is escaping the building and absorbing some Vitamin D from natural sunlight. But we’ll always be around — in suspicious stains on the scene couch. Just remember to always be creative in your syntax, put spaces around your em dashes and use “porn,” “sex” or “Chanel” in your headlines.

— easha, summer and donnell