So, in light of the new Twilight movie, which I know we are all just dying, just bursting at the seams to go see, I thought I’d make a little proposal to the folks at the New Student Reading Project: Why not put a classy piece of literature like Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series as your freshman reading project book?

You see, I got stuck reading Lincoln at Gettysburg, which if you haven’t read it, can be summarized as a 200-page crap sandwich.

And, besides, we’ve got to teach our kids some morals that are not so outdated. So what better choice of all the modern literature out there than Stephanie Meyers? She has been quoted by an Amazon.com blogger as better than William Shakespeare because, as fate would have it, “If you take Stephanie Meyer’s initials (S.M.) and write them on a piece of paper, and then rotate the paper 180 degrees — either clockwise or counterclockwise! — the paper now reads ‘WS,’ which are the initials of the next best author of all time ......... !!!!!111!” [punctuation added].

If you think this high-tech ambigram business alone doesn’t qualify Ms. Meyer for freshman reading fame, well, then, look no further than the moral content of her exquisitely mastered series.

That’s right. You heard me. I’m talking morals and Twilight in the same sentence. It’s fairly obvious that the book series contains at least two. So I’m going to try to shoot for that number.

Moral one, book one: The novel features Bella, the quintessential awkward new girl who is prone to injury and averse to any form of conversation other than sullen quips about how it rains all the time and life is so hard and there is nobody in Forks who understands her inner turmoil, blah, blah, blah. Sounds strangely like every freshman’s first couple months at Cornell, no? My point exactly.

What can this sympathetic character teach our new freshies? Well, everyone at Forks Community High (or whatever that school is called) instantly loves Bella, even though she is obviously an uncoordinated twat with little to provide for in any conversation, and even less to provide in the looks department. (OK, so I’m citing the movie actress as a character reference here.)

So if it can happen in Forks, it can happen in Ithaca! Don’t do your makeup! Sulk! Trip on occasion, or better yet, try to get hit by cars! It’ll be OK, because eventually there will be shiny, scruffy, superhumanly strong men to rescue your insignificantly worthless self from any potentially life-threatening situations. (Besides the whole being with the shiny scruffy superhumanly strong — oh, and did I mention — lethal man in the first place. But more on that later.)

Moral two, book two: Once you’ve nabbed your glittery, glittery boy toy, you will need to place all of your self-worth on keeping the relationship alive. And if he leaves you, your life will be nothing. Repeat: nothing. You will need to ride fast motorcycles and throw yourself off cliffs in order to feel anything at all.

Parallels to Cornell? Well, we have cliffs, gorges and bridges. This place would be every suicidal Bella’s dream. And, though you’d be hard pressed to find a motorcycle on campus in the middle of winter, I guarantee the three inches of ice you would find on the roads come mid-February would certainly provide that adrenaline rush (in the form of a broken spinal column) you so desperately need.

Also, the process of adrenaline junking for your long-lost love is relatively attainable in this beautiful town of ours, but chances are that your proximity to near- death experience will lose you all of your newfound friends. This should not surprise you, however. After all, we’ve established you have no personality. So in reality, you never really should have had any friends in the first place.

There, you see? Finding those morals wasn’t that far of a stretch.

But it is not only the principle of the novels that make them classics of American fiction. It is also the epic writing style, which in its sadder moments can pique even the hardest soul to the point of tears.

Take, for example, this classic line from book one: “When I came here as a child, he would always remove the bullets as soon as he walked in the door. I guess he considered me old enough now not to shoot myself by accident, and not depressed enough to shoot myself on purpose.”

That’s enough to perk up any sun-sick freshman during the long, cold days of winter.

Then there’s the classic from Book Four: “I’m not laughing at you, Bella. I’m laughing because I am in shock. And I am in shock because I am completely amazed.”

The depth, the meaning behind these lines, makes me misty every time I read them. How Meyer manipulates shock and amazement — two words that are seemingly synonymous — to mean so much more is truly a feat of genius.

(Dear god, I make myself sick.)

Clearly, Cornell needs to step up its game when it comes to the freshman reading project. I dare its organizers to assign these books, in all seriousness. It’ll probably be the most reading any freshman will have done in his or her entire academic life, let alone in one summer. At least that much would prepare them for college …

Cristina Stiller is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She may be reached at cstiller@cornellsun.com. Believe You Me appears alternate Mondays this semester.