Scientists recently determined that the year 2016 will be exactly one second longer than the previous few years. Here’s how these opinion writers would choose to spend their extra second in 2016.

Roselyne Grieve – Opinion Commentator

The moment I found out that 2016 was to have an extra second, I was immediately filled with an odd mix of excitement and terror. On the one hand, there were so many possibilities. On the other — there were so many possibilities. Where did I even begin to decide what I was to do with the bonus time?

Luckily, after several weeks curled up in my basement, surrounded by old pizza crusts and sobbing into a sock monkey hat obtained in a GISHWHES of years past, I was finally struck with the perfect solution. Ever since I was young, I have had secret dreams of learning to play the glockenspiel. As you can imagine, commitments such as work, school and twice daily yodelling contests mean that there is rarely time for a new hobby such as this one. Indeed, it has been pushed to the bottom of my bucket list for over a decade now, always brushed off with a “Perhaps one day I’ll make the time.” Now, however, the time is made for me! The extra second in 2016 should give me ample time to begin my glockenspiel lessons, get in some serious practice, and possibly, if I work hard enough, participate in a couple of basic concerts and begin working on my audition pieces for the Glorchestra™.

I would like to issue a thank you from the bottom of my heart to the scientists who made this extra second possible. Once I am a maestro on the glockenspiel, I intend to compose a piece to properly commend them for their efforts. Until then, we must never forget the motto of the Glorchestra™ — random acts of fandom loves expanded family of awe.

S James Parsons Jr – Opinion Commentator

If only there were more time in a day, even just a second, life would be easier. Thinking about this while procrastinating all the tasks I should have already completed for class, I started doing research on how to make time … In 1967, a super accurate atomic clock was brought to existence to keep track of time and synchronize the world. In making the clock, they determined the official definition of a second to be 9 billion cycles of radiation from an element called cesium. When using this super fine instrument to compare to the earth’s actual time via Earth’s rotations, we find that the moon gradually affects Earth’s rotation therefore affecting the length of a day, so the two are not in sync.

This year, we will be granted an extra second. What is a single second worth? For me, less than a penny, but to an Olympic athlete it may be worth GOLD. So how would I turn my penny to gold? I will invest my efforts in something special, something that helps humanity, and lastly something that fuels my artistic creativity: empowering my team, MilagroKloudLovesVoid, in our quest to conquer GISHWHES, the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. I will invest my one extra second in deciding to create my own coffin out of cardboard rather than waiting for a reply from the seller of an actual coffin on craigslist, leading to an earlier opportunity to bury myself alive in popcorn in promotion of the eccentricities of being human.