Essays: May 2007 Archives

A short history of my relationship with college:

1. Enroll at KU as a bright-eyed, hopeful and relatively naïve freshman.
2. Drop out of KU as a hopeless, still really naïve sophomore.
3. Mow lawns for a living, lose some serious weight.
4. Be a homeless wanderer for a summer.
5. Deliver pizzas, gain 20 pounds. Dammit.
6. Go to JCCC, because it's the poor man's way to get KU credits out of the way.
7. Rediscover love of writing through The Campus Ledger.
8. Move to Costa Rica.
9. Fall in love.
10. Make attempt at longest engagement in history before actually getting married.
11. Come back to KU, prodigal son style.
12. Turn 30, then graduate from KU as a hopeful cynical curmudgeon.

That last step might be a little preliminary; I have one summer class to go before earning my degree. But it's just one class, so what can go wrong? If this were a movie, we'd now do the groovy flash forward into the future and see just how prophetic my statement was. I imagine something like an angry group of peasants with pitchforks and firebrands storming Stauffer-Flint while I stand in its tower, hurling obscenities down on them, challenging them to end my unholy reign.

I have an overactive imagination.

I make a lot of jokes about how long it has taken me to get this far. I'm really quite satisfied with my path though. The above time line isn't arbitrary. Something wonderful has happened at each of the odd stops along my winding road to the here and now. Even pizza delivery had a particularly important role to play in my development. That's a story for another day though.

For now, thank you fellow students, readers, professors and multimedia newsroom coordinators. You folk need a catchier title.

For some of you, this is a goodbye. For the rest, this ride's not quite done yet. Please keep your hands and feet in the car until it comes to a complete stop.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is bright. As I type this I only have eight school days left in my college career. Eight days, the off to the real world.

I use the term real world lightly because even though I have already secured a job at a newspaper after graduation, I will be moving into my parent's house for the summer until I save enough for a place of my own. So at the same time I have proved to myself I can succeeded in the real world, I will be living in the same I did before I left for college.

The irony is not lost on me but it something I do not put much stock in, for I am a different person than the boy who left that room four short years ago. I will be a college graduate. I will have a professional job. I will be an adult.

Now would be the natural point where I reflect on my college career and reminisce what I would have done differently had I the opportunity to time travel. Succinctly put, my answer is simple, nothing. I would not change one thing, because at this moment I am content with my position in life and if I changed something in the past there would be no guarantee I would be the same person.

I am not one for regret, instead believing everything I did in the past I enjoyed at the moment so why feel bad about it. I might have drunk too much, not studied enough, and chosen bad roommates; but, at this point it does not matter. I will walk down the Hill in eight days and the bad memories will fade away only to be replaced by the good ones.

It's been quite the ride this semester, fair reader. We enjoyed some laughs, shared a little snark (which is actually less sloppy than it sounds), and sharpened our blogging chops along the way. Good times.

Can someone PLEASE cue that "One Shining Moment" song? Even though I generally don't like things that remind me of Billy Packer, I feel that could offer a suitable, slightly syrupy soundtrack for the occasion: flash images of Coach Musser standing over our shoulder with a wry, knowing smile as we hammer out blog entries...there's some serious montage potential here.

For the past week, I've been carefully assembling various "Top Five" and "Top 10" lists of books, music, movies and YouTube videos that I would recommend to others for my farewell post, but I'm not really feelin' it right now.

I have no grand pronouncements on how anyone else should live their life. Like Jimi Hendrix reminds us, "I'm the one that's gonna die when its time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to."

Most recommendations I have are interesting but irrelevant, so why bother?

I guess the one suggestion I'd have is this: everyone in this class seems to have some talent. Don't sell yourself short by becoming a dictation machine for corporate interests: at the end of the day, "did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"

Life is a lot simpler, a lot more meaningful and a lot more fun if you can look squarely in the mirror and genuinely enjoy your job. Work for yourself, not someone else. The greatest trick in life is finding a way to get paid to do something you'd normally do for free.

So what will I be doing with my time after I'm outta here? Doing something for free that most people would get paid for: an internship at a sweatshop in New York. (See, I'm already ignoring my own advice). I'll be there from September through December, before heading back here to finish things up next May. After that, I'll probably be picking up tin cans in the park and hosting improvised sermons on street corners for loose change.

There's an Irish proverb that seems fitting here: "There's no need to fear the wind if your haystacks are tied down." These kids are all right. It'll be interesting to watch the upcoming years unfold. Perhaps most importantly, as you travel along the vicious Autobahn of life, bear in mind that there is not a shred of evidence that exists for the proposition that life is meant to be taken seriously. Relax and have fun, or else we've already lost. "So it goes."

I've quoted more people in this final post than an angst-ridden high school senior at graduation, so I'll close with my own bit of advice: Treat every person like they'll be writing your obituary – the view is much better when you take the high road.

...and with that, I'm outta here like a fat girl in dodgeball.

Cheers.

Last week, two girl friends and I went to The Hawk for a couple of drinks. Yes, it's a freshman bar- anyone with a revealing shirt and an ID can get in. But its one of our favorites. While we all squeezed into a single bathroom- you know girls can't go alone, we heard the girls waiting outside complain, "Jeeze what is taking so long. They are like 25."

Now, I'm not exactly sure if being 25 has anything to do with being slow in the bathroom but the fact they thought we were graduated shocked us (we still had a few days left before graduation and are only 22!). And suddenly, we felt old.

Today, I think about it. I am the oldest of 18 cousins, which means I'm the first to graduate from college. Besides my graduation, this summer two kids turn 21, one turns 16, one graduates from high school and two graduate from eighth grade.

I remember hitting all these milestones in my life: receiving an eighth grade diploma, getting a drivers license at 16, receiving a high school diploma and getting drunk at 21. Now, I am back to getting a diploma and I wonder what comes next.

My cousins don't know because they look at me for answers. I look at my parents and it seems to go: work, marriage, mortgage, kids, debt.

So, I conclude, receiving a diploma and graduating is a gateway to the next phase of your life. This graduation has me looking towards more realistic goals, like finding a
job and a place to live instead of getting a car and taking 21 shots. But that comes from maturity.

By the way, last week, before leaving the bathroom to dance in the "boom boom" room, my friends and I stole the loudmouth's fake ID, while she threw up in the bathroom.

Will Ferrell is making all sorts of headlines. He recently topped the list in a Peeps marshmallow candies' survey that asked, "If Peeps came to life, what male public person or celebrity might it become." Ha!

He's also making news with his transitions from the small screen to the big screen and, most recently, to the computer screen. Ferrell and pal, writer/director Adam McKay, published their first short-film on FunnyorDie.com, a Web site they created for publishing their short-form ideas and showcasing lesser-known filmmakers.

The first video they produced, "The Landlord," stars Ferrell and a dirty-mouthed 2-year-old, playing an angry landlord. The kid is McKay's daughter- he is also featured in the short. The unprofessional but hilarious video took 45 minutes to make and has a running time of two minutes. In the last month, it has received almost 20 million hits.

The video was released on the heels of Ferrell's newest movie, but in a Los Angeles Times article, McKay says it was made for fun and not publicity for Ferrell's film.

Visitors of the site view and vote on videos, deciding if they're funny or will "die a fiery death." According to the site, "Videos that get enough die votes go to the crypt where they languish in comedy hell. But ones that reach immortal status shall make people laugh forever (even ten thousand years from now when mankind becomes floating orbs of energy. If they can laugh, those future orbs will be laughing at your video)."

This Web site is a total smash, incorporating the personality and tone of every Ferrell movie and giving other aspiring comics an opportunity to share their work. Ferrell's site is definitely something I will check out on a regular basis- I love him from "Elf" and his old SNL days ("I drive a Dodge Stratus!"). I don't think this kind of Web participation would work for every actor and I really hope random movie stars don't start creating videos to promote themselves and their projects.

Though I'm not sure if I can see him as a Peeps pink marshmallow bunny (okay, actually I wouldn't be surprised), a comedy viral video site is the perfect niche for Ferrell to fill.