College Experience

You go to college to delay the inevitable. You go to college to further your skills, to develop your interests into passions and pray that it translates into a career. You go to college for the "experience." College, in many aspects, resembled what I imagined prison to be. Aside from showering with the fear of being shanked, college was mostly lifting weights, playing basketball [with other inmates], reading books, dabbling in drugs, and depending on a group of people to survive [like prison gangs].

I remember prior generations looking through and past me about my college choice, almost like they were transported to an Animal House memory, a memory they were stuck on - a Toga Party or maybe they were occupied with the memory of double secret probation. Whatever the word "college" conjured up for people that asked about my future endeavors, they were hardly nostalgic for English 101. I remember being apprehensive about going to a "city" school in New England, and leaving my friends. "You'll make new friends," my parents were quick to retort. "Those kids will always be your friends, but college is about making new friends - friends for life."

My parents were right. And now when people ask me about college I can only smile, not because of the things that I learned, but because of the friends I've made and cemented with alcohol, knowing it would stick for good.

Paul Bunyon - (known for tall tales) was one of my first friends at school. He was an outgoing kid from the shore of Connecticut and from time to time needed to be reminded that he was not Jack Johnson. Paul Bunyon and I had met on a few separate occasions, but didn't become friends until I got blackout drunk one night and climbed on top of my lofted bed to vomit all over myself. Paul Bunyon and another friend somehow got me down and dragged me into the shower. I later returned the favor on his 21st birthday when he decided to take a face plant on the cement (eventually sending him to the hospital, his 21st birthday was a success).

Missed It - Missed It and I had grown up together, but were never really close until we went to college. Missed it was odd. He was content to stay in his single room and video game his life away, rather than enjoy college. Missed It once locked himself in his dorm room for a week after the Raiders were owned in the Super Bowl. Missed It was always delusional when referring to "his girls," but nobody ever held him to it. Missed It once consumed warm urine from a Corona bottle, and pretty much solidified his notoriety forever.

Shevchenko - Shevchenko was another kid from Eastern Connecticut. He was proud to hail from the heroin capital of the Eastern seaboard. He fit in well with us because he enjoyed sports and could shoot the lights out in basketball. Shevchenko had the temper of a 3 year old pissy little girl. Take for instance the Boone home run hit off of Wakefield to send the Yankees to the World Series - he destroyed our apartment on account of that. As time lapsed he became less focused on sports and actually playing and just focused more and more on being a "terrible, horrible person" and getting himself good at drinking games. He tried building up his tolerance and mastering drinking games as a clever way to hook up with girls and I gotta admit it's pretty crazy how girls get mesmerized by a game of speed quarters. Shevchenko and I entered into a little wager for the college football championship when I was a freshman. I bet him (with the spread) that Miami would destroy his beloved OSU. As a result he took pleasure in Bic'ing my head. We went on to live together for 4 years after.

Meal Matrix - Meal Matrix was a skinny kid from Long Island. He never talked much, and had it not been for Paul Bunyon, we would never have met. Meal Matrix and Paul Bunyon dragged me into the shower on that fateful night when I wrestled with Bacardi and Sprite. "Yo, Connecticut, you wanna do this project together?" I didn't know anyone else in my math class, and I knew I didn't want to get stuck with the kid that smelled like tomato soup. Meal Matrix hated living in Boston, and I loved him for that. Meal Matrix is the only one of my really good friends that lives in NYC and we hang out regularly.

There were other cast members that played a significant role in this ongoing tragedy, but those four remain critical. So now things have changed, and I'm living in NYC, and we don't talk nearly as much, we don't drink nearly as much, or harass each other as much as we once used to. The point is we don't have to. We can just pick up again where we left off, it's seamless. So beyond the Irish car bombs, the weed, and the wiffle ball games, I learned that I'd do anything for these four.

"Yeah. You'll have a great time in college," as I look past a prospective college student asking about my school.

MetLife Building

It's interesting to flip through the pages of books that chronicle things like the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and see images of Wall Street, and stumble upon captions that say things like, "One time a symbol of prosperity, Wall Street was also the setting for countless suicides as bankers and investors alike plunged to their deaths."

I find myself wondering if things are really that bad in these trying times. People abuse the cliche that history tends to repeat itself, and maybe it does. On Tuesday, a 36 year old man shattered a window in his 17th floor office with a chair and jumped to his death (MetLife Building). Actions like this perpetuate the Santayana quote,"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

It's difficult to swallow. I mean the shock hasn't completely set in. I like to think a lot has changed since 1929 and lives have gotten better, but when something like that happens in the building that you work, it makes you wonder. It's just surreal. I wonder when books are written about this financial time if this will be a trend that authors will be forced to address.