Carpe Diem
So I decided that I’m going to try and make a conscious effort to post about once a week here. If for no other reason than to keep my rhetorical skizzles fresh.
Over the weekend I got an email from the Binghamton Postal Service that I had gotten a package, and spent the weekend trying to figure out what it was. After picking it up just now I found it to be from my sister. Inside was the Jonas Brothers shirt from a couple of weeks ago with a note saying, “Mom was making me clean my room and I came along this shirt and realized it probably wouldn’t fit me. I thought about who would make use of it and you were the only one who came to mind. Enjoy it! Put it on your blue person (mannequin) or something.” The note is a perfect mixture of sass, insult, sarcasm, and yet purpose. I’ve taught her well.
“The funny thing is on the outside I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to become a crook.” -Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption
(Unrelated to anything I was sitting in my room the other day watching Shawshank, alone, and saying the upcoming lines outloud to myself before they happened. Take away from that whatever you will.)
The relevance of this quote comes as I try and get perspective on my college experience. Now past the half way point and with The Real World barrelling towards me I realize that the institution that’s supposed to prepare me for life did the opposite. In High School I’d work hard. I’d go to bed early and wake up at 6 AM. I put in my time. I had to come to college to become a drifter, for lack of a better word.
I started down this path when I accidentally took a month of a computer science class freshman year I got credit for in high school. By the time I came to this realization I could drop the class, but not sign up for another. This left my three remaining classes all on Tuesday and Thursday, leaving me with a 2 day work week. This isn’t to say I skipped out on work when I had it. I always get my shit done, and usually well ahead of time. The triumph of my academic career was a 15 page Cinema final paper, which I worked on in only 15-20 minute spurts over several weeks. I finished it weeks early and got an A as a reward. What I am trying to say is that in the last two and a half years I have had periods where it seems college offered more regression than preparation.
The examples are plentiful:
- The common room in my apartment is littered with video game systems, inflatable pool toys, ball pit balls, Hulk Hands, a newly bought (and decorated) mannequin, and an assortment of crap that would be more fitting of a Chucky Cheese’s than a 20 year olds apartment.
- On the first day of my comic books class my professor said that the meeting time (10:15) was an ungodly time of the morning. Aside from the fact that one of my three classes this semester is about comics, another one is “Television in American Culture”, college conditions you to feel that 10:15 is an unreasonably early time to start your day.
- My apartment has spent hours upon hours every night this week watching The Game Show Network (GSN). This weekend GSN went down and after only a day I emailed Binghamton Telecommunications:
“All of the TVs in my apartment have stopped getting the Game Show Network. I don’t know if this problem goes beyond our building. I’m just letting you know of the problem and hoping there is something that can be done as soon as possible to remedy this situation.
Thank You
- Zach”
I wrote this email with a certain amount of sarcasm, but at the same time the loss of 2 hours of Chuck Woolery a day was enough of a problem for me that I felt compelled to send an email…that says something.
I am exaggerating my free time and intentionally trying to trivialize my life right now. I’m trying to make a point, I’m not that sad, right? right? RIGHT!? My point in all of this is that a lot of people I know take themselves far too seriously. At 21 balancing the child eating Fla-Vor-Ice all night while playing Mario Party 3 until four in the morning, and the adult taking the initiative to look for a job and towards the future is fucking hard. Being responsible is never a bad idea, and I consider myself to be a responsible person, but sometimes taking a Thursday to just lay on the futon all afternoon watching Jerry Springer can also, in its own twisted way, be considered seizing the day.
