I'm drunk. Just kidding. Which brings me to the point of this week's column. Being drunk. Just kidding. OK, enough of that. I'm not drunk, I'm just sick. And being sick has afforded me a lot of time to do two things I do not normally do.
The first is sleep. I've slept more in the last few days than in, oh, FOREVER. That's a lot of sleep.
The second is thinking. I don't do this much, so you must realize how novel the concept is. But I thought. I thought about life, I thought about Saj, I thought about how my sister used to cheat at Jenga when we were kids. I thought about a lot. But mostly, I thought about being a second-semester senior, and what that means to me.
It means that I will soon be ending my final year here at Tufts University. It means that in just a few short months I will be leaving this place, presumably a fully-functioning member of society. But most importantly, it means that as one of the elder undergraduate statesmen on this campus, I carry wisdom beyond that of underclassmen. And in the delirium of illness, I have decided to impart upon you young 'uns several tidbits I've collected over my last few years. Enjoy.
1.) Write a column for the Daily. You should all try this because it is a lot of fun. You get to have awkward interactions in the campus center where people approach you saying, "Hey, are you that guy who writes that column?" and then continue with a.) "I love your column," b.) "I think you're schizophrenic," or c.) "Dude, your last column about the Dominican prostitutes was really depressing."
As a bonus, you get to submit your column to your editor late every week (probably giving her a heart attack, sorry Patrice) allowing you to sneak bad words past her. BOOBIES, BOOBIES, POOPOO.
2.) Join some sort of club, and stick with it. My freshman year I, or a younger more idealistic version of me, decided to join the Zamboni. "Gee," I thought, "it would be good fun to write for a humor magazine!" Boy, was I wrong. It sucked.
But I stuck with it, quitting after first semester and returning at the beginning of junior year when my friend Brett asked me if I wanted to. So basically I joined a club, left after one semester, and then came back in my third year to do absolutely nothing except accept an editorship I neither earned nor deserved.
3.) Study abroad. If only for the following exchange:
Your unsuspecting friend: So, are you studying abroad next year?
You: I don't know about next year, but I might study a broad later tonight if you know what I mean!
Your unsuspecting friend: Oh, grow up.
But seriously, studying abroad is a great experience. When else can you travel around the world having the time of your life under academic auspices? I'd say never.
4.) Turn yourself into a complete person. And yes, this is the point in the column where I get to what I really wanted to talk about but couldn't write 700-900 words on, so I gave you 500 words of random mindless jokes to start with.
You have four years at what we like to think is one of America's premier academic institutions. I mean, look at our library, there's A LOT of books. Your job, as a young person, is not only to leave this place with the skills necessary to succeed in the real world, but also with the skills necessary to leave here as a complete person. I think that is the point we sometimes miss when we're spinning on the little wheels in our rat cages.
I have to get an A in this class, I have to get this internship, I have to get a high score on my MCATs - sometimes we get lost in all of that and we miss what is really important about being here, about learning.
I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to be motivated, or ambitious, but it is not necessarily a good thing to be motivated or ambitious as both a means and an end. Ambition for the sake of passion, instead, is admirable. Passion, sadly, is what is often missing.
In one of my earlier columns this semester, I mentioned that this year I took EPIIC. For me, applying for EPIIC was an effort to finally find that passion before I left Tufts, because God knows I hadn't found it in the three years prior. I was jogging on the little wheel in my rat cage like we all are, going through the motions, majoring in my major largely by default.
EPIIC proved to be a catharsis for me; a course that I found it easy to care about. The topic was relevant, the workload was demanding, and the learning process was very engaging, something I had not yet encountered. While it proved more rigorous than my other courses, it put them in perspective.
I am writing this column just as you fabulous underclassmen register for nextfall's classes. If you are, like I was, mentally restless, be mindful of EPIIC: it is a truly unique educational experience. It got me off the little wheel and out of my rat cage.
The topic of next year's class will be "The Politics of Fear," which seems pertinent given the climate our nation finds itself in currently. If you have any interest, I encourage you to indulge it. Check out the program at www.epiic.org, and maybe you'll get out of your little rat cage, too.
