What a long, strange trip down a long and winding road it's been.
What a long, strange day's journey into 1,001 Arabian nights of the living dead it's been.
In other words, my college career, or rather, my four-year string of cliches, is about to come to an end.
Therefore, in the best cliched tradition of columnists for The Dartmouth, I have decided to write this look-back-in-anger, best-years-of-our-lives, pour-some-sugar-on-me column.
Not that this will be the last column I write for The Dartmouth, of course (so you can put away the champagne). That would be too cliched even for a wrath-of-Achilles, critique-of-pure-reason, theory-of-relativity guy like myself.
Hello Dartmouth, my old friend.
Remember when we were young?
I certainly do. In September of 1993 1,000 some odd freshmen tumbled into Dartmouth College from all over this wonderful world. College, of course, was one new experience after another, each one a little more cliched than the one that preceded it. My Dartmouth Outing Club trip leader brought us to our first college party, at an off-campus house of seniors and alums-too-lazy-to-get-on-with-their-lives. I entered the living room, desperately clutching my first cup of college beer (Catamount, actually, which hardly prepared me for the urine-packaged-as-alcohol that would become the prime whiskey of every future college party I'd attend), listening to the thumping bass of a Pharcyde song pervade the room. Not that I knew what the Pharcyde was -- I was barely hip enough for the Stone Temple Pilots. Then George Clinton came on and suddenly everyone was a great dancer, or at least, thought they were great dancers.
So many first-times freshman year: first time at a frat party, first time randomly hooking up, first time getting really, really stoned, first time dropping acid, first, second, and third nervous breakdowns ... ah, the memories. The seniors I met told me it was all a cliche, that I was merely following suit, doing what had been done a million times before (and no doubt done with a good deal more style), but did I care? Why, of course not. I loved the cliche. I bathed in it, writhed in it, jiggled my jugglekins in it. Sure, my grades were falling as if pulled by a black hole, but that, too, was all part of the glorious golden savannah of the collegiate cliched Elysian fields!
Soon sophomore year began, about one year after freshman year had begun. Between the D-Plan and sophomore summer, sophomore and junior years bled into each other, amalgamating into one big, fat, bloated, slack-soaked year. I moved into a Greek house, did shots, stopped showering, grew a beard, watched "The Wall," talked Castaneda. I developed a Theory of Consciousness, read "The Tao of Pooh," tried meditation one Saturday afternoon, but eventually got hungry and ordered -- isn't it too cute? -- EBA's. I took Women's Studies classes and sociology classes and cultivated a healthy sense of guilt. I pontificated on quantum mechanics and its relation to picking the right breakfast sandwich at the Hop. I took up exercise while smoking a pack a day. I had nervous breakdowns four, five, six, seven and eight.
And now, of course, I'm the cliched reformed senior, studying hard, writing a thesis and relatively chemical-free, because, of course, I've outgrown all that silliness -- the biggest cliche of all! I've abandoned my Theory of Consciousness in favor of a Theory of What-the-Hell-Am-I-Going-to-Do-After-Graduation. In fact, I've abandoned just about everything in favor of this. I look back on the concerns of my long lost youth, as well as the concerns of the underclassmen around me, with venerable arrogance. I'm twenty-two years old now -- practically a senior citizen!
Yes, I wore flannel shirts and baseball caps. I had a ponytail for awhile. I played pong, Magic and intramural soccer (and was equally terrible at all three). I pretended I could understand page one of Umberto Eco. I drank Mountain Dew by the bucket. I bought every single 25 cent snack at FoodStop, ate at every fast food place in West Leb. I hiked. I WENT TO A PHISH SHOW.
And look how self-aware I am, how self-consciously ironic all of this is. How postmodern, how resonant, how empowering.
How cliche.
