OF COLLEGE by Tom M
Oh yes, the great adventure that is college. You wait eightteen years of your life,
feeling small, insignificant, and mostly - worthless. You are stuck in the joke that is
called the public education system. You can't wait to be part of something special, to be
your own person. You want independence, dammit! That means it's college time. For the
first day you're there - okay, maybe the first five or six hours - you think, "why, this is
pretty cool." But then after that, you come to the utter realization that, hey, this sucks!
Welcome to college, my friend. Yes, that bastion of hope and opportunity you once longed
for has now become your own personal hell. Pretty cool, huh?
Of course, there are all of the educational aspects of college. I will not discuss
those in this essay, for these aspects are the things you are least-concerned about in
college. There are two major areas of college: parties, and being cool. First, let's clear
something up. You are either one of two types of people: a) a party-er b) a study-er.
Whichever one you are, the end result will be the same. It's gonna suck. And in the end
you're going to convert to the other lifestyle. If you're a study-er, you'll finally go
crazy and go on a party binge and fail out of school; if you are a party-er, you will go
on a party binge, almost fail out of school, and have to study the rest of the year to
remain a student there. Let's, for instance, say you are of the partying variety of people.
Sure, you've heard about college parties, whether it be from your older siblings, or from
the latest episode of "Beverly Hills, 90210". They sound great! Tons of people, loud
music, beer flowing freely, dancing, laughing - just a general air of levity. Well, the
parties do have the loud music going for them. That's about it. Beer? Forget it, you're
bringing your own. People? In college, a "crowd" comes to be defined as a gathering of
four or five people. Oh, and don't expect to see members of the opposite sex at parties.
I think that out of the parties I've gone too, only once did I see a member
of the opposoite sex there. Of course,
almost immediatly, the entire party crowd ( the other three people at the party ) flocks
around this unfortunate individual. 'Tis a sad sight, indeed. So there's no members of the
opposite sex at the parties, but I'm told college is the place for experimentation. You
can do what you want, but I'll limit my experimentation to my chemistry class.
Next, I'll discuss perhaps the most important part of college, which is the art of
"being cool". At some point in your life prior to college, you think that you have come
to achieve the coveted state of "absolute coolness." Sure, that's fine then, but in college,
the level of coolness is raised a hundred times that of pre-college coolness. For example,
imagine my embarrassment when I discovered that it was no longer cool to wear Skidz pants
in public. I mean, that was the epitome of coolness in high school. But in college, that
stuff just doesn't work. Go figure, huh? So to save others from the humiliation that I
had to go through transferring from 'high-school-cool' to 'college-cool', I will share
some tips.
If you're at a party (which is highly unlikely), and you don't know anyone else,
don't hang around the food table acting like you're really interested in the food. It
doesn't work. Nobody buys it. People really don't believe that you are a food connoiseiour
who is oblivious to the party atmosphere around you; instead they see the truth: you are a
loser who doesn't know anyone, and in a pathetic attempt to avoid looking like a loser who
doens't know anyone, you are hanging out at the food table pretending to be interested in
the food. Trust me, it doesn't work. You might as well just shout to the crowd, "Hey, I'm
a loser! I have no friends! I'm going to stay over here at the food table all night and
gorge myself on these stale, generic-brand potato chips! Feel free to point and laugh at
me!" That just isn't cool. Instead, try the following. Most likely, there will be groups
of people sitting around talking about various things which you have no clue about. A good
idea is to slowly approach one of these groups in hopes of getting "sucked into" the
conversation. For example, if a group of people are talking about cars, even though you
have no knowledge of the subject, just say something and insert random car-type phrases in
it. Like this, "Yeah, I just installed a 350 trannie with a carb-overide, and a
sixteen-stock rotary housing case." Even though what you have just said lacks all sense of
intelligibility, chances are that the other people either can't hear you because the music
is too loud, or are just too drunk to hear you. They will just barely pick out bits and
pieces of phrases on the subject they were discussing, and think that you must know what
you are talking about. Bingo. You're in the group. How cool is that!
Another instance that occurs quite frequently is that someone will say something
to you, and for some reason or another you don't hear them. Now in high school, you might
have gone the foolish route and said something idiotic like, "Excuse me, I didn't hear what
you said. Could you please repeat it, to be sure that there are no misunderstandings?"
or even the often-used "What?" But this is college. You can't do that. You don't want
people to think that you aren't cool because you didn't hear what they said. So you will
undoubtedly, as I myself did for my entire freshmen year, employ the "Even-though-I-didn't-
hear-you-I-will-pretend-I-did-and-casually-nod-my-head-and-laugh-to-simulate-comprehension"
tactic. This is a mistake, but the urge to do it is so strong, you must unfortunately
learn from experience not to do this. A sample situation might go like this:
-- Cool Kid: "Hey, I think that the poverty and fighting in third-world countries is
greatly undermined and unrecognized in our country."
-- You (not hearing): "Ha, ha. Yeah."
-- Cool Kid: "What kind of jerk are you? I hope you burn in Hell for eternity!"
-- You (still not hearing) : "Yeah. I hear you there, buddy!"
This situation can only lead to something very bad. This is just totally uncool.
Instead of fiegning hearing, do this instead:
-- Cool Kid: "Hey, I think that the poverty and fighting in third-world countries is
greatly undermined and unrecognized in our country."
-- You (not hearing): "Aaaaack!! Oh my god! I just swallowed my tongue!! I
can't breathe! ( now falling to the ground, and flailing your appendages
wildly ) I'm dying! I can't breathe. Give my... love... to my... pet iguana..."
(now roll your eyes up into your head, and let your tounge loll out of your mouth, while
uttering low, gutteral noises.)
As you can plainly see, this is the cool way out of the predicament. Not only do
you avoid looking like a total dweeb, you end up getting your friends to wait on you hand
and foot for two weeks, casually reminding them each day how you almost died.
One last thing to avoid doing, is to try to be cool by talking to people of other
nationalities in their native tounge, even though you have no idea how to speak anything
other than English (and you can't even speak English that well! ). You know what I'm
talking about. A purely hypothetical case: I was walking on campus one day, and I saw
this really cute Hispanic woman. I, of course, think to myself, "Hey, I'll be Mr. Cool Guy
and say something really suave in Espanol." So I casually stroll over to this woman.
( That's another thing, whatever you do in college, try to do it casually. It's much
cooler. ) So I go up to this woman, and relying on all three years of my high-school
Spanish class, I manage to come up with something I felt was really suave and sophisticated.
I believe I said something along the lines of, "Aloha, senorita! Es muy bonita!" Much
to my surprise, instead of falling madly in love with me, she started shouting something
at me in a voice three octaves above normal human hearing capacity and fumed away. I knew
my Spanish accent was bad, but I thought my cool looks would compensate for that. Didn't
I feel the fool when some kid walked up to me and said, "She's French, dumbass!" So I
find it is best not to try to impress others with whatever little, pathetic,
grammarly-improper vocabulary you have of their language, and instead approach them
saying something like this: "Grrzbizbal newbom!! Hxxnal falvem? Snizal!" By doing this,
you ensure that the person you have approached will have as little idea of what you are
saying as you do of what they are saying. It is much easier when neither one of
you can communicate to anyone. Trust me. **Note: If the person you approach with your
made-up language appears to comprehend what you are saying and replies in a like manner,
it is probably a good idea to run.**
So this is college life, kiddies. The only thing I can tell you is to
be prepared. Perhaps you could try these tips on "being cool" with your
friends or family. Or if you're shy, you could round up all of your old stuffed
animals and practice on this makeshift zoo menagerie instead. You will be too cool
for college in no time. And remember, no matter how hard it is, leave
the Skidz pants at home, okay?