that guy who can't move on

i said as much to pooja earlier tonight about not wanting to be that guy, and then seeing sai's post made me want to post my own version, as i never found the perfect study spot. dork.

i still check the newsgroup (i still post as well, and i think i still make people afraid to post), i still check my columbia email account, i still talk to people from columbia on IM. i hate new york, but if for some reason i was living there, i'd probably go to columbia fairly often to hang out. fairly often might be once a month if i have to leave my bed, put on clothes, and hop a subway, or even - god forbid - transfer once or twice, but i'd still want to see tao and stoops and casey and whoever else i might be leaving out. amanda? oo, catherine. she's funny.

but i don't live in new york. so it's not an issue. however, i am going to stay there for two or three days, ostensibly to sell textbooks, which is a solid and true reason, but i'm passing through on my way back from ma --> va, and i probably would've stayed without any purpose. but even this small trip makes me scared of being that guy. you know, the one who graduated but keeps coming back for some creepy reason.

it's weird thinking they start school today, or tomorrow, or however you distinguish your calendar days. i'm not in school anymore. i think many many gods for that. but it is sad to know i won't spend any more days tossing when i have x problem sets due, or waking up at 4:50 am to catch the bus for a tournament when everyone has been waiting for me.

sai is wrong. dead wrong. two week old rotting corpse dead wrong. or maybe it's just me. i can offer up my own predictions for all you kids that have the natural intelligence to succeed and the apathy to not. everyone who possesses the work ethic of belly button lint, hearken to my words:

love-hate relationship with mudd? no love. only unadulterated hate. try going from floor 2 to floor 8 to floor 6 in one day of classes and you will loathe mudd with a hatred so pure it's almost holy. working on a problem set and figuring out the last problem? how about doing 3 out of the 10 problems because that's all you could get in the hour before class. find their groups? how about not talking to anyone in any of your classes. how about not going to classes?? office hours? not once, bitch. and i am proud of that. begging a TA for help? look at my grades. could any TAs possibly have helped me?

you'll make all of your friends freshman year. you'll grow to, if not hate, then at least massively dislike maybe 85% of them by sophomore year. you'll learn who your true friends are when housing comes around. you'll always talk about making new friends, but you never will. these people you became friends with due to convenience and circumstance are your college friends for the rest of your life.

you'll be focused and do all of your problem sets and earn As on all of your midterms. you'll break under the unending barrage of problem sets pretty soon after that first midterm (did i mention you have two in every class?) and end up with a B after the final. sometimes, you'll be unlucky enough to have one of the asshole professors that curves to a C. their integrity is too important, and of course, a C is by definition average. never mind that curving to a B, or at least a B-, is standard practice nowadays and the professor's integrity has nothing to do with the kid's gpa.

you'll go through a succession of shitty dorms. each is minutely less shitty than the one before it. when you are finally at the top of the totem shitpole, you'll earn a 100-150 sq. ft. single. that is, if the housing lottery doesn't fuck you. possibly you'll have a kitchen and a bathroom, if you can find people willing to live with you.

sophomore year you'll find out that the school forces you to choose a major. you have no idea what any of these majors are. you pick one without any actual basis. you've chosen your own method of torture for the rest of your college years.

in the middle of your spring semester of senior year you'll realize that you're graduating in a few weeks. you'll also realize you have no job prospects and no plans. shock and indecision freezes you until its too late to do _anything_.

you'll chase after girls, but you manage to pick the cream of the crop in terms of the cream being fucking psychos. they all turn out to be lesbians or awful people, or both. any girl that you'd actually have a chance with you reject out of hand. your one drunken one-night stand turns into a magical morning of being kicked out of her room and then being called a rapist.

you'll graduate from columbia feeling only an apathetic sort of dislike, like a bad aftertaste. there's not enough emotion there to be called anything else. you're left with the vague feeling that you should've done things differently, but also the knowledge that if you had the chance to do it all over again you'd fuck it up in all the same ways.

when people ask you how you liked columbia (they never ask if), you're unsure how to respond. it was ok. i fucking hated it. eh. there are worse schools. take your pick.

the columbia experience. have i left anything out?

this might sound really sad. but i've left out all of my happy memories. most of them are irrevocably tainted. but, the ones that are left almost all have to do with frisbee, which is not unique to columbia in any way. i won't give the university credit for any of it.

i don't think i'm the right kind of person for college. or a career. what am i the right kind of person for? or for the grammatically inclined, for what am i the right kind of person?