Actually,  given what I know about me at 16, that would not end well.

Shudder.

Anyway, I actually logged into my email and found a comment from an “Anonymous” asking me about what made me go to Hampshire, and bad college experiences in general. This could be a joke from one of my friends who has stumbled upon my blog and wants to roll their eyes at my spiel on the subject. 

Even if that’s the case, I could still probably write something up here, and probably should on the whole subject of “How College Was Not The Best Four Years of My Life, Because If Those Were The Best Four Years of My Life, I Should Just Die Now” especially now that I have survived a few years in grown-up world (And grad school) I was painfully, horribly shy in college.

And I’ll try to write something worthwhile on the subject soon. Or any subject.

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Sometimes I hate that this is my job. I hate telling people for the entirely shallow reason that I feel as if I should be doing something more with my life. It was always the plan that I was going to go to graduate school in Fall 2006, so when I stumbled upon my original job here, I was thrilled that I’d found something that would actually give me some credentials. I would’ve been happy to get any job, and was expecting to just get some disposable receptionist position or something anyway. And then I got promoted and it was awesome. And then their were layoffs and department eliminations and essentially a demotion.

That sucked a lot. But since I had rent to pay I was grateful to land in this position. There’s been “drama” at work that I’ve already written about a million times, but overall, there are far worse things.

But sometimes, the insecurity  creeps in. When I was in DC, I felt like I should have been doing more with my life this year. Fan is in the Peace Corps and spent a year in Africa. Jamie was in the right place at the right time and has a great job that he loves at a Jewish not-for-profit that does all this great work. Blah, blah, blah, comparing myself to other people. This struck me when we went to pick up Michael’s stuff from a friend’s apartment. There were six or seven of us sitting around, talking about grad school and what we had done in the interim and I felt like everyone else had done something “real” and I’d just been a bum, or something.

So I voiced this to Michael, and his response, beyond being exactly what I needed to hear, was true. “Rachel, remember what you said your goal was when you moved to New York? That you wanted to be more social and more comfortable with people?”

“Oh yeah, I guess,” I said, already feeling better.

“You couldn’t have sat in that room like that a year ago”

And it hit me that he was right, and the rest of the weekend was one big example of how I achieved exactly what I set out to do.

I got to DC on time. Michael met me at the train station, along with Jamie (who I had met once, and liked. He deduced that I was from Bergen County strictly from the information that I was a Jew and a conservative) and Fan (who I met a few times freshman year.) She was a little cold to me all weekend, but it turned out okay based on the fact that I can stand up for myself, apparently, and that I took care of her when she got way too drunk.

Lunch was had (Tryst, in Adams-Morgan), we checked into our hotel, which was AMAZING. Jamie had found this great deal online, and all weekend we were like “Four Star Hotel on a not-for-profit salary, we rule)

We chilled in the room for a while, then went back out to get Michael’s stuff from his friends place. (That’s where aforementioned discussion occurred.)

Saturday night we went out to Georgetown, and met up with Dafna, another Hampshire person. Fan’s boyfriend also joined us, so I wasn’t the only “outsider.” We did lots of browsing/shopping and went to this Mexican place for dinner where we got to sit outside on an upstairs patio. We decided we’d all squeeze into Dafna’s car, so we walked there through streets lined with awesome old houses, telling ghost-story-ish things (the combination of the weather and the settling made it deliciously creepy), saw the Exorcist stairs, drove to a “haunted house” where we touched the door.

Sunday morning, Michael wasn’t feeling well so I went out with Jamie and Fan. I hung out with them all morning and did not feel out of place or self-conscious once. So I can do this sober! We walked past the White House, got hot dogs, went to the American Museum of Natural History, rode the Carousel and played in the fountains at the Smithsonian castle. Michael met up with us to wander across the mall, meander around the Capitol and get lunch. Speculations on the future were made, “how-I-lost-my-virginity” stories were shared, and “what-I-want-to-do-with-my-life” was discussed. I felt like I’d known these people for years. (Well, Michael I have known since we met on the third day at Hampshire and solved the problem of race over lunch.) Then we napped in our blissfully comfortable hotel room. BLISSFULLY.

Around 9:30 we went downstairs to the tiny little courtyard at our hotel and had champagne.

(Oh & sidenote, because this is where I stand up for myself: Before we went out, Fan and I switched purses, due to outfit matching, she said, in the bitchiest voice “not to be rude, but this was $40 and I got it in Paris, so I’m attached to it.” I paused for a second before saying, politely; “Well mine was $60 (lie!) and I got it in Florence, so be equally careful.” She was taken aback. Jamie and Mike were laughing and Jamie was like “I am so glad you sassed back.” So it’s a dumb, lame little thing, but if I hadn’t said anything I would have been annoyed about it all evening. And Jamie, by the way is awesome. He went out of his way to make sure I was included and having a good time, which I appreciated since he and Fan are extremely close.)

Anyway, so champagne. We all made toasts. Mine was “To not taking any shit from anybody.” None of us had eaten, so we were giddy as we proceeded to get sushi. After sushi, Mike went off with Dafna, Jamie, Fan and I checked out the gay scene at Dupont Circle. At the first place, drinks were only $2 and Fan I were the only women in the place, and we sang along to the music, and again, I was impressed with how relaxed I felt (no it wasn’t the liquor!)

Jamie was unimpressed with the eye candy, so we went downstairs and chatted with people at another bar. Fan (who is this cute, tiny Asian girl) was the center of attention. I stuck to chatting to a recently dumped guy about how men suck. You know the drill – broken hearts in a bar love company.

Jamie found a cute boy he liked, so we walked over to another club. My $10 cover charge gave me the privilege of pulling Fan through crowds of sweater, muscular gay men and getting her to the bathroom, because she was violently sick.

Jamie gave me cab money, and I took her back, where the front desk guy helped me walk her upstairs. I know she felt guilt, but I’ve been there done that, so it was fine. And it kind of broke the ice between us.

I spent all day Monday with just Michael, having a relaxing lunch, chilling and talking. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year, which is way too long. Though in some ways, it doesn’t feel like that long, because we stay in such close touch.

So it was in no way the most fun weekend ever or anything,. There were definitely moments during Fan’s L-O-N-G shopping excursions when I was bored out of my mind and my feet hurt and wine. But overall it was exactly the weekend that I needed, and I came home and just felt so good about everything.

And so that was two weeks ago, and that overall feeling of goodness has mostly prevailed. I don’t know. Michael says I sound different on the phone.

And things ARE good. At the beer garden a few weeks ago, CK and I had the type of conversation the two of us always have when we’re drunk. I was drifting towards melancholy a bit, because of everything with the boy drama, because I still have my moments of feeling hurt and sad over that. And he interrupted me and was just like “Fuck that. Rachel. You are going to U Chicago. You have a way out. None of this is going to matter.”

Affirmation from my friends is always amazing, from CK it’s practically priceless. We are very, very similar creatures, possibly more so than anyone I’ve ever met. We spend our time at work either discussing politics, or engaged in our repertoire in which we insult and deride each other. And then we get drunk together and all the walls come down, and seriously, he’s become one of my good friends. Where’d I meet him? At work. Where’d I meet Jill-IAN, who is like, my long lost twin who I :: heart :: to death? At work. Where’d I need Drew? At work (And Drew and I are ADORABLE together.) Where’d I meet the majority of my friends? At work.

When I moved to the city, I didn’t know anyone, really. I was still walking around seeing ghosts and still not over HeWhoShallNotBeNamed. I met all these awesome people through my job, and hanging out with them was always great, and it sounds clichéd, but I guess that’s what gave me the confidence to go out and meet people through other networks. I can’t say I’ve made close friends that way, but I’ve made a lot of acquaintances, and hung out with a lot of people, and now if I WANT to go out and do something, I can. And when I want to go home and watch Law & Order SVU, I can.

And so I may not have a glamorous job, and I may not make a lot of money. But when I go off to school, I’ll have survived a year in New York City, with stories to tell and friends to keep in touch with.

And I think that’s pretty damn good. 

“You’ve become such a city girl,” she remarks at the way I juggle my purse, and wallet and cards.

We are both dressed to “go out,” black pants and tank-tops. We pick a place for dinner solely because she can’t walk more than a few blocks in her shoes.

I feel like a snob when I think that this is the difference between rich suburban girls and those who live here; she is used to taking cabs. She’s used to bars where the drinks are $10. She’s used to a string of boys who pick up the tab. So she wears the heels, because she wouldn’t think of walking, and still thinks the subway is dangerous at night.

She’s a good person and I love her and so none of that matters. I roll my eyes at her, but throw an arm around her shoulder and tell her I missed her – But I still let her pay for the cab to the Upper East Side, because she’s the one who wants to trek out there to see some of her friends.

The bar is playing decent music, and she introduces me to Kevin. I’m shy around new people, and he appraise me, and sneers “You look like you’re going to be a barrel of fun tonight.” The smile I had plastered on my face wavers. I’m slipping into awkward. Freezing up. I chug the rest of my beer. Classy.

I have a few drinks. Relax. The female bartenders are dancing on the bar, Coyote Ugly style. They grab patrons, tilt their chins up and pour shots down their throats from bottles of a mix of leftover cheap liquors. Xina pushes me forward, and I do a shot, because I don’t care about looking like an idiot.

I’m finally having some fun. “Uptown Girl” is playing, and we sing along. I chat with some random people whose names I’ll forget. It’s very New York. This is what people do. They go out and meet friends of friends of friends and have fun with them, and they forget them.

And then it hits, and then I’m ready to go home. This is how it goes with me, especially in these settings. I have my share of fun, but then I just want to go home. So I tell Xina I’m going to leave, I can get back to Jersey City myself, she should stay.

She turns to tell Kevin that I’m leaving. He makes fun of me, but then places a hand on my shoulder “You’re taking a cab right, not a subway?”

“It’s 2 Avenues and 4 blocks, I think I can handle the subway, I’m not the idiot in heels.”

“You look like you can handle yourself, but…” He hands me $20 for a cab. Even with my independent streak I’ll admit that I’m into occasionally being taken care of, but not by rich assholes who are so proud of themselves for looking out for my well being.

Xina follows me out “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m just ready to go home.”
“You didn’t have fun?”
“No, I did. I had fun. I’m just ready to go home, you know that.”
“I know,” she says, she’s seen me pull this a few dozen times up at school.
“I had a good time, I’m just done now.”
“Okay…well call me to let me know you got home safe.”
“I will” we hug, still a little tipsy and exchange the New York kiss.
“Love you,” she calls after me.
“Love you too.”

I lean back in the seat of the cab. I want to cry, for no good reason, but I don’t want to be one of those girls who cries in the back seat of a cab. I give the driver the address of the nearest 6 stop, tip him generously, and pocket the rest of the cash.

Get home. Strip off my clothes and step straight into a cold shower, because it’s hot as hell.

*************

I’m ashamed of how female Michael catches me being. We have plans to meet for brunch. He calls around 10:00 being vague about plans. I’m exhausted, and a little hungover, but I haven’t seen him in a year, so I’ve dragged my ass out of bed.

It’s the kind of thing where we make about a dozen back and forth phone calls. “We’ll meet up later, say, 2 or 3,” he offers.

Then he calls back again. “Can we maybe meet up for dinner?”

“That’s fine,” I say, even though by now I’m frustrated, and tired, and near tears, and I just want to see Michael.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course.”

I’m a selfish bitch, and my voice breaks on my words. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“What do you want me to say, Jesus Christ,” I snap,. Evenly though.

We hang up. He calls back ten minutes later. “Be at your place in an hour.” I argue with him, but he doesn’t relent, and an hour later I meet him and his friend at the PATH station. I immediately apologize for my insanely female behavior but point out it speaks well for how he’ll handle future long term relationships – he already knows that when a woman says “it’s fine” though clenched teeth, it means you’re already in trouble.

I didn’t realize he had an entire posse of Hampshire friends up here, and was looking forward to some quality time catching up, as well as meeting just one of this friends, who I’ve spoken to online and liked. Instead, I wound up sitting silently in a SoHo living room, feeling incapable of contributing to the conversation. My words would not make sentences and I grew more self-conscious by the second.

And then I was eighteen years old, and back in a classroom in FPH. And when I’m alone in a group I suddenly feel as if nothing has changed, if I’m still that stupid eighteen year old girl who alienates everyone she meets because she comes across as aloof when really, she’s just a deer in headlights.

I hate that I’m shy, and that I freeze up, and wind up making terrible first impressions. It really doesn’t speak well for my future social life in New York. I screwed up, and I feel like an idiot. I screwed up, and I feel incredibly guilty.

The tears start as we’re leaving the SoHo partment, and I’m choking them back, and then we hit the street, and I start to cry. I’m very good at calming tears, so Michael and I just stay a few steps behind and he rubs my shoulder as we walk and reminds me to breathe.

I’m not sure why I’m crying exactly, but he understands well enough to know why I just want to go home, and don’t want to go to a movie, and then go to a bar with a dozen random people.

At Houston, they’re going East and I’m going West. We have to say good-bye in front of his friends.

Michael hugs me, and I’m losing it “I just don’t want to be in a room full of Hampshire people…and” I don’t have to continue. He already saw sit there and watch a conversation.

“It’s okay, babe, relax.”He pulls me closer into the hug, kisses my cheek. “I’ll call you.”

I nod. I smile and say polite good-byes to his friends. One of them, I’d talked to on AIM before, and liked, and thought it’d be nice to know one more person in the city. Clearly, that’s not going to happen. I am a screw-up, and so I’m crying. I’ve been on one of my freakish no-crying streaks, and this little outburst isn’t much of a catharsis, but I simply cry, and then stop without trying a few blocks down.

When I hit Hudson, someone stops me, asks how to get to Christopher Street, where I’m headed. I point them in the right direction.

This is my city.

I get home, strip off my clothes, step straight into a cold shower, because it’s hot as hell.

Later, I’m curled up with a biography of Stalin I’ve been looking forward to reading, Law and Order SVU on in the background, and it serves as another reminder, that living here does not change the type of girl I am.

I am still not one of those girls who can go out with a friend, and meet all his friends, and happily chat with them all evening. It’s exhausting, and that’s why I have a little bit of fun, and then there’s a break and I realize how tired I am, and that I want to go home.

I will never be one of those girls. I never have been. I’m fine with that in small doses, fine with that amount of fun.

I am a girl who comes home and puts on pajamas at 7 PM on a Saturday night, sits down with a book and a pen, and is happy with that.

I’m not one of those girls in heels and a skimpy outfit, because I know I can’t pull it off, and I’m not one of those girls who wants to be the center of attention.

I’m just not like that.

And despite what HWSNBN thinks, despite the fact that he’s right across the river, probably with his “real” girlfriend, I believe that I’m worth coming home to. And god damn him for making me think otherwise.

May 11 has become irrelevant. The real challenge is getting to my would-be graduation date without regressing and irrationally freaking out. I will possibly go the Hampshire and ring the Div Free bell, and totally cry. It’s unlikely I will go to Saratoga, because anyone I care about seeing isn’t graduating, and I can see them this summer. Would-be graduation is May 21. Thus, 33 days. Yay, countdowns.

Secondly.

I only listen to music in my car. Obviously, I have certain songs that I associate with certain times of year, or specific memories. (ok, I have a LOT of those, because I have an eidetic memory, and listen to music almost solely for lyrics.) But I also associate certain songs with certain roads. Flagpole Sitta’? Colonial Road going towards Wayne on summer nights, 2000. Brilliant Disguise? Driving south on Route 9 just before exit 13, where the pieces of the old billboard always look like the lights of a cop car from far away, last March. All For Leyna? Route 116 towards Holyoke, going to that random coffee shop there, the Monday night after I decided I was transferring.

My brain needs to be submitted for some kind of study; it’s not normal to have this vivid a memory.

Also, it is Monday, and I am in a good mood. I really am the only person on the planet who doesn’t hate Mondays. Clearly, I’m also at work right now. I think I love my life.

It’s the first day of my last semester of college. We fill out a questionnaire in my English class. I move through it easily until I get to the question “Why Skidmore?”

Why Skidmore? I think I wrote something on my application essay about seeing Skidmore as the perfect place to pursue my academic and personal goals. Those clichéd words were calculated to earn me admission to Skidmore, and escape from Hampshire College.

“I transferred to Skidmore from Hampshire College,” I scribble. “I’m still not sure it was the right decision.”

“Why did you transfer?” my professor asks.

I want to kill her for asking. She didn’t make anyone else tell the class “Why Skidmore?” I should be well-versed in answering this question, but sometimes, like today, it catches me off guard.

More than two years have gone by since my first day here, but I still cringe at the question “So, why did you transfer anyway?” I guess everyone assumes it’s something simple: that I wanted a different academic program, or maybe I just didn’t like the location of my old school. Usually, I offer an anecdote or two. I tell the story of how at Hampshire, students burned a flag at a patriotic rally held after September 11, and told a girl her sister deserved to die in the World Trade Center; she was supporting capitalism by working there, they argued. Or, I relate that the president of the college (Greg, to Hampshire students) used to smoke up on the quad outside the library. Then I smile and say, “The people there were completely crazy!” The questioner usually accepts my response, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I’ve gotten through another performance.

I never tell them about my first day at Hampshire College. That morning, I drove to campus on Route 116, taking deep breaths to try to quell the inexplicable dread that had crept up on me. My parents and I moved me into E308, a single room on a co-ed hall.
Outside the registration room, I chatted with a shaggy-haired blonde boy about my favorite author, Ayn Rand (“She’s a delusional bitch,” my companion told me), my political hero, Bill Clinton (“He let the liberals down!”), and pot (“You’ve never gotten high?!”) The President’s welcome was made over a TV screen; Greg was in South Africa talking with students about their views on America. The administration decided to broadcast some of this performance to the entire freshman class and when one girl stated, “George Bush does not represent the American people,” the audience erupted into cheers. I agreed with the sentiment then, but in the following months in the most liberal environment in the country, I would find my politics drifting disturbingly rightward.

The questioner wondering why I left one small liberal arts college in the Northeast for another doesn’t know that at Hampshire, I highlighted the important information in each night’s reading, but when I sat in class, I stayed silent. Although the school preached tolerance as its highest virtue, my opinion was meaningless; I was just a straight, white girl from the suburbs. I listened to my classmates’ radical theories of gender development and lists of reasons for why the U.S. and all white people were evil. I learned to hide that I drove a Jetta. “People of color” became part of my vocabulary. I occasionally ate dinner with a few people I’d met at orientation, bypassing the trays full of vegan food in search of a hamburger, but usually I dined on peanut butter crackers in E308.

I refused to listen to the suggestion of transferring. After being indoctrinated with the idea that college is the best four years of your life, I felt as though transferring would be admitting failure. When I returned in the spring, I forced myself into typical college life. I went to my first keg party and tried to find something in common with my hall mates. I joined clubs. I hooked up with the cute new guy on the floor below me.
But one Sunday morning I woke up hung-over and frustrated with my attempts to fit in. Blinking in the late morning sun, I crawled out of bed and sat down at my computer. I typed in the address to Skidmore College’s website. My second-choice school suddenly sounded appealing. The next few months passed in a blur — a flurry of applications, nervous anticipation of an acceptance letter, and constant worry over whether I was making the right choice.

I don’t think any of the inquirers know what it’s like to have to do the first day of college all over again. My first day at Skidmore, I emptied the boxes from my car, and then sat on the bed in my new room, waiting for my dad to arrive with the rest of my belongings. My roommate, Victoria, had arrived on campus two weeks ago for field hockey camp. She had warned me when we spoke over the summer that she was a huge Britney Spears fan, and several posters of her idol were taped to the wall. I could hear the excited voices of freshmen embarking on college life for the first time. I could feel the dread creeping up on me, and I silently pleaded, “Not this again, please not this again.”

My dad arrived outside my dorm an hour later. “Stop being so cranky!” he ordered when I snapped at him. Then, I broke down and cried because my Ethernet cable didn’t reach across the room, and I had forgotten my alarm clock at home.
My dad decided not to sit through a second freshmen orientation. “Relax,” he told me before he left. “And don’t judge anyone for at least six months.”

All the freshmen were clinging to their roommates, but there was no sign of my Britney Spears loving, field hockey playing roommate. The emails we had exchanged over the summer made me think we could be friends, so I was eager to meet her. She breezed into the room minutes before I was about to leave for my second President’s Welcome. “I’m Victoria,” she said coolly. She threw her bag on the floor on my side of the room, and pulled out her cell phone. “Annie?” she asked. “Ohymygod, is the list posted yet? I’m like, sooooo nervous!”
I waited until she was off the phone. “Um, are you coming to the meeting?” I asked.

She must not have heard the question, because she dashed out the door. I walked down to the gym alone.

All the freshmen had an orientation group assignment on their welcome packet. I didn’t. No one seemed to be able to tell me where transfers were supposed to go. I ran into a guy who was asking the same question, gesturing towards his sticker-less folder.

“Are you a transfer?” I asked.

“Yeah, it looks like none of us got group assignments,” he said. “Let’s stick together, maybe we can figure out where we’re supposed to go. I’m Ryan.” He wasn’t wearing tie-dye or Birkenstocks. I smiled genuinely for the first time that day and introduced myself.

Eventually, they hoarded the thirty of us lost transfer students into a room with an insufficient number of chairs. Apparently, sitting on the floor in a circle is an essential part of any college experience. “Now,” our cheerful peer advisor began, “lets go around the circle, and everyone tell us your name and where you transferred from. Oh, and tell us why you transferred!”

There was silence until Ryan mentioned he transferred from Northeastern because he wanted a smaller English Department, and a girl named Ashley volunteered that her school in Manhattan had been too business oriented. Most of us choked on our words.

“I transferred from Hampshire College, because um…I was just not happy with the…community,” I mumbled. “Um, I had a bad freshman year, and Skidmore was my second choice in high school. So, here I am.” Christina, who a few moments ago admitted to the room full of strangers that she’d had a traumatic first year, caught my eye. We exchanged smiles.

When it was time to return to the dorm for residence hall meetings, I looked for Victoria, thinking we could walk back together, but she had already left.

No one who has asked these questions knows that, beyond the unhappiness and loneliness that motivated me to transfer, my biggest concern about transferring was being able to graduate on time. Faced with numerous pesky requirements at Skidmore, I was terrified of having to be on “the Five-Year Plan.”

A few weeks ago a girl in one of my classes asked me what I was taking next semester.

“I won’t be here next semester,” I replied. “I’m graduating in December.”

“Oh, you took an extra semester,” she said knowingly. “Yeah, I’m thinking I may be doing that too.”

“Actually, I’m graduating early.”

“What? You’re graduating early?” she exclaimed. “That’s like, impressive, I guess. I want to stay a college student as long as I can!”

I smiled vaguely at the sentiment, and gave my patented response to the surprise people always expressed when I told them I was ending the best four years of my life early. “Well, I’m saving my parents a lot of money.”

I wonder if any of them know what it’s like when college just isn’t the best four years of your life.

“I need to talk to you,” Britney/Victoria demanded on the fourth day at Skidmore. We hadn’t really seen much of each other, but a nice conversation the night before had left me thinking the ice might finally be breaking. Besides, Britney Spears music was better than the drum circles that incessantly played outside my window at Hampshire.

“Yeah?” I asked, barely looking up from the homework.

“Ohmygod! I can’t stand how like, you’re always here, doing work or whatever. I can’t, like, bring my friends by if you’re here.”

“I don’t mind if you bring your friends by,” I said absently. “You won’t bother me.”

“No, like…I already have a LOT of friends. And you don’t.”

She had my attention. “And?” I prompted.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re…you’re like, a loser! God! I really don’t think we should live together. So you have to get, like, one of those room change things. And could you leave for the day? My boyfriend is coming over.”

Two years later the incident is almost funny. It helps that Britney/Victoria got dumped by the guy she transferred here to be with and nearly failed out of school. I moved in with Steph, another transfer student, and we got along quite well.

I buried myself in books and drowned myself in coffee. I spent some time with Christina, Steph, and some of the other girls I met at orientation. We had dinner together in the dining hall almost every night and watched chick flicks on the weekends. We came to refer to ourselves as the transfer girls. The next fall, we counseled a new group of transfers through their tears. I immersed myself in my work and became obsessed with my major. Occasionally, I had a drink at the Parting Glass with a few other government students and my favorite professors. Eventually, the transfer girls went our separate ways, but Christina and I still made 1 A.M. trips to Dunkin’ Donuts.

It’s my last semester at Skidmore, and I’ve never been to Excelsior, the off-campus party house that throws a huge bash at the beginning of every year. I’ve been to the bars downtown exactly twice and I’ve never partied on State Street. More than eighty percent of campus voted for John Kerry in the last presidential election, but I am the token libertarian member of the Young Republican Club. When Christina dragged me to the first Senior Night of the year, I knew about six people in the crowded restaurant.

And I sit in my room most Friday nights, hearing the drunken revelry outside, half-wishing I could participate. But then I shrug and turn back to whatever book is in front of me. I don’t really like beer anyway.

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I am the token libertarian member of SYRA. If my parents knew I had joined a club with Republican in the title I think they’d cry. I speak up in class and I’m not shy about expressing my opinions if you ask, but I don’t go out of my way to make it known that I’m probably one of the more conservative people on this campus. I don’t write articles for the SkidNews, that’s bashed my club every week. Even though I can write coherent articles it just seems pointless to publish something that people will dismiss because its ‘conservative.’ I don’t know.

Maybe I’m not putting enough faith in the Skidmore community, but in the past year and a half, I’ve found that the ‘collegiate liberals’ here are barely better than Hampshire. Sure they shower more often, and don’t think money is evil, since most of them have quite a lot, but they hold similar narrow-minded views that they refuse to see past. And I don’t understand. College is, ideally, supposed to challenge you, and challenge you’re perceptions of the world. Skidmore doesn’t do that. Most students enter Skidmore as relatively liberal, and take Liberal Studies which is supposed to teach you to think about things the way you never did before, but really just confirms all the comfortable ideas most people already have. It’s approach is normative and no conclusions are drawn. The class would have been controversial in my upper middle class white high school, filled with kids whose parents “Vote for Reagan” signs on their lawns had scared my hippie mother when we first moved to the area. At Skidmore, it just seems to enforce what almost everyone already believes. It doesn’t challenge any assumptions.

Again, maybe I’m just being cynical, but its been a long time since I felt this disillusioned. At Hampshire I found crazy hippies somewhere to the left of communist who spouted endless ridiculous rhetoric and discounted my view because I’m white and straight. At Skidmore I’ve found classes full of people who don’t do their reading, liberals who think the views they acquired freshman year will guide them through the rest of their lives, and a community that is rather intolerant of views that do not fit into its touchy-feely liberal scheme. You’ll certainly never find “The Closing of the American Mind” in LS1 or read a Phyllis Schafly article in Women Studies 101. If the general population doesn’t agree with it, it isn’t discussed. So many viewpoints, so many ideas are discounted, and even ignored. In high school, the focus was narrow and I was under the impression that that changed in college. I was wrong.

I’ve changed since graduating high school, I’m still dramatic, but more quiet – a product of barely uttering a word my entire tenure at Hampshire. I’m less cynical, less bitter, and less angry, because I am more content with my surroundings (sometimes) and my life. I’m not as notorious. I’m somewhat alienated from a good part of campus life, and getting here a year late didn’t help that. I’m not unhappy with that. I like “my” version of college life, even though its often atypical. I love the government department and talking to my professors and getting obsessed with my reading.

But I don’t like being attacked in the paper in a baseless article. I don’t like being in class and having everyone in the room gang up on me, and rudely tell me I’m wrong without even letting me finish my sentence. I don’t expect people to agree with me, in fact, I’m perfectly willing to engage anyone who disagrees with me. I’m not afraid to defend what I believe. I am, however, insulted by the fact that liberals here are so threatened by conservative views that they have to result to anti-SYRA propaganda. I find it appauling that if I try to express myself before Senate I’m accused of breaking the honor code because my opinion is apparently aligned with ‘not upholding the integrity of Skidmore College.’ I find it depressing when people raise completely irrational ideas in class that have no basis in reality and are applauded for their compassionate liberal thinking. And sometimes, I’m lonely, because all I want to do is have a beer and argue about books and politics and ideas, and that’s when I really miss my o-town friends.

Skidmore is not what I expected it to be. I knew it was liberal (and that fits with a lot of my views, actually). I knew it was a mix of hippies and rich kids. I didn’t know they’d lie to me like this. I was promised a challenge and what I’ve gotten is a place where I can whip out a 10 page paper 2 days before and get an A, when Ms Roeser would have just shook her head and used the “STOP” stamp. I’m not unhappy here. College, overall, has just not been what I’ve expected. I’ve created my own form of the college experience, and I’m fine with that, most of the time. It just makes me cynical sometimes. I am, after all, “the cynical one” of the LTTC.

I want beer and good conversation and I want college liberals to stop being so afraid of the views that they try to so hard to counter.
But I’ll take 2 out of 3 (but don’t be sad cause 2 out of 3 ain’t bad)

What I will always remember is where I was when I found out. (Cliched, I know)

I was at Hampshire when it happened, walking back from my 9:00 AM Philosophy class. The events had already began when class started, and had commenced by the time we ended, but we didn’t know it. I was walking past FPH and saw Phil, a crazy guy from my orientation group talking with some of his activist people about how he had to get online and see what some alternative news site was saying. I thought nothing of it.

I ran into Yuli and Antonias, two people I will never see again in my life on the path between Dakin and STAR and they told me about the Pentagon bombing, then I ran into John going into the building who told me about the World Trade Center. It was very surreal, but thats what everyone says. It is so strange to think that I was at Hampshire, a year that feels like it was a dream, when what will probably go down as the most significant historical event of my lifetime occured. It’s just very weird, and I can’t explain why.

There are people here, who, like last year, are using it as an opportunity to bash Bush and his decision to bomb Afghanistan afterwards, which is just…irritating. They rant and rave about the sanctity of human life, but use a supposed “Day of Rememberence” to talk about how the lives of Afghani people (whom they’ve forgotten since the War in Iraq) are so valuable, etc.

I’m not being very articulate, perhaps because I feel emotionally detached from most of it. Everyone has a story about what they were doing on that day, and mine is trite, without any real meaning. Its just something I’ll always remember.

There were the endless broadcasts that showed the towers falling, over and over and over again, there were the Special Editions of Time and Newsweek, there were months and months of stories about the survivors and about the victims family left behind. The details eventually blur, and everyone becomes jaded from too much information. The event turns into something else entirely — a way to glorify ordinary people, who may or may not have helped crash a plane in Pennsylvania to stop it from hitting Washington, a widow, who gets attention, even though thousands of other women are widowed every day. A newly single mother, whose kids get scholarships, when thousands of other kids whose fathers died in car crashes or other mundane ways can’t afford college. Its a way to make us feel better about what we couldn’t control, I think.

Twenty years from now, save the endless broadcasts of the towers falling, I probably won’t clearly remember most of this stuff, unless someone reminds me. But walking up the path between Dakin and STAR, I probably will.

Brent: skidmore is like hampshire lite
Me: I KNOW
Brent: it’s like the six flags to disney world

Me: six flags tries to be disney world though, skidmore doesn’t try to be hampshire

Brent: true but you know full well when you’re at six flags that you are not at disney world
Me: yes, well either way, its an invasion
Brent: you must respond with terrorist acts

Brent and I are Going to Hell

You towelheads!
Stop building up ammo
If you Islamofacists don’t stop
We’ll kill your camels

The United States doesn’t want to bomb
It just wants your support and aplomb
Please don’t fret over the U.S. invasion of foreign soil
We’re only doing it for the oil

he’s a reaganite, that seems to rule out ‘smart’

-my brother, on a hot Republican guy that I claim is smart

Cavellero: hey, italian people carry vendettas their whole lives!
DagnyCat522: thats true
Cavellero: i really will kill someone for you if you want
Cavellero: i am a fine upstanding person
Cavellero: but perfectly willing to be violent if someone messes with Rachel.

DagnyCat522: my right shoulder hurts a lot for some reason
ZyuzinZ: hm
ZyuzinZ: were you outside playing frisbee on the quad?
DagnyCat522: the green dear, not the quad
DagnyCat522: and i don’t play such prole sports.
ZyuzinZ: well i was trying to make it sound collegiate
ZyuzinZ: maybe you pulled it while helping your friends carry a keg?
DagnyCat522: yes i am collegiate like that
ZyuzinZ: sorry i’m just thinking of college-y things that you could be doing
ZyuzinZ: were you carrying a sign at a protest with your right hand?

I’m going to attempt to quit my job due to the unhealthiness of it all. I’m also cheating on my live journals are whatstheword right now, but thats okay, because I also cheated on the away message rules. Hm. How incoherent.

Goal: Do less stuff next week.

Oh also, in a discussion of political affiliation in Soc Imaginations (Best.class.ever) someone asked me why I came to Skidmore (a liberal school) when I hated Hampshire (the uber liberal school. I just used uber twice.)

Which made me think about the difference between their degrees of liberalness.

Hampshire students are just unreasonable. I don’t know where they come from or what planet they think they’re on, but they are fucking nuts. They also don’t shower. Skidmore students are not in your face with their views. They do equally dumb things when it comes down to it, but they don’t sit in the longues on Friday nights and talk about gender.

Skidmore students are also so much friendlier (overall) than Hampshire students and political affiliation matters much less because its not the first thing people ask. You really only get into political-ish stuff if you want to. If you don’t care about it, you can ignore it. Not that I considered Skidmore liberalness a bad thing when I transferred. If it means I can take lots of Government courses and rant and meet the coolest other transfer people ever that makes it ‘right’ enough for me. A non-witty pun.

Anyway, there’s a protest organized by Hammpshire, in conjunction with SPR, at Westover Air Force Base (in Western Massachusetts). Students have commented that the goal of this protest is to ‘enlighten’ the military and educate them, because they are misinformed and ignorant. By protesting, the peaceniks are convinced they will be able to stop the men and women on this base from engaging in combat, and will be able to block military equipment from leaving the base. Hm.

First of all, thats ridiculously condescending to someone in the military. They can read you know. They aren’t stupid individuals. Furthermore, to claim that they are ‘misinformed’ is even more ridiculous. In many ways the military probably knows more about the situation than the average citizen — especially since so many of the peaceniks are completely unwilling to educate themselves on both sides of the issue. Furthermore, do they really think that suddenly these people are going to drop their weapons and give up combat and war?

Finally, ‘blocking military equipment from leaving the base’ is not only illegal its rather disrespectful. Protest all you want, so long as it does not impede on the rights of others.

The sad thing is, that in my more cynical moments, I’m glad we’re finally at war because it shows these ignorant individuals that all their protesting and rhetoric was for naught.