At a school like Middlebury (emphasis there on the like), I find it rather perturbing that I could literally go a month and not step a foot off campus. This is all prefaced of course by the fact that I am a freshman, this is my first year of college, I fully recognize that I do not know the ropes and am, not so much incapable but more precisely I feel I am ill-equipped to objectively make the best use of the resources and offerings I have. And that's really just the way it goes I think; it's normal. I don't think anyone can just walk on as a freshman and be able to achieve their fullest potential as a college student. In fact, just to throw this into the mix, I'm of the view that says that no one ever will full out live up to their greatest human potential. I think sometimes you can catch instances and glimpses of unbridled potential-meeting ass-kicking on the part of an individual, but those moments are shrouded by the self-perpetuating whining and close-mindedness that circulates through dormitories and across campuses -- again, especially in the case of freshman. We already know how codependent kids are in the first few weeks of school (what I have taken to calling the summer camp phase of collegiate life), what with the constant scheduling and coordinating and shameless room-peeking-to-see-if-they're-in-there-oh-wait-it's-just-their-roommate-and-to-be-honest-I-didn't-really-have-any-interest-in-talking-to-them-so-I'm-just-going-to-make-one-comment-about-some-class-I'm-taking-and-some-work-I-have-to-do-so-I-can-be-like-OK-I-should-probably-go-start-my-philosophy-and-then-leave-but-keep-looking-for-people-to-talk-to. But it's true. SO much of our initial conversations with people is small talk about absolutely nothing. You can ask me what classes I'm taking and talk to me about my interests and my goals and what I hope to achieve in college, but don't just nod and say "Whoa that's so cool" when I tell you I'm starting Russian, and then not say anything else. By doing so you force me to says something like "Yeah, it's weird working with a new alphabet and everything, but once you learn that it's not that bad." And then you do the thing again where you nod and I play with my cellphone in my pocket because this conversation is dead. I have subconsciously come up with so many stock phrases I know I'll use for these bullshit autopilot conversations... with what drivel is my mind consumed, and at what cost for that matter?
As a side note, I'd like to touch on the International Quidditch Association World Cup (yeah, I know, it's a little much with the capital letters) that took place this Sunday pretty much a hop and a skip from the building in which I shower, do laundry and wander around my living quarters wondering how for the love of all things holy did my room get so ridiculously dusty. Seriously though, I don't know about anybody else, by I consider myself a relatively clean person for a male my age, and I can say the same for my roommate, but we get these assemblages of dusty fluffy shit that are just bizarre. We have literally no idea what the source of these conglomerations of filth could be. They're already all up in our nooks, and relentlessly they continue their spirited advance on our cranny strongholds. In the words of Dave Chappelle -- that shit is inFURiating! But back to Quidditch, and specifically an example I thought of someone who made the most of his time and resources not just in college, but also in... his own head. You know what I mean. I'm talking about Alex Benepe. This dude had his shit together and executed. He took hold of this this grassyroots game when he was a wee freshman or sophomore maybe and made it into like a huge freaking deal on campus. I mean Quidditch isn't all people talk about my any means but still they get tons of people out there every weekend playing. Running around with brooms between their legs. They sell t-shirts! In my mind an idea or a notion becomes legitimized in the greater society when you can buy a t-shirt confirming its existence. I bought one. I can't wait to wear it NOT at Middlebury. Like in 20 years. So yeah, this weekend was the WC (cue flushing sound) and there were just mad Quidditch players everywhere. The ratio of pairs of spandex to available hits off the soft-serve machine was staggering. LSU came! No, actually, THE Louisiana State University drove their asses all the way to Vermont for a one-day event a lot of my friends here didn't even go check out. Washington State came. There's not a reason out there good enough to convince me that it made practical sense for a team to come all the way from the fucking Pacific Northwest. But cheers to them for actually doing it. They had local food in trucks with awnings! I love it when trucks have awnings. Even though if you were a sandwich shop in Middlebury, VT you'd be stupid if you didn't jump to sponser this thing. It only makes sense. They also had an owlry! With an actual owl! Also some other bird wings, which was kind of morbid I thought. I was standing there like it was my goddamn 7th birthday party around all these little kids just oggling the beauty of this plushy and distinguished-looking bird. I wanted to snuggle with it, and at the same time I wanted to see it plunge inches deep into snow and emerge with a bloody mouse. In the end Middlebury won the tourney, which I thought was actually kind of lame, but the real achievement (holler at me admisSIONS!) was the fact that a Middlebury student just decided to make this happen and it actually did. Good shit Alex Benepe, '09.
[Also as another side note, I herby vow never to employ the term "Middkid" in a serious setting. Kind of annoying, not a fan.]
So what's Burlington got to do (got to do) with it? It blew my face off, that's what it's got to do with... me. Or what it did do... to me. Instead of copping out and doing a play-by-play journalistic account, let's think about why this experience was so meaningful to you Matthew. Remember Matthew: show, but don't tell. Don't bore your reader with trivialities and hollow anecdotes. Make your meaning universal. Stretch yourself. Ha. OK. So I went up there for the purpose of chilling with my homie who is a freshman at the University of Vermarijuanaont. I rolled into pretty much the commercial and cultural hub of Burlington, and to give you a reference point, that was I would say a 15-20 minute walk from the dormitory in which my friend makes his residence. Immediately my mind is blown. I've been kind of toting this idea recently that since I've never really done anything fun in a city before while having the "freedom" I have as a college student, I figured that I wouldn't really know what I was missing out on by going to school in such a remote area, and furthermore (to look at things a little more positively), I have pretty much convinced myself that to an extent I can have fun wherever I am, and that being in a small town like Middlebury won't be a problem at all. That I'll be foine. I'm not totally ruling out that the latter is impossible, but I now do see the obvious merits in having a city right there. Right there! It's... just, like, I mean you're like there and then you're like THERE, man! This shit is awesome! We did urban things! Like walk... in... public! We ate actual pizza in an established parlor of pizza, served by people who don't assume you're going to go to class once you finish eating. Church street is great for its red-brick openness. Once you remove automobiles from a place that they would normally run through, you've got yourself some instant charm. And I bought into it.
You know what else I bought into? Private. Schools. And this is really why my time in Burlington was so illuminating. All you hear when you're applying to college is how you DON'T need to go to a "top" school, a "selective" school. Is it true? Or is just a way to help you prepare for some inevitable rejection? I'm positive it's true. What's that quote about how Mark Twain never let his schooling get in the way of his education? Why don't we actually listen to that?? No, we don't actually take it seriously and incorporate it into our philosophy on life. We just smile, nod, maybe make eye contact with a friendly face and say "You know that is so true though?" and then move on, back to the grind. Sometimes I think for my purposes and the education I'm looking for, I could learn way more from just reading books. On all sorts of subjects. Books are the key. It's sad how I don't read that much anymore. But I don't have the excuse that I hear sometimes that school ruined reading for me and now I can't do it. I refuse to accept that. I will accept that I might be lazy at this point in my life - lazy and certainly easily distracted. But the future holds good things. Anyway, colleges. What do I get at Middlebury? The answer is everything. Given to me. Offered to me. Available to me. Advertised to me. But at the same time, I don't get that freedom that I could feel sitting in that dorm room at UVM. What is freedom? I think when people talk about "all that free time" you suddenly have as a college student, they can mean several different things. I'm not used to having all this time. I'm not used to having all this time with virtually the same tasks to accomplish as I did in high school: homework. When you think of the things you "have" to "do," homework is pretty much the only thing that comes to mind. When I was in high school, I'd do it when I got home. That was kind of normal. But in college, you have so much time! So you will - without fail (hapun) - waste that time, because you feel that the only thing you have to DO is homework. And that's a pretty normal way to go about budgeting your time. But there's so much potential in a college day, it's ridiculous. What happened to being driven? What happened to getting your shit together? You could say that getting your shit together is a state of mind, but really at the end of the day, the only way to have your shit together is to actually have your shit together. Period. This is of course easier said than done. But let's take a look at the differences (in my mind, I'm biased, I'm trying to prove a point, I'm slanted in a certain direction I get it) between a school like Middlebury and a school like UVM.
Midd has dining halls with food all the time, all you can eat. It's really good food. I would never complain about the food. I have a dining hall connected to my dorm! I don't have to walk outside to go eat. How awesome do you think this will be when it's like -40° out? How worth it is that bowl of lucky charms compared to that walk? Luckily I don't pay any tax on my cereal. But how ridiculous is that? Why do I deserve that as a freshman? Why do I need that? I'm not being the dick who resents what he's lucky to have (well...), but I'm just trying to point out how we're all college freshmen, but the systems everywhere are so incredibly different. Middlebury is a bubble. I thought my high school was a bubble, and maybe it was socially, but at least I regularly went out into the world. Remember old people? Remember little kids? It's objectively sad how excited I get when I see little kids playing on swings when I'm on my way to class sometimes. They're just little human beings and that's why I love it so much. Innocence. Seriously. Can't emphasize this enough. Innocence. Not even going to comment about it. But I wish they could bottle that shit. That's it. Also we're all corrupted. But the point is, Midd is not the real world. It's a campus. There are little theme parties and there's gossip flying everywhere and the longest walk you'll ever make is 15 minutes tops and you're with people ALL the time and before any given night on a weekend there's probably a good 35-40 minutes of telephone logistical coordinating that goes on, while everyone else sits disabled in the lounge until some social opportunity comes and herds everyone away. Sometimes I think about how many text messages are flying over campus and it kinda makes me sick. I'm not a nihilist. Maybe I'm a cowardly nihilist, just like I'm an indecisive anarchist and a timid atheist. I'm not totally willing to commit. Back to the point though - the kind of freedom you have at Middlebury in my humble freshman opinion is to take advantage of the clubs, activities, classes, professors, the collegiate life. But at UVM, I feel like there is a different kind of freedom. I have so many opportunities, but am I really living independently here? Drawing from my conversations with my Burlington mate, I would say that the presence of "the man" (the administration etc.) is felt not nearly as much as I feel it at Middlebury. Walking around UVM was a exhilarating and numbing at the same time. As a disclaimer, it did happent to be a really grungy gray metallic day outside, and it was also a Saturday morning so a lot of people were either in bed or hungover scrounging for food, so the feeling on campus was probably a little disproportionately stark. And also it rained as I was running to catch my bus, so obviously, running in the rain, making all your ideas seem way more significant, you know the way it goes. But still!! The word that was stuck in my head was "industrial." Looking out the window from my friend's room it was like the gulag man (I openly admit to having but a vague and fabricated understanding of what the gulag is.). But thoughts are all about association anyway. Free thoughts. Good thoughts. I loved walking through this one gigantic brick building. Apparently it was the physical sciences building. Fucking sweet. I felt like it was 1982 in there. And the past has to be better than the present, right? In my mind it often is at least. My favorite thing ever though? Those old school black signs with the white individual letters. Kinda like those signs outside churches that get parodied all the time. But seeing those signs made me feel that if I went there I would be getting a much grittier, real college experience. Like I was in Good Will Hunting. I want to have a small shitty room. To be in a rundown dorm. To have to walk ten minutes to lunch just to have chicken patties every day. I've gone to small schools all my life. I've been close with the people around me. Maybe now I want to be a nobody, to have some time to myself, to feel alone and deserted. Maybe then I could get some work done.
But I mean, it's all good.
