Revelations Revised

So tonight I sit and think about the last 4 years of my life. I am officially done with college and I can't get a job, so I'm trying to decide if the hard work and 30,000 I owe was worth it.

I look back at the blur of 4 years that flashed before my eyes. The people I've met, the places I've gone and all the in-between. I've been to some of the best parties, hell I've thrown some of the best parties, but now I wonder if I was too intoxicated to appreciate it. I look back at a lot of photos and don't remember being there. I'm not an idiot, I know it happened, but there are some instances when I cannot remember what events took place.

Four years later, 10 pounds heavier, and much much wiser, I cannot believe it's over. I'm sitting here depressed, upset and wondering if I'll regret the things I did and didn't do.

My first year spent as an apprentice under Big Mike. At least 3 nights a week I made the hike up to 124 B Lorentz Avenue . The venue where I learned how to drink and drank away the majority of my freshman year. If we weren't sitting around playing pong or a card game, I was out tagging along with Mike to a random party, drinking until I made some new friends. I even still have the lid off the first Natty Light keg I purchased. When I wasn't with Big Mike, I was at Stalnaker, hanging out with my first real group of friends in college.

My second year was the first time I was really out on my own. We partied MORE than I did the previous year. Bottles upon bottles of Liquor most of the time. I still cannot stand the smell of Bacardi Big Apple. Nights spent at the pool or in the hot tub, climbing fences hammered in flip flops just to get in. Lots of power hours, lots of beer pong, lots of drinking.

The first half of my junior year was pretty consistent with the latter. I was ONE block from campus at the end of Grant Street. A freshman dorm could be seen form my front porch. This is where we threw the best parties, and where I'd like to say my best memories were from. We called it the Black Hole, Beta Theta Omega, home. It was J-Nelly and I, against the world. Summer 07 was one for the books, and what I would call the peak of my collegiate career. And if you are following with me chronologically, all of the best times occurred before I was 21. 

This is also when I drifted the most from my freshman year friends, and met a new bunch of people from work. 

In October of 2007, I met the girl who changed my life. We had our crazy party antics for a while, but she shipped me into shape. The semester after I met her I made Dean's List. It was time to grow up some, but we still went out from time to time. Football Saturdays drinking at 10 in the morning, power hours on the porch after class was out on Fridays. The sun was always up when the night began. 

In April my house was condemned and I moved in with her, back to the Ridge, miles away from campus. Life was great.

It was my Senior year that really toned it down. The crazy crew from summer 07 drifted apart, my old roommate and best friend moved out, leaving me to live with a somewhat stranger. I cannot regret what happened. Big Mike graduated, J-Nelly moved out, and all my coworkers went their separate ways. People change, and few stay true to themselves. The best advice I can give to those going into college is live in the moment because the good times don't last long enough. That and it's the people you're with that make the night. Anyways I didn't go out nearly as much, I didn't have that great deep well rounded group of friends anymore. I tried to force it a few times, I was always me, true to myself and everyone who knew me, but you can only do so much. People want to go downtown, I just wanted to have a party... Its not the light and sounds for me, no, I don't need a club with loud music and expensive drinks, I just need good company, a case of beer, and my own set of tunes.

So thats about the shortest summary I can give of my college career. I missed a lot of classes, drank a lot of booze and burned through a lot of friends.

Cheers