I’ve never been at Spring Fling for more than a few hours. I never went to a Parade Day. I consider Sundays more appropriate for drinking than Fridays, because Saturday often means early morning rehearsal. To that end, wine in sweatpants is code for an awesome night. When I have little to do, I saunter aimlessly over to a particular lobby. I like long hours. Scratch that — I love long hours.
These may not sound like the words of someone about to graduate from Binghamton University, but they are. Don’t get me wrong, I had a very, very, very typical first semester as a freshman. We can discuss those stories at a later date — oh wait, this is my last column. Never mind then.
But the rest of my college career has been something of an anomaly, something you don’t hear about every day, unless you too have taken a nap in the Watters Lobby or in room 333 of the Fine Arts Building.
That room, by the way, is the one you’ve probably walked through and been yelled at to “go around the other way!” I might have been one of those people at some point.
So, since my usual topic as of late — musing over the impending reality of graduation — is futile at this point, I may as well take a little time to appreciate my experience at Binghamton and give a little bit of a shout-out to my fellow anomalies.
You may know who we were; you were required to watch us for one of your GenEds, I am sure. That person you thought was outrageously talented was probably one of my best friends. That person you thought was actually a seven-year-old was probably me.
Theater majors and minors are not different, but at the same time, we are; we come out of the other end in our cap and gown knowing that our unique college experience doesn’t make us better than anyone — Math in Action was a challenge for me — but that we will never have the same stories as anyone else. Most days of the week are often 12-hour days, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our passion drives us through the long hours, and we hate missing class because we love class … We play in class!
And then we trudge up to the Lecture Hall and maybe look just like anybody (except with our bags of props for classes; I have looked like a bag lady before), but we do what we have to. We aren’t boring — we go out, we have parties, we are required to celebrate a blade of grass for one of our required classes for the major (seriously) — we just operate on a different schedule. This has been my college experience.
I know it’s different, and I know it may not sound like fun to some people. But this brings me to the best thing about BU: it’s so big, it’s so wide, it’s so full of all different kinds of people, that no two people can have the same experience. Even within the circle of people I know, there are variations. You can make it whatever you want, and hopefully you get shot out of the commencement cannon happy with your overall experience.
To that end, I’m getting shot out shortly. Scary? Sure. But class of 2011: Love your variation of the Binghamton experience, because no one has the same story as you do. Carry it with you and let that make you face the Real World without fear. Whatever your experience was will feed you in reality.
I may break out in a line of Shakespeare or in song to express my emotions, but the engineer is going to save the falling building, right? You fix the building, I’ll bring you the Bard and a song. We’re so different, but we share that collective Binghamton-alumnus unity … so … uh … I hope this song-for-safety exchange works to my advantage.
Congratulations to the class of 2011, and to the rest of you, enjoy your experiences here, whatever they may be. See you all in the Big, Bad, Real World … which will always be capitalized.