| It's odd how after seven hours of sitting in front of the tv doing absolutely nothing I can be spurred into action at 2:00 in the morning. I'm gonna try that again tommorow. Maybe I'll end up doing some homework. There's no shortage of it. And with that I'll get right into it..... Ladies and Gentleman this is... The College Journal No. 1 The first, and most important, word of advice I can offer to anybody that hasn't made the jump from the confines of high school to the confines of a 10 by 10 box (also known as a dorm room) is to room with someone you know. "Don't room with a friend." people less intelligent than I will tell you,"By the end of the year you'll hate them." The truth is you're going to hate your roommate at some point in time whether you knew them before college or not. What's important is the fact that by rooming with a friend you'll keep those moments of bitter hatred to a minimum, but if you go in blind you could quite possibly end up hating your roommate from the minute you meet until the day you die. (Granted I haven't died yet but right now the odds are pretty good that I'm going to be in that latter category.) Movin right along.... Let me tell you something. Until someone proves me wrong I'm gonna claim that I have the most difficult freshman classes found anywhere outside the Ivy League. The next time you're in a bookstore pick up a copy of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. It's a terrific book, all 758 pages of it, filled with such wonderful insights as "The real advantage of democracy is not, as some have said, to favor the prosperity of all, but only to serve the well-being of the greatest number." And that book seemed like a vacation compared to our first assignment, The Federalist Papers. (For the historically illiterate there's a link, you should probably figure out what the Fed Papers are.) I'm not complaining about the classes or the workload. Actually I think I'm bragging. Don't worry I won't be gloating after my GPA has dropped to a .05 and they kick me out of school three weeks from now. Just a quick update on an article I wrote a few months back. It seems the music industry has now turned its attention to suing 12 year old girls along with college students like myself who have to collect the deposits on our empty bottles to pay for pizza. I can't remember if I mentioned this last time but what kind of a business files lawsuits against its customers? I couldn't get through a whole column without mentioning my run-in with 2000 NCAA Tournament MVP Mateen Cleaves. The Flint native and I had a nice chat at the Sept. 6 MSU-Rutgers football game. And I'm expecting an invitation to hang out at his place in Sacramento sometime soon. More important than the meeting with Mateen was the idea that stemmed from it. If I can run into Mateen Cleaves, what about Magic Johnson? Or Steve Smith? Or Plaxico Burress? Or...or...MORRIS PETERSON? (I'll explain why Mo happens to be Pete's idol in another article). Anyway... the point of the story is I carry a camera with me all the time now because this place is like Hollywood without the nice weather. I'm starting to lose a lot of respect for people that ride bikes to class every day. Not because they're too lazy to walk... which they are. Or because I'm jealous that I don't have one... which I am. No, I don't like the kids that ride bikes because after a week of school they adopt a New York taxi style of driving. Go fast. Don't brake. Watch pedestrians jump out of the way. I was already worried about the morons in their cars driving up onto the sidewalk and hitting me. Now I've gotta peek around every corner to make sure there isn't a Korean kid waiting to run my @ss over with his Huffy. It's not safe to walk on the sidewalks anymore. I walk on the grass. Fifteen feet away from concrete at all times. Finally, I have a bit of a problem. Macroeconomics 201. Yeah it's almost as fun as it sounds. I've discovered that I learn the material in this class much, much better when I read the textbook (which the prof never touches) on my own. Quite honestly nothing would make me happier than skipping every class between now and the exam. But- you knew there was a but- we take a quiz at the beginning of every single class period. Now it's true that skipping the quizzes won't lower my average much from what I'm getting now and that if I took a zero on every single one of them it would have little to no effect on my overall grade, but they're like free points at the end of the semester. The closest thing to extra credit I'm going to see in college. I've also considered just leaving as soon as the quiz is over. Which is exactly what a third of the class does already. The only trouble with that is I'm always one of the last to arrive (I have 20 minute gap between classes and a 15 minute walk) so I have to sit all the way across the auditorium from the door. I haven't had the nerve to get up, walk across the entire class, and leave. Yet. So Basically I'm looking for suggestions. Should I blow the class off entirely? Should I quit after the quizzes? Should I tough it out? How can I keep myself amused for an hour and twenty minutes? Let me know what you think. [email protected] HOME |
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