Tales from the Lost Semester - Volume 1

Greetings, dear readers! First and foremost, I realize that this blog has been so sporadically updated that many of my nine loyal readers may have jumped ship and stopped regularly checking up on the happenings inside my scary, scary mind. This makes me sad, for I know how dearly these nine special individuals (you know who you are) rely on my musings to get them through their otherwise humdrum collective existence. They stare at this majestic web page with their finger forever depressed on the F5-refresh button, screaming at the top of their lungs, “write something, you sick freak!” until they are so exhausted with dismay that their bodily functions go awry and they shit themselves, which for those who have desk jobs can be rather embarrassing as one can imagine.

Recently I asked myself why it is so damn difficult for me to consistently produce quality writings for you, the reader. Seeing as I own a computer at home and am chained directly to one for a minimum of eight hours per day, five days a week, and that in both of these settings I have access to the glorious Internet, you’d think it’d be a no-brainer, a slam dunk, a walk in the park for me to churn out quality goods day in and day out. However, given that I am not paid to be a writer (at least not when the topic turns to poor reality television, celebrity trash, defecating or other pleasant matters), I am forced to spend a majority of my day thinking of things other than how I can creatively insult the participants of The Bachelor or who I wish would become inflicted with gonorrhea at a particular point in time. And when at home, I often find myself doing something productive like (in descending order of importance) spending time with Michelle, exercising, playing Playstation or staring dumbly at the TV, hoping to find more material that I never seem to write about. As you can plainly see, my plate is full.

All that, of course, is a hunk of bullshit – the real reason I lag in my writings is not because of my competing priorities – if I can find time to read Us Weekly, I sure as hell can find time to write about it. However, given the intelligence of you, my nine loyal readers, I highly doubt that I can satiate your appetites with constant updates on Brittney Spears’ rapid descent into irreversible white-trashdom, the tragic saga of Nick and Jessica’s desperate attempt to cling to the spotlight, or Tom Cruise’s sham relationship with Katie Holmes. Not that I ever want to stop writing about these things, of course – it’s just that I grew tired of writing the same old things about the same old material. So what if Charlie O’Connell broke down and cried like a little girl on the live finale of The Bachelor? Who cares about which mentally unstable starlet Brad Pitt happens to be banging? Why should I give a shit, let alone two, about Paris Hilton’s boyfriend named Paris or Nicole Ritchie becoming the latest pseudo-celebrity to adopt the hot new Anorexia Look?

These days it’s all about diversification and I need to keep it fresh. To do so, I have decided to open the vault on a dark and sordid chapter of my past, one that will now serve as the basis for future ramblings. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to…Tales from the Lost Semester! That’s right, in the coming weeks I will regale you with the trials and tribulations of J – Second Semester College Freshman. I realize that some of my readers may be quaking in their boots right now, as they recall the details of their ugly pasts that are certain to surface in these writings. Please rest assured that, where possible, I will change the names to protect the reputations of the not-so-innocent – however, to those of you who are already in the know, there should be some unmistakably fun and/or embarrassing reminiscing going down.

Allow me to set the stage for what’s to come: The year is 1993, and I have just completed my first semester at my fair alma mater, the University of Illinois. My first semester at U of I was an experience to say the least – moving away from home for the first time, pledging a fraternity (which gave me great insight as to why people ridicule fraternities), living in the dorms with a 6’6” douchebag who thought a joke about hanging mobiles from the ceiling was cutting edge (his voice still haunts me), experiencing the joys of being able to drop a class you were earning a D in, building solidly on the foundations of the beer and reefer addictions I developed during senior year in high school – those were magical times.

However, when the clock struck ’93, my life took a turn – not necessarily for the worse, more like for the surreal. The Lost Semester was a time of discovery; a time of missed classes, missed opportunities, frat house living, late night food, 12-packs on Monday nights, vomiting, low self-esteem, high friends, hockey, hallucinogens, jury duty, conflict, poor decisions, bad grades and good times. Oh, and tons and tons of pot. As you can see, the potential for amusing tales is endless! Hopefully this series of yarns will give you some insight as to why I took the slow road to corporate advancement and why I sometimes have to ask you to repeat what you’ve just said to me multiple times over. And just for future reference, The Lost Semester is defined as the period from January 1, 1993 until the beginning of sophomore year classes in September 1993 – take a ‘trip’ back with me, won’t you?

So, since I promoted this piece as a Tale from the Lost Semester, I feel I owe you a teaser story:

The Paper

Myself and two individuals that may or may not have been my roommates (how’s that for avoiding implication!) were all enrolled in Classic Civ 116 – Greek and Roman Society. You know the type of class – all the upperclassmen tell you it’s a blow off, easy A class – a death trap if I ever heard one. It really was probably a fascinating class – the three or four times I attended the lecture were really cool, and I think my discussion section TA was interesting – I really don’t remember because I think I only met him twice. You see, the problem was that when I signed up for the course, I decided to schedule my discussion section for Friday at 1:00 – to go along with the four other discussion sections I scheduled on Friday. Yes you heard right – I scheduled five, count ‘em, FIVE discussions sections on Friday. This is a lesson to you youngsters out there – don’t set your class schedule when stoned. At any rate, I was far too busy on Fridays with other matters (i.e. my Super Tecmo Bowl Blind Draw Best of 27 Tournament against O’Hal, in which he beat me 14 games to 12) to concern myself with class. I was a busy man, you see!

Somehow or another, it came to my attention that there was a paper coming due, on what I have no idea – probably Greek and Roman Society, no? Well, the two fellows who were also enrolled in the class and I used our impaired powers of deduction to figure out that we all had different TA’s for this class. “Hey,” one of us said, “since we all have different TA’s, we can all pitch in, write one paper, and each turn it in as our own!” Sheer brilliance! There’s no way anyone would ever figure it out! So we went about divvying up the duties – Friend One (we’ll call him the Miser) would perform the research, Friend Two (let’s call him CS) would draft the outline and shell of the paper, and yours truly would revise the draft, clean it up and secure three copies for delivery. A master plan if there ever was one! So we went about our business – researching, drafting, writing – and after all was said and done, I thought we had a real masterpiece on our hands (again, I can’t tell you what the paper was about – either the Roman Senate, Greek Theater or Vomitoriums and their place in Roman Upper Class Society). Once the due date arrived, we all turned in our papers and prayed that none of our TA’s were on speaking terms about papers they had read.

After a few more weeks of skipping class I decided that I better go see how I did on that paper, so I put down the Nintendo controller and wandered over to whatever building the class was in (Gregory Hall, perhaps?). The TA had the papers graded and handed them out to the class, eventually getting to me. My grade? C. First things first – I exhaled, thanking God above that it didn’t have a note attached telling me and my cohorts to go see the dean of our respective schools where we would be booted from the sacred soil of Morrill Plots for eternity as the Alma Mater statue covered her face in shame. After my initial feelings of relief had passed, I then started to feel a little bummed – I really thought that sucker was pretty good and deserved a B, but who was I to rock the boat? I figured the grade had as much to do with my class participation as with the quality of the writing, so I let it go.

That evening, as one of the gents who may or may not have been my roommate reached into our little cabinet of tricks to prepare that evening’s “relaxation session”, we began to discuss the fact that none of us had been expelled for turning in the same paper.

“Hey Miser,” I asked. “What did you get on the paper?”

“I got an A – what about you, CS?”

“I got a B”.

“Fuck me!” I cried. “I got a goddamned C!”

Our first instinct was to raise our voices and ask why such an injustice had occurred. But then we started to ask ourselves just who the hell we were going to approach with our concerns. Were we going to confront our TA’s and ask why they saw fit to give the same paper three different grades? Were we going to whine to the professor, who surely would have had our asses kicked out of there faster than you can say “Aquapipe”? Were the TA’s hip to our little game, just waiting for one of us to complain about our grade? We were screwed.

That is to say I was screwed – the Miser and CS got away with an A and B on the paper respectively, while I got stuck with the C. Not that it did me much good, seeing as I ended up failing the class (my only F ever) due to my gross lack of class participation. But at least I kept that Best of 27 series close. Next time, O’Hal, you’re going down.

Until next time...