-I graduate college in about a month.  That is some seriously fucked up shit.  Although I’m pretty psyched for life after college, the past four years have been wild to say the least.  I can’t believe this is the last issue of Ruminations on College Life.  Well, let’s make it a good one…

-I don’t know why it never struck me before, but isn’t it strange how your room at home is frozen in time?  Walking into my old bedroom is like walking into 1996.  There are posters of Kathy Ireland and Patrick Ewing lining the walls, there’s a little tiny bed in the corner, and a phone with a bunch of people I never talk to anymore programmed in the memory.  Here’s a tip for pre-froshes out there: when your parents threaten to change your room into a study after you leave for college, take them up on the offer!

-My friend had an interesting experience with a professor last month.  He went to office hours to argue for more points on a paper he had just gotten back.  The professor skimmed the paper, mulled it over for a minute, and then said, “You know what?  This paper is actually worse than I first thought.  I’m going to lower your grade.”  And then he sent my friend on his way.  What a sucker.

-Another one of my friends was a little more creative.  He had an assignment to write a paper about pretty much anything.  One night he went out, got drunk, then came home and wrote a paper about getting drunk and writing a paper.  I think he got a D.

-You know, sometimes life works in mysterious ways.  One day, back in high school, I was playing basketball with some of my friends.  I accidentally smacked into one of my buddies and fucked his shoulder up pretty badly.  He never got it checked out and it would flare up every now and then.  The years passed and my friend ended up joining the Israeli Army.  After a couple of years in the army, my friend was ready to come home but still had mandatory service left.  Last week, he re-aggravated his shoulder and subsequent tests revealed that the original injury had caused permanent (though not debilitating) damage.  As a result, now he gets to leave the army and come home free and clear.  How great is that?  I should seriously injure my friends more often!

-After you give your email address to tons of people, it’s a huge pain in the ass to change it later.  This is especially a problem for people who have graduated college and are somewhat responsible adults but still use the same email address they created in like ninth grade.  It’s pretty hard to take someone seriously when they’re twenty-three and their email address is still pornstar69@hotmail.com.

-My dad can’t wait for me to graduate and start working.  You see, there’s a tradition in the Karo family that when you get your first real job and get your first paycheck, you have to take the whole family out to a really nice dinner.  My dad has been holding this dinner over my head since I was about eight years old.  I’d be going to Little League practice or something and my dad would be like, “Oh, one day you’re gonna buy me some steak dinner, son, I can’t wait!”  No pressure or anything dad!  But don’t worry, you’ll get that steak soon enough…

-While groping for some Tylenol in a hungover state the other morning, I had this thought: why would anyone not buy extra-strength medicine?  You roll into the drugstore and they have regular Tylenol and extra-strength Tylenol.  Obviously you buy the extra-strength.  I mean, can you ever have too much strength?

-The saving of empty beer and liquor bottles is a strange college phenomenon.  I bet most of you reading this right now have some empties on a shelf in your room.  Everyone knows how much us college kids drink, but do we really have to display it?  It’s a good thing this trend stops after college.  Wouldn’t it be weird if your parents had empty bottles of wine up on their bedroom wall?

-Oh, I almost forgot: Spring Break.  I was a little nostalgic before my trip to Acapulco this year.  After all, this would be my third and final Spring Break in the consequence-free environment we call Mexico.  Nonetheless, I soon forgot all my worries as I set off for paradise with a six-pack of Red Bull hidden in my carry-on, next to a big bottle of Tylenol for hangovers – extra-strength of course.

-If you were going to define the term “scene,” you could just show a picture of the pool at the Hyatt in Acapulco.  It’s pretty scary when you combine kids from Penn, Wisconsin, Indiana, Arizona, and Syracuse all in one place.  I felt like I was back home in Long Island, except everyone was eating nachos and guacamole instead of bagels.  The best was watching the chicks catfight over the chairs at the pool.  I guess they couldn’t see that there were 250 other chairs since they were all wearing those stupid purple-tinted sunglasses all the time.

-Acapulco is just plain madness.  Rum is about as cheap as purified water.  Plus, in the hotel there was a bottle opener on the wall of each bathroom.  I guess that’s so you could have a beer while you were shitting your brains out from all the guacamole.  And can you believe I got thrown out of Senor Frog’s?  Do you know how rowdy you have to get to get thrown out of Senor Frog’s?  I don’t either, because I don’t remember a thing.

-In Acapulco, my buddy was absolutely bombed when he met this girl in a club and somehow managed to convince her to go home with him.  During the night, she kept asking him if he was really drunk, but he denied it.  After they hooked up, my friend said to the girl, “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your hotel.”  To which the girl replied, “Asshole, we’re in my room.”

-I just found out that the sororities here at Penn sometimes have mixers with Penn Law School.  How hilarious is that!  I can just imagine a bunch of dirty old third-year law students hitting on eighteen-year-old wasted sorority chicks.  It’s ironic because you’d think the law students would realize what they’re doing is barely legal!

-This past weekend was Spring Fling at Penn.  Spring Fling is three-day sloshfest featuring heavy drinking, bands, funnel cake, and more heavy drinking.  The craziest part was when Tiffany made a special appearance and sung “I Think We’re Alone Now.”  It was wild.  Now, I have never given myself Quote of the Month before, but fuck it, this is the last issue anyway.  Sophomore year I was so fucked up at Spring Fling that I couldn’t even walk and was falling everywhere.  At one point, while lying on my back, unable to get up, I was quoted as saying, “I’ve seen more ceilings than floors today.”

-Next week I’m going to Slope Day at Cornell.  Slope Day is essentially Spring Fling all jammed into one afternoon, but with no funnel cake.  I was there last year and at one point I encountered a severely wasted British dude wandering around in a bathrobe.  I asked him if he was OK and he responded, “If you can stop the world from spinning, I’ll pay you.”  Oh, I’m gonna miss college!

-As a business major, it really boggles my mind when companies do dumbass shit.  Take my phone company.  I go to school in Philadelphia and thus have a Philly phone number, but, as a poor college student, I have my phone bill sent home to my parents in New York.  So what do I see when I walk into my bedroom at home in New York a couple of weeks ago (beside the Kathy Ireland poster)?  The fucking Philadelphia phonebook.  The phone company sent the new Yellow Pages and White Pages to my billing address.  It’s not going to do me much good in New York now is it you assholes!

-Does anyone watch the extras on DVDs?  I was reading a DVD box the other day and it said that it had an interview with the director, behind the scenes footage, and scenes that were cut out from the movie.  I mean, who needs that shit?  Scenes that were cut out of the movie?  Wow, they must be awesome!

-You know who I hate?  Whoever is at the door when you’ve been waiting for Domino’s for an hour and a half and the doorbell rings and you get all excited and run all the way downstairs and open the door only to see some other asshole at the door and not the Domino’s guy.

-Ever notice that 50% of all water fountains don’t work?

-So I’m gonna be making a speech at graduation.  I’ll be doing Ruminations live for the first time!  I’ll probably have to cut out all the cursing, but it will be fun nonetheless.  Speaking of graduation, does everyone really throw their caps up in the air?  If so, how do you get it back?  I think they charge you if you don’t return it and I just spent all my money on DVDs…

-How nice is campus when it’s sunny out?  People are throwing Frisbees and walking dogs and laying out on the green and shit.  I love when tours of prospective students come around and they’re all like, “Wow, is it always like this?”  I just wanna be like, yeah, except from October to March when it’s cold and miserable and no one leaves the house.

-In Ruminations #20, I talked about “that bar,” you know, that bar on campus that everyone goes to all the time, yet everyone complains it sucks but keeps going back anyway?  Well, “that bar” at my school is called Smokey Joe’s.  Smokes has been around forever and, yes, we go there all the time.  A couple of weeks ago, I was there and noticed that there was a digital countdown clock on the wall.  At first I just thought it was counting down to the next St. Patrick’s Day or some shit and didn’t pay much attention.  Then a bunch of us realized it was counting down to graduation—our graduation.  This was unacceptable of course and my friend ended the travesty by smashing the clock with a beer bottle.  In fact, every time I’m in Smokes I make it a point to stop the clock.  Being in “that bar” every night is bad enough without being reminded of how little time we have left!

-I’m in an interesting situation because the memory on my cell phone is full.  Every time I want to put a new number in, I have to delete one that’s already in there.  So when I meet someone new, basically I have to scroll through all the people I know, pick the one I like the least, and delete them.  Its kind of like cell phone Survivor.

-I think you can pretty much classify graduating seniors into three categories.  First, those going off to slave away at full-time jobs (also known as trying to get as rich as possible as fast as possible).  Second, those who are “taking a year off to figure out what I want to do with my life” (also known as let’s see how long I can mooch off my parents before they realize I just sit on the couch all day).  And third, those doing a little bit of both (also known as going to grad school).  By the way, if you don’t know which of these categories you fit into, you’re probably in the second one.

-So this it.  College is almost over.  I’m not sad, though.  I’ll be living in Manhattan, working long hours, not partying that much, waking up early every day… wait a minute, that sucks!  Whatever, real life had to happen eventually, right?  At least I learned a lot of valuable things that will help me in the future, like how to cure a hangover, how to tap a keg, the rules of beer pong… wait a minute, none of those things are really useful outside of college!  Shit.  Oh well.  Anyway, a lot of people have asked me if I am scared about graduating and my answer is no.  I’ve experienced everything that I could these past four years.  I’ve had the time of my life and made great friends.  Right now I’m just enjoying my last few weeks and trying not to look ahead.  Wait, I just heard they fixed the countdown clock again.  Well, looks like I’m off to hit that bar, one last time.  Fuck me!

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