What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

- Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet

This just in: school’s out, and I’m taking charge of my life.  One of my goals for the summer is to completely revamp my blog.  Starting with – you guessed it – a new name.  Much like myself, my blog has some growing up to do.  In order to do that, it needs to give off a different vibe, send a different message.  I’ve been brainstorming, but haven’t come up with anything good.  Suggestions from the peanut gallery, s’il vous plaît?

I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish someone had shown me this four years ago.

Dear Incoming Freshmen,

As you begin your college experience (and I return to my alma mater in a different role), I offer you these things that, in retrospect, I think are important as you navigate the next four years. I hope that some of them are helpful.

Here goes…

1. Your friends will change a lot over the next four years. Let them.
2. Call someone you love back home a few times a week, even if just for a few minutes.
3. In college more than ever before, songs will attach themselves to memories. Every month or two, make a mix cd, mp3 folder, whatever – just make sure you keep copies of these songs. Ten years out, they’ll be as effective as a journal in taking you back to your favorite moments.
4. Take naps in the middle of the afternoon with reckless abandon.
5. Adjust your schedule around when you are most productive and creative. If you’re nocturnal and do your best work late at night, embrace that. It may be the only time in your life when you can.
6. If you write your best papers the night before they are due, don’t let people tell you that you “should be more organized” or that you “should plan better.” Different things work for different people. Personally, I worked best under pressure – so I always procrastinated… and always kicked ass (which annoyed my friends to no end). ;-) Experiment and see what works best for you.
7. At least a few times in your college career, do something fun and irresponsible when you should be studying. The night before my freshman year psych final, my roommate somehow scored front row seats to the Indigo Girls at a venue 2 hours away. I didn’t do so well on the final, but I haven’t thought about psych since 1993. I’ve thought about the experience of going to that show (with the guy who is now my son’s godfather) at least once a month ever since.
8. Become friends with your favorite professors. Recognize that they can learn from you too – in fact, that’s part of the reason they chose to be professors.
9. Carve out an hour every single day to be alone. (Sleeping doesn’t count.)
10. Go on dates. Don’t feel like every date has to turn into a relationship.
11. Don’t date someone your roommate has been in a relationship with.
12. When your friends’ parents visit, include them. You’ll get free food, etc., and you’ll help them to feel like they’re cool, hangin’ with the hip college kids.
13. In the first month of college, send a hand-written letter to someone who made college possible for you and describe your adventures thus far. It will mean a lot to him/her now, and it will mean a lot to you in ten years when he/she shows it to you.
14. Embrace the differences between you and your classmates. Always be asking yourself, “what can I learn from this person?” More of your education will come from this than from any classroom.
15. All-nighters are entirely overrated.
16. For those of you who have come to college in a long-distance relationship with someone from high school: despite what many will tell you, it can work. The key is to not let your relationship interfere with your college experience. If you don’t want to date anyone else, that’s totally fine! What’s not fine, however, is missing out on a lot of defining experiences because you’re on the phone with your boyfriend/girlfriend for three hours every day.
17. Working things out between friends is best done in person, not over email. (IM does not count as “in person.”) Often someone’s facial expressions will tell you more than his/her words.
18. Take risks.
19. Don’t be afraid of (or excited by) the co-ed bathrooms. The thrill is over in about 2 seconds.
20. Wednesday is the middle of the week; therefore on wednesday night the week is more than half over. You should celebrate accordingly. (It makes thursday and friday a lot more fun.)
21. Welcome failure into your lives. It’s how we grow. What matters is not that you failed, but that you recovered.
22. Take some classes that have nothing to do with your major(s), purely for the fun of it.
23. It’s important to think about the future, but it’s more important to be present in the now. You won’t get the most out of college if you think of it as a stepping stone.
24. When you’re living on a college campus with 400 things going on every second of every day, watching TV is pretty much a waste of your time and a waste of your parents’ money. If you’re going to watch, watch with friends so at least you can call it a “valuable social experience.”
25. Don’t be afraid to fall in love. When it happens, don’t take it for granted. Celebrate it, but don’t let it define your college experience.
26. Much of the time you once had for pleasure reading is going to disappear. Keep a list of the books you would have read had you had the time, so that you can start reading them when you graduate.
27. Things that seem like the end of the world really dobecome funny with a little time and distance. Knowing this, forget the embarassment and skip to the good part.
28. Every once in awhile, there will come an especially powerful moment when you can actually feel that an experience has changed who you are. Embrace these, even if they are painful.
29. No matter what your political or religious beliefs, be open-minded. You’re going to be challenged over the next four years in ways you can’t imagine, across all fronts. You can’t learn if you’re closed off.
30. If you need to get a job, find something that you actually enjoy. Just because it’s work doesn’t mean it has to suck.
31. Don’t always lead. It’s good to follow sometimes.
32. Take a lot of pictures. One of my major regrets in life is that I didn’t take more pictures in college. My excuse was the cost of film and processing. Digital cameras are cheap and you have plenty of hard drive space, so you have no excuse.
33. Your health and safety are more important than anything.
34. Ask for help. Often.
35. Half of you will be in the bottom half of your class at any given moment. Way more than half of you will be in the bottom half of your class at some point in the next four years. Get used to it.
36. In ten years very few of you will look as good as you do right now, so secretly revel in how hot you are before it’s too late.
37. In the long run, where you go to college doesn’t matter as much as what you do with the opportunities you’re given there. A college’s name on your resume won’t mean much if that’s the only thing on your resume. As a student here, you will have access to a variety of unique opportunities that no one else will ever have – don’t waste them.
38. On the flip side, don’t try to do everything. Balance = well-being.
39. Make perspective a priority. If you’re too close to something to have good perspective, rely on your friends to help you.
40. Eat badly sometimes. It’s the last time in your life when you can do this without feeling guilty about it.
41. Make a complete ass of yourself at least once, preferably more. It builds character.
42. Wash your sheets more than once a year. Trust me on this one.
43. If you are in a relationship and none of your friends want to hang out with you and your significant other, pay attention. They usually know better than you do.
44. Don’t be afraid of the weird pizza topping combinations that your new friend from across the country loves. Some of the truly awful ones actually taste pretty good. Expand your horizons.
45. Explore the campus thoroughly. Don’t get caught.
46. Life is too short to stick with a course of study that you’re no longer excited about. Switch, even if it complicates things.
47. Tattoos are permanent. Be very certain.
48. Don’t make fun of prefrosh. That was you like 2 hours ago.
49. Enjoy every second of the next four years. It is impossible to describe how quickly they pass.
50. This is the only time in your lives when your only real responsibility is to learn. Try to remember how lucky you are every day.

Be yourself. Create. Inspire, and be inspired. Grow. Laugh. Learn. Love.

Welcome to some of the best years of your lives.

-Ben

I stared at my computer blankly for a couple of minutes, not sure what to make of it.  I have been doing homework since I was 5 years old.  That’s 17 years worth of homework assignments.  Was I really finished?

Still confused, I went to the library to print it.  While I was waiting for those last 11 pages to come out, something bizarre happened.  I got extremely light headed and nauseous, and then I began to sweat.  I’m not talking about a light sweat, you know, the kind one would develop after a brisk walk to class.  No. I’m talking the type of sweat one would experience during a triathlon.  You know, the kind that somehow ends up on your upper lip and the backs of your knees.

I leaned on the printer (which resulted in a nasty look from the librarian, but let’s be serious…that thing is so monstrously large that a dinosaur couldn’t tip it over) until the dizziness and nausea passed, but continued to sweat as I made my way around campus, dropping off the bound copies of my thesis to my advisor and coordinator and returning my last text books.

I’m still not sure why my body reacted that way, but I do know I’m a teensy bit nervous about graduation day.  If my body went haywire just from handing in my last paper, then what on earth will it do when I have to leave the Heights?  Yikes.

They might have to carry me across the stage in a bucket (and waterproof my diploma while they’re at it).

But isn’t celebrating his death – or any death, for that matter – in the streets just as heathen as the actions of the people we are fighting?  Isn’t it comparable to dragging deceased American soldiers through the streets, rejoicing all the while?

I was reading an article by Kristen Breitweiser in Huffington Post, and came across the following quote by admirable MLK:

“I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one; not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reflecting upon this quote and the recent actions and reactions of my fellow Americans, I am only too conscious of how much we have to learn as a people.

• Start blogging again (I mean it!), and maybe even revamp Spazzle
• Build a larger network on Twitter
• Redesign and expand Get Hoofing, and create better online communities
• Learn guitar (I might mean it!)
• Take photo and web design classes to learn more about proper methods & technique
• Write more Yelp reviews
• Start cooking and eating healthily again (no more Che-Chi’s or ‘late night’ for me)
• Resume running and regular yoga practices
• Read my growing pile of books… for fun!
• Watch all of the movies I have TiVoed over the past several months

I wish I could say I’ll start blogging regularly again, but unfortunately these next several weeks, I will be consumed by my thesis, finals, job applications, apartment hunting, Senior Week activities, and graduation (what?).  However, let it be known that I fully intend to grace you with my web presence on May 23, or shortly thereafter.  Until then…

To use the same metaphor we discussed in my Religious Quest class, each individual possesses a little straw and uses it to look up at the sky.  He sees the sky from his own narrow perspective, not acknowledging the vantage points of others because he is too focused on his own straw and what he can see through it.  Imagine how much more he would see if he were to lay down his straw in an effort to better comprehend the world around him.  No longer would his view be narrow, but instead would be fuller, more complete.  He would have a better understanding of the world and the perspectives of his family, friends and enemies.

This idea of opening oneself up to other beliefs is a recurring theme this year in all of my classes.  Today in my Ethics, Religion & International Politics class, we discussed cosmopolitanism and the necessity of constantly being in conversation with others in order to better understand them and where they are coming from.

My professor directed our attention to the following quote by Robert Burton:

All Faith is false, all Faith is true:

Truth is the shattered mirror strown

In myriad bits; while each believes

His little bit the whole to own.

How true this quote is!  Much like the straw metaphor, we all grip our own little shards so tightly that we often fail to remember that it is part of a larger mirror, fail to see the bigger picture.

I think most of the problems in our world today stem from a lack of conversation, and therefore a lack understanding.  So, my dear friends (what am I, 90?) converse and learn!

“Faith…lies in trusting ourselves to discover the deepest truths on which we can rely….  I want to encourage delight in the word, to help reclaim faith as fresh, vibrant, intelligent, and liberating.  This is a faith that emphasizes a foundation of love and respect for ourselves.  It is a faith that uncovers our connection to others, rather than designating anyone as separate and apart” (Salzberg xiii-xiv).

Too often, we tend to associate faith with organized religion; to have faith, you have to be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, and so on.  Regardless of whether or not you call yourself a religious person, however, it is important to have faith of some sort in your life.

Buddhism suggests that faith lies within, and that you must believe in yourself.  I’m no expert, but I suggest that you look inwards and find something to believe in, something that makes life worth living.

Is there such a thing as universal morality?  I have always believed that it is morally wrong to kill, to steal, to lie and to cheat.  I have also always believed that everyone shares these same imperatives.  This book, however, makes me wonder whether or not these beliefs are true.

If not, we face quite a dilemma.  How can I convince an individual that something is wrong, when he believes to the core of his being that it is right?  How can I convince someone that killing is morally wrong, if, for example, human sacrifice is acceptable in his culture?

Just something to ponder…

Somewhere along the line, life started happening, and now I have 21 years tucked neatly under my belt.

Frightening, really, that my light up sneakers have turned into high heels, my Babysitter’s Club books have evolved into political theory, my playdates have shifted to bar nights, and my sticker collection has morphed into a passport stamp collection.

I long for the days when theses weren’t hanging over your head, when “papers” were only 5-paragraph book reports, when thoughts of the future didn’t mean much more than the next couple of days, let alone the rest of your life.

I long to be 7 years old, sitting on the soft sand in Long Beach Island, NJ with my friends and family, just waiting for the sun to set and dinner to be over so that I could go to my favorite ice cream shop.

Somebody, please, take me back there?

All day, the sky threatened rain while the wind whipped around the select number of leaves that have prematurely fallen.  In and out of buildings, from one class to another, we all peered up at the sky, watching and waiting for what would appear to be monsoon, to hit.

Shortly after 3, the first droplets began to fall.  Within minutes, the sky opened up and the campus was flooded.  Students and professors without umbrellas threw jackets, backpacks and – my personal favorite – notebooks over their heads, all racing for cover.  Those who were fortunate enough to remember their umbrellas slightly quickened their pace while marveling at the commotion.  Girls wearing their colorful rain boots seemed to stomp defiantly in ever-expanding puddles, as if to say, “bring it.”  Some students did not have umbrellas, but made no attempt to run for cover, either; they merely looked up at the sky with a grin, embracing the warm raindrops that streamed out of their hair, flowed down onto their faces, and eventually seeped into their clothes.

When I finally entered Hillside Café for my late-afternoon latte, I looked around and saw people smiling, laughing, grumbling.  What all of them had in common, however, was that they were discussing the rain, gesturing out the large, picture windows at the big droplets that continued to fall.

There’s simply something beautiful about rain.