Chapter Six - The Rest of My Life

In late August, 2004, I found myself at my grandmother's house to celebrate my grandfather's birthday. At one point, my Uncle Boris pulled me aside. This is what he told me:

"Make sure you don't get caught up in anything you can't handle. As long as you can do that, college is the best part of your life. The friends you make there will stick with you for the rest of your life."

I guess that makes this the rest of my life.

During orientation, I went to see Troy for free at the Campus Center with some people from my hall (it was abysmal). It was over at about nine in the evening. At this point, I could either wander back to Ravine and talk to my friends back home via Instant Messenger, or mill about the Campus Center. I chose to mill.

The only real friend I'd made thus far was Chandler. Making my way up to the second floor, I discovered that the game room, thus far always closed, was now open and full of people. Having nothing better to do, I decided to see what was up.

Some people were playing pool. A few others were occupying themselves with the vintage video games along one wall (Pacman will forever be a classic). Not feeling particularly invited or motivated to become so, I went around the corner. A few people were playing cards in the corner and a few others were watching a basketball game on TV. I sighed and started to turn back to the door.

"Hey!" said a voice. I turned back to the table of card players. A brunette with glasses was looking right at me. "Want to play?"

I was taken aback. My pessimistic world view has made me forget that such a thing as nice people actually do exist. I walked over to the table.

"Were you talking to me?" I asked.

"Yes." she said. "Do you want in next game?"

"What are you playing?" I asked.

"B.S." she said.

"Bullshit!" put in a big guy across the table.

I chuckled. "I don't know how to play."

"Sit down, it's easy. I'm Katalin, what's your name?"

"Mark." I said, sitting down. "Did you say 'Kaitlin?'"

She sighed. "Katalin. It's Hungarian. Oh, this is Thom--"

"With an 'h.'" said the big guy, nodding.

"Yeah." Katalin continued, "Erick," --a guy who looked like the stereotype of the word "nerd" nodded without speaking-- "and this is my roommate, Linda." The girl seated next to Katalin waved.

I'm not quite sure what happened after that. All I know is that we somehow wound up in the lobby of Walker Annex playing UNO until about two in the morning.

I stumbled into Ravine a little after two and sat down at my computer. I unfolded the paper Linda had given me, with everyone's Instant Messenger screenname on it and entered them in. William came in as I was in process.

"Hey." he said.

"Hey." I answered back, preoccupied.

"How was your night?" he asked. We hadn't yet established any enmity.

"Pretty good. I was actually playing UNO with some people in Walker until about twenty minutes ago."

William gave me a wierd look. He'd been at a dance party at a frat house. I'd like to think he'd spent the night getting shut down, but I have no proof. He certainly came back alone. "UNO, huh?" he scoffed.

I just smiled.

Originally posted on December 14th, 2004