I really don’t know how to approach this perspective. I don’t know what to write. This coming from a writer.

Part of me wants to write about the last four years of my life. Those four years that change your life forever. The four most wonderful years of your life. And I think about those cliches and ask myself, “Were they really the most wonderful years of my life?”

I’m currently sitting in a classroom, not doing work, but thinking about this perspective. Writing this perspective. There’s silence all around me, aside from the occasional sneeze, keyboard patter and the gentle hum of the printer. This is what college has boiled down to for me: an occasional sneeze, keyboard patter and gentle printer hums. Four years of matriculation and maturation, epiphanies and experiences. All this nonsense talk, and still the printer hums. I’ll be out of here in a few weeks, but that damn printer will remain, humming like the Venus Flytrap it is.

We move on. Or at least we’re supposed to. We create resumes, write fluffy cover letters and sell ourselves for as little as they can offer. They churn us out like the sausages in the “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. II” part of The Wall. We fall into new lives, create new situations, feel ourselves out, find new cronies and “start over.” We move on.

I, currently, can’t move. For one, it’s rude to stand up and walk out of a classroom, especially one as quiet as this. Second, I have nowhere to move to. I could go home, but going home doesn’t quite have that “I just graduated” feeling. Going to Amarillo, Texas has that “I just graduated” feeling. Hell, pissing into the wind and taking a Volkswagen out to the good country has that “I just graduated” feeling. But going home, not at all. It seems every conversation I’ve had recently includes “going home,” and is then followed immediately by “get myself together.” Wasn’t I supposed to get myself together here?

***

I’m recalling freshman year all of a sudden. Sitting at the dining hall for three hours. Doing what? Eating. And talking. And looking around. Why did I have so much time back then?

Now I’m puking on a side street after a frat party. I’m going to die. I won’t make it back to the dorm. What’s worse, I left before my friends. I’m going to die. Where’s the cop? Can’t he just bag me now for underage? Now I’m on my knees, my jeans soaked with food and rum residue. Maybe I’m not going to die, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna feel that great tomorrow morning.

It’s tomorrow morning. My face is purple. My friends — or neighbors — laugh at me. I never could tell if they are friends or just neighbors. Whatever they are, they’re laughing at me because my face is a prune. These are the same people with whom I broke my first law. OK, so drinking alcohol in a dorm room isn’t the greatest of crimes. But it was my birthday. And walking home we stopped traffic. $100 well spent.

Now the teacher is talking. My stomach rumbles. I pulled an all-nighter last night — the first true all-nighter of my college life. With that accomplishment, I felt like I finally belonged in the collegiate experience. I’m just waiting for the six Herculean frat boys to spank my ass with a paddle. Let’s go boys; I need my initiation. Afterward we’ll head to the bar, pick up a few sorority girls and smoke a couple blunts in the living room. Window open.

***

I remember seeing “Class of 2006” printed on the banner at the George Sherman Union sometime during freshman year. At the time I thought, “Wow, that’s so long from now.” Now I think, “Wow, I wish it were freshman year again.” It’s true, yes, time does fly by. And what’s happened to us, the Class of 2006? We’re an interesting bunch, coming to college as the high school Class of 9/11. The first chapter of our lives ended wide-eyed, staring at television sets, wondering what would happen to the world we so cherished and took for granted. We had to deal with “establishing ourselves.” We had to deal with defining our generation.

Why define anything? What’s the rush? They call us “Generation Y,” tabbing us as the extension of the slacker-defined Generation X, but that’s merely a cop-out. They call us the generation without a defining moment. We’re the post-9/11 generation; the globalized, depressed, eroded old men and women in young bodies. We’re smarter than our parents already. We’re marketing ourselves before we know what marketing means. We’re image-conscious without being really image-conscious — as in, we don’t even try, we just know we look good.

***

Now I’m recalling all the people I’ve known in the past four years. Hundreds of them. Some pass through my eyes without much effect, but some also carry on somewhere inside. To those I’ve lost touch with — to those I lost — I’m glad I had the opportunity to have you at some point. Nobody told me college would be a veritable roulette of friends, relationships and events. Here’s me, jaded, thinking college would play out like a film, a film where Billy Corgan would sing “Tonight, Tonight” at the top of his lungs during the final shot. A film where I was the star, with a motley cast around me, supporting me, holding me up and keeping me going.

I’ve lost a lot of that cast; I’ve also gained new members. And so that film isn’t as glamorous as was intended. But now it’s all coming to an end, an end without another beginning. At least right now. A new film has to begin, but right now it’s still being shot — it’s not even in post-production. My director calls me now and then, asking me what’s going on in Act Two, but I don’t even know. I can’t even tell you most of the cast — I’ll be there, I’m certain a few others will. Everything else is just a blank.

But we move on. Happily, head held high and focused on the road ahead. Where this road even starts is beyond me. But it is ahead, that’s for sure. And here I am, without anything to write. I experienced college, four years of learning, the four most amazing years of my life … and I have nothing to write.

Tim Malcolm, a senior in the College of Communication, is executive editor of The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].