I wrote this before I had a blog, sometime towards the end of my freshman year but I’m not exactly sure on the details, if anyone I write about gets mad well honestly I wrote this 3 years so don’t take too much offense. I thought this would be good to throw out there since I am about to graduate and because of all the changes that have happened
The end of the year is coming fast and I felt I should write something about my freshman year so that I could remember my first year of college from my freshman perspective.
The beginning of the year was perhaps the greatest but also the worst part of the year. I learned of love and friendship, but also heart break and loneliness. I left home behind saying goodbye, forever perhaps, that question is still unanswered. I missed my friends and my dog, Duncin, so much but I knew I had to move on. I came here and I made friends really quickly. My roommate, John Groff, and I never got along. We were personality opposites from the beginning. I meant many others though. The night of the Deming street dance, I became friends with Chris Delucenay, Andy Hinnefeld, and Mike Shiery. I also became friends with a lot of soccer girls that night as well. I’m not sure which ones I met first, but I know Rochelle, Amber, Bernie, and Amanda, were there. It was actually really funny, I still couldn’t approach girls, so me and mike kept circling them until they finally let me and him to dance. Unfortunately, Mike and I were going for the same girl, Amanda.
Amanda
We all went to IHOP afterwards which was a lot of fun. I got my trademark, Ice-cream Chocolate Chip Pancakes. From that point forward all of us seem inseparable. We hung out almost everyday, we ate dinner regularly, and went out on weekends, it was probably the best time in my life. Amanda and I also got closer. I don’t remember exactly how it went, but I know we had a talk out on “Speed Beach” but just stuff, and I think she began to like me a lot then. We started hanging out a lot, and it seemed we were super compatible. We both really liked Punk music, and were both really outgoing and excitable and what not. I spent the night with her for the first time on her 18th birthday, that doesn’t mean we had sex, it just means I held her in her arms in bed and slept there. Actually she slept I couldn’t. That had been the first time I had ever been close to a girl before, and I was feeling really strange, like it was super positive good feeling, but needless to say I was just like Wow. It was about this time I became friends with a girl named Katie, but I’ll talk about her later. The problem with Amanda was she was my first like actual girl I ever did anything with, so when Mike was flirting with her I got super jealous. I said really stupid stuff to her that I regret now, but our relationship began to dwindle. We still spent the night and I even got my first kiss from her. I actually didn’t know what I was doing the first time it happened and I started laughing. She yelled at me and said “why didn’t you open your mouth? And why are you laughing” We ended up making out a couple days later, but it didn’t matter it was shortly after that we ended it. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I’m betting my conniving roommate told her I said she was a whore, and she got really pissed. It was really sad to no longer be her friend but it was her choice and not mine so its alright.
Katie
Now we are on to Katie, I met Katie when Jen wanted me to help her with calculus. Jen was Katie’s roomie. I don’t know exactly why we got a long so well. She was a extremely attractive cheerleader chem.. She was very popular in highschool, and I honestly never understood why she wanted to hang out near me. We ended up doing lots of stuff together. We went for lots of walks and we went out to eat a lot. I actually became friends with her for real the night, Joe a delta sig, was playing DDR in the lobby with a bunch of people and she was watching. I asked her if she wanted to go to Wal-Mart to buy a rose for Amanda at like 4 a.m. we ended up doing that and we went to IHOPS right afterwords. I had a lot of really good talks with Katie, she was a really awesome person, and I really liked her a lot, I even asked her out once and she said yes,
but she took it back the next day *Sigh*, she says it wasn’t fair to this guy Matt Jackson who she was dating. Which I understood. That guy was completely huge like more muscles in his leg than my entire body. We still hangout, we went to an icecream place called Ritters once and we got a super ton of custard stuff. We ended up not being friends anymore after a while, I think she firmly became a FIJI girl, the popular guy fraternity, and I wasn’t one of them. The last thing we did together was see John Mayer, it was lots of fun and I had a great time.
Pi Kappa Alpha
Its time to talk about PIKE, Pi Kappa Alpha and I have had a long history, I didn’t rush them very hard at the beginning, I was to emerged in Amanda. My friend Brian Page was the first person to get me interested in it. He took me out to the house and I got to meet lots of people. I ended up not getting a fall bid. I was very sad but I dealt with it, what hurt the most was the fact that Chris, Mike, and Andy all got one and I didn’t. After the 2 week period of no contact was over, I went to the house and stupidly got drunk. I’ll never be proud of that moment in my life. I made a terrible impression at that point which still haunts me. I slowly improved it though. I made really good friends at PIKE. I can’t even name them all. When it came time for me to rush spring class I did everything I could to get noticed, it was close 50:50. I ended up barely getting a bid. I was really happy but also really sad. I would’ve hoped for more people to approve of me but sometimes stuff just happens the way its supposed too. I ended up getting to choose a big brother, so I chose Matt Brandt, I’ll talk about him later. I did everything I could to get in to PIKE, I had more signatures in my book than everyone, I passed all the mods on my first try, I volunteered for almost everything, and was at the house quite a bit, I drank rarely, and tried really hard to get to know everyone. I ended up getting an 87% approval, and you needed a 90%. Many people were furious, and they even attempted to suspend the bylaws but you need a 95% approval for that. No one had said anything bad about me, and no one really knows who had Phi’d me. I ended up walking 10 miles that night, and got picked up in downtown Terre Haute by my friends. I’m still considering rushing PIKE again, it hurt a lot to be rejected after I had tried so hard, but what can you do. At least through the whole experience I made so many good friends, and that is all that matters.
Matt Brandt
Matt Brandt is my frat Big Bro, I met him at the associate party in February, and we talked a little bit. I really liked him and I thought he was super cool. We talked on and off, and I chose him to be my big bro. I originally was going to pick Joey Teal, but he wasn’t active enough in chapter for me to choose him, I knew I was on thin ice so I wanted someone who I know had a presence. Matt was actually president of the chapter as well. It was really cool cause his big brother was my Residential Advisor, Aaron Baldauf. Me and Matt I think were 70% compatible. There were other people I could’ve gotten a long better with, but I don’t think that would’ve been as good of a big bro as he. Matt was a Lily scholar, which means he got to go here for free, lucky bastard, so he was a super smart mechanical engineer, problem is he didn’t want to be an engineer. We went to dinner a lot, and went out to the movies. We went to Drunken Movie night together, pretty drunk, and watched “Old School” On the ride back I said one of my best quotes ever. “If a girl Fucking hates you, then you know you had something special” I still think that’s hilarious. He looked out for me at the St. Patty’s day party my 2nd worst drunken moment. Actually half my lineage looked out for me. Tanner and Vosmik hog tied me cause I was biting people, I ended up waking up in the studio really sore and cranky. Matt did his best to help me get in to PIKE and he was there to catch me when I didn’t. The only reason I say that I think Matt and I are only 70% compatible is because we don’t just hangout. I don’t really have many memories of doing super fun stuff with Matt, I just sort of have memories. Next year Brandt and I are going to volunteer at a Big Bro/Lil Bro since neither of us can have little brothers because of me. I know that Brandt and I are eventually going to be closer than any of my other friends I have here, but for now we will just have to wait.
Chris, Mike, and Andy
Most people I have talked about individually up to this point for these 3 its not possible. Chris, Mike, Andy, and I, I like to think are one of the best groups of friends I have ever had. We do everything together, from the beginning of the year until now. We all went on spring break together; I’ll talk about that later. We ate meals together everyday and we all had similar classes. I spent more time playing videogames in their room than I really should have. It was in phases we played Diablo II fall quarter, Neverwinter Nights winter quarter, and Warcraft III spring quarter. First time I got drunk was with these guys at an ISU party. It was me, Chris, Mike, Andy, Rochelle, Amber, Sarah, Tori, Robby, and Brandon. It started right after homecoming I went to a kegger with Katie and Jen over in Sharp the dorm right next to ours, I only had like 3 beers, but then we all decided to go look for a party at ISU, since none of us were affiliated with a fraternity, so we couldn’t party with PIKE. We found this really fun party, and I order 3 shots of vodka, downed all of em and that was the end for me. I remember walking back hanging on to Amber, doing derivatives to prove I wasn’t drunk. When we got back I went up to Katies room like 3x, bad idea. Don’t exactly know what I did, but I know it was bad. She never was the same around me after that. Anyhow, they all got in to PIKE without me, but they were my biggest supporters to get me in the spring class, which I managed to pledge, just not become a brother. I do think we had a few too many drunken memories together, but that never really phased me. The best is the little dorm party we had the day before Christmas break while everyone was gone. I have lots of pictures from that one. We were just having a really great time, just drinking and playing cards. We went to Kroeger, and everyone almost passed out. They remembered to wake me up at 7 a.m, for my ride back to MN. I was still drunk for the first 3 hours of that trip. Andy was the mellower one, he was really nice and cool though, and had really great stories. He was the most unobvious drunk too. We could never tell with him. The night before we all left campus he go super plastered and pissed on the wall in his room, he though it was a toilet. We all laughed about that one. He got more action than any of us all year too. He had a girl named Amanda, not Austin, and a girl named Amber is who he was dating up until the end of the year. Not sure if they are still going out. Mike, is a physics major. He can be kind of mean sometimes, but also really nice. It weird with him and me, at the beginning of the year, we were both going for Amanda, and that made some serious tension between us. I think he was pissed at the beginning of the year, because I feel I won the battle. We eventually got over it, and he’s been really great the last couple of months. He gets in to these little spats occasionally too that are absolutely hilarious, I can’t even describe them. He’s also really smart does like half the work I do, and gets way better grades. For that he’s a bastard lol. Finally We have Chris, he is the coolest one in our group, for all intensive purposes. We all pretty much want to hang out with him. He holds his liquor better than us. Plays the guitar, kinda. He has a girlfriend names Chelsy, who is really awesome. First time I met her I honestly thought she was a bi-sexual. Only because she told me she thought this other girl was really cute, and she was talking about kissing girls. She was really awesome she was at our end of spring quarter Mee’s party. She held me up as I pee’d in the shower. Chris and I have had some really great times. We were partners in CS220, JAVA Class, and we made a wireless chat program, and by made I mean half assed and let the senior in our group do most of the work. Chris is a Computer Engineer at the moment. I really hope the friendship I have with these guys stays strong throughout the years. Even though they are living in the PC room at the house, and I’m living on campus in the BSB basement, I don’t think that will change much between us.
Rochelle, Amber, Sarah
These are the three closest thing I had to best friends as girls, I would even say they ran parallel to Chris, Mike, and Andy. We were close to a degree. At the beginning the 7 of us were inseparable, I should actually say 8, because Amanda was there too. We used to go and play pool all the time, and go out to eat, and just generally hang out. After about October, Amanda disappeared from the scene and it was just the 7 of us. We all ate dinner together every night, and went out on weekends. This all began to gradually change, when Chris, Mike, and Andy became PIKE. We still hungout and all, but there were new priorities among everyone. Sarah and Amber had become Chi-O’s and Rochelle a Tri-Delta. Rochelle was very upset over this because she wanted to be a Chi-O with all her friends. I don’t picture her as one, but its not my decision. The 3 still came to all the PIKE parties, and we still all had really good times, but things were changing. I gradually became closer to Chris, Mike, and Andy, and those 3 gradually be came less close. They started to realize there were tons of other people at Rose and began to hang out with them, I honestly can’t blame them. We didn’t do anything that great, all we ever did was do Homework, play video games, and get drunk. We were all supposed to go spring break together, but Amber couldn’t in the end because her Mom was extremely sick. We had a very good time. Except towards the end we had discovered Amber’s mom had dies and we were all very sad over this. We all sent her cards telling her our regret. Amber I think was the wildest one of the girls, or even of my friends. She showed me had to booty dance, haha, she was the one who carried me to my room the first time I was drunk. She is a wonderful person. She was originally a M.E., but changed majors to a Civil, but now shes back to being an M.E. She works really hard, and spend hour studying. We were lab partners spring quarter, and we must’ve gotten A’s on all of our reports. She is very talented and I can see her going far. Rochelle is Ambers best friend. She is a very kind hearted individual. She cares a lot for me and for everyone around her. She’s an M.E. I believe, she was considering transferring to Case-Western at the middle of the year, because she wanted to be close to her mother, so she could look after her. But I think I convinced her otherwise. I believe you must make sure you achieve your own greatness, before you worry about others. Oddly enough at the beginning of the year, Rochelle had this huge crush on Chris, I think when that went away, that is when we all stopped doing stuff together. Sarah is a completely other story with me, I think she has great potential, shes smart, shes happy, shes works hard, Edited
Each person makes a choice, no other person had a right to judge that choice, unless it effects them. Otherwise I am exceptionally glad I became friends with Rochelle, Amber, and Sarah.
Rose-Hulman
How do I feel about my school? I don’t believe I could have found a better match. I am absolutely in love with it. The School is great, I get to interact with my professors, I like all the classes I’ve had to take so far, even though I didn’t do so hot spring quarter. The Campus is absolutely beautiful, I love it. My room overlooked the pond and I could hear the water rippling every morning. The people are great, doesn’t matter who the person is, I could probably form a friendship with them. I also got this awesome, well at the moment, laptop. The only problem I have with the school, is its so bloody expensive. I am going to be in debt so long after I graduate that I hate thinking about it. My mother’s side of the family has been extremely supportive, and my grandmother has agreed to sign my student loan for this year. I just got my dorm assignments today. I am with one of my friends sort of… Monhut, he was a phi’d Pike as well. Some kids from MN I don’t know, and a senior named Todd Jackson. I don’t know why we got a senior put in our room, its really annoying. I could handle someone our own age, but this I don’t know. Especially because he’s a senior and couldn’t find anyone to room with him, and he’s living on campus. So I’m a little worried. I guess I won’t be spending much time in my room anyway. Hopefully it will be like the first quarter last year, When I barely slept in my own bed. Schroeder told me something really awesome a couple nights ago. He told me that if I get in to PIKE that we should go for the “Cottage” its capacity is 5. If we got that it would totally kick ass. I have really super hard classes this quarter. I have Differential Equations, Discrete and Combinational Algebra, Conservation of Accounting Principals, and Computer Architecture, I probably could have used the nicknames but I probably wouldn’t recognize them 10 years from now. My goals at rose is to get a degree in Computer Science, I really would like a minor in Biomedical Engineering. I am really interested in Nanotechnology, and I hope someday to go to grad school for it.
This Summer
Currently I am in Pittsburgh, and its actually close to August. This little Journal is taking a very long time to write I guess. Right now I am a research assistant at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. I have been creating a lot of conversion programs, and doing a lot of data management on a unix system. I know it sounds really toolish, but hey I’m doing something I really enjoy so who cares. I probably would rather be designing graphics for a movie company, but hey can’t do everything you want right away. I’m living with my cousins Barbara and Howard, and helping take care of there two little kids Simon and Max. Its actually really fun I’ve never taken care of little kids before