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good times
31 December, 2003 :: 12:34 a.m.

wow...haha...i just read dyno's entry about the highlights of our 5 years as friends...i couldn't help but laugh. he called me monday for my birthday and we were talking and i realized what a funny thing time is...some of the shit in his entry and that we talked about on the phone seems like it happened forever ago (even if it was like a year ago)...other things that happened way back when we first met could've happened yesterday. some of it seems like it happened to two totally different people...

i took just one class my first semester of college...the plan was to just take one and see what college was going to be like and make sure i was up for it...this plan was shot down by me taking the easiest class i think i've ever had...nothing against dr. k. because he was an awesome human being (he died like a year later on my birthday i believe it was) and he gave you a lot of info...but there was no work involved. it was a thursday night class...he'd lecture for an hour, give us a smoke break, lecture for another hour or so and call it a night...no homework and two tests were all we had--not even a book to buy--i got an A on the first test as did maybe 8 others and he told us that we didn't have to take the final unless we wanted to risk getting worse than an A...not exactly a model of what i could expect in future classes...

anyhoo, i decided to go full-time the next semester and they sent me the info for orientation...at first i was against orientation since i basically knew the campus and didn't like the idea of getting thrown together with a bunch of people i didn't know to walk around and be told things that anyone with a little common sense would already know...but i decided that i should force myself to do it to maybe meet some people.

so i show up for the orientation session that i could make it to and i walk up to the building to find out what the hell i need to do...i see the line and i jump in...there's this kid ahead of me that i didn't pay much attention to other than the fact he had a ballcap on and his eyes looked slightly asian...actually, it's funny, but i remember thinking he looked like a wannabe pretty boy..."just a stupid carbon copy of all the punk asses i'm gonna have to deal with all over campus," i thought to myself. i didn't realize it but while making this snap judgment i apparently was looking none too friendly...i just wanted to get through the rat maze of tables and get this whole day over with...we're all moving from table to table and we get to like the fourth one and they're taking our names and the douchebag behind the table looks at us and goes, "hey, pat and matt..."

"well, woo fucking hoo, our names rhyme...that just makes the day so much better," i thought...so now i just want to really get through these fucking tables and get away as soon as possible...last table, they give me my key for the room i'm staying in that night and i head up to the fourth floor or whichever fucking one we were on...i go to open the door and see that it's already ajar...i walk in and YES! it's the punk-assed-asian-eyed-wannabe-pretty-boy-whose-name-rhymes-with-mine that i get for a roommate!! if life gets better, someone tell me how...

so i put my stuff down and this kid starts talking to me...i figure might as well be polite since we're stuck together for the night...we're looking over the day's itinerary and making small talk and within moments we're talking about porn and strip clubs and holy shit, this kid is actually funny and easy to talk to!

we spent quite a bit of the next day together wandering from place to place...i ate dinner with pat and his parents, i smoked a cigarette with his parents and talked about being from the area and what a lame-ass little place it is and all that happy shit...his parents are great too...i can't believe the luck of actually running into and rooming with someone i can get along with...so we decide to give being roommates a shot...i figure it can't really fail since, if we don't get along, i actually live with char...i just wanted the room for a place to nap between classes and maybe as a doorway to meeting people...of the people i met, i still know and talk to pat and steve (who happened to be our neighbor)...steve is the guy we all turn to when we have questions of a computer or pop culture nature and whom i turn to with most of my questions about school...we don't hang out often, but he's a great guy and i never would have met him had it not been for rooming with pat and pat being a people person who talks to everyone...steve and i bonded over several days of putting soda bottles under pat's mattress to see just how many we could get under there before pat would realize...after several days and probably 5 or 6 bottles (and a noticeable lump in the mattress) we broke the news to pat whose reaction was, "no wonder my back's been killing me the past couple of days!"...

pat later told me about how when i first walked into the room i looked rather upset to discover that he was my roommate and that he thought i was going to kill him (and how his dad refers to me as "the serial killer")...i probably did look like that's what i wanted to do, but i'm glad i didn't...i'm glad that i made such a huge error in judgment because i not only met one of my best friends, i met the person whom if you got to choose, would be my little brother...here's to the past five years, bro, and many, many more...

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