BACK TO SCHOOL

This is a long one folks, so get a snack. During Spring Break, I received an email from an old college buddy of mine named Shafik. Shafik invited me to come down to Tucson for one last "house party." Realizing that this party would be my last chance to see friends from college before they graduate and spread out into the world, I mustered up the will power to make my way down to Tucson. The "house party" was the be held at THE "house." A little house near the corner of Euclid Ave. and 6th st. For those of you not familiar with Tucson, this house is just acrossed the street from the U of A campus. After graduating over a year ago, I had problems with going back to Tucson for parties and other social functions. Having had a very miserable time in that city during my last semester, I was never fond with the idea of going back for any reason. This time, I'd make an exception.

The drive between Tucson and Phoenix, while short, is never pleasant. In my case, I was always traveling back up to Phoenix for weekends to visit family and friends while having to drive back to Tucson before classes began on monday. For nearly every trip, I was driving back and forth alone. There's something about driving through bleak desert landscape all by yourself with no one to talk to that can really bring the happiest of person down in the dumps. It doesn't matter how loud the music is playing in the car, sooner or later any bad feelings you were choking down will come bubbling up while on this drive. Needless to say, I did not arrive in Tucson a happy camper (whoa, big shock).

When I showed up at the house, Gergely was there to greet me. It was nice to see that many aspects of the house had not changed over the passed year. Expensive guitar cabs and amps were stashed away in the North East corner while the leopard print rug that I once owned (It was $30 at Target, lay off) lay underneath my feet. The next half hour was spent on the typical "catching up" conversations, although I got a kick out of telling Gergely that in the past year my friends were getting into watching and loving "Family Guy" ever since it debuted on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim line up. He got a good laugh at that, because while we lived in the Yavapai resident hall, everyone would make a trip up to the third floor to watch all the episodes on his computer. If it weren't for Family Guy, I probably wouldn't have made it through college. Before I grauated I must've seen each episode at least 10 times and ever since the show has been on Adult Swim I've probably seen each episode at least 20 times. By now, I can recite any quote from Family Guy faster than a priest trying to quote from the bible.

Shortly after my arrival, Shafik entered the house. Upon seeing me he said, "Holy crap! You lost like... 80 lbs! You're not even the same DoBell anymore!" He like many others learned of my woes that started back in december by following all the appropriate web links. "But hey dude, you look great!" Unfortunately for Shafik, he didn't seem to be doing so well. His girlfriend, Mandi, whom he had been with for almost 2 years had begun to pull out of the relationship. In short, Mandi is pulling the young girl in her twenties who doesn't want to be with one person routine. She claims to be feeling "claustrophobic" and of course did something incredibly petty and self indulgent to create a scenario that only has one conclusion. For obvious reasons, this behavior pisses me off, but at the same time conflicts with the fact that both of them are my friends. However, Shafik is a good guy. He's a brilliant programmer, a talented guitar player, and an all around funny chap. He doesn't deserve to have someone he loves cut out his heart all because she's getting bored. Shafik is handling it well enough on the surface, but I could see the sadness in his face. I could see the acid begin to well up in his stomach whenever he'd think about his situation. Seeing Shafik like this was a bit of an eye opener for it was like seeing an image of myself at the beginning of December.

Not even an hour into the trip and everything has already turned dour. I was hoping to go down to Tucson and have fun, but I'd soon learn that everyone was having problems on a massive scale. While eating dinner at "Mama's Pizzeria," I caught up with Kevin Wampler and Gary Yee. Gary by-the-way, was once given the title of "hottest chick in the CS department." This wasn't an insult towards him as it was an insult towards the fact that the CS department had almost no women attending its classes. Kevin is a cooky fellow who likes to build machines that can potentially kill a person and jump off walls like Spiderman. During our Senior year, I helped Kevin build a Tessla coil that could kill any person who walked within a 4 ft. radius from the device. In addition to being a snappy dresser, Kevi also a bonafied genius. Oddly enough, he too had troubles finding a job out of college. While I sympathized with that experience, there was something comforting to know that I was not the only one with employment woes. Luckily for him, he managed to get accepted for grad school at the University of Michigan. Apparently Kevin managed to have the record for highest CS GRE score at the UofA, so at least his story had a bit of a happy ending.

Gary on the other hand, was down in the dumps. Whenever someone would even mention grad school, Gary would curl up and look miserable. Apparently he tried to get into some of the top grad schools in the country for CS but got turned down by every one. He did however, manage to get accepted into the University of Colorado, but it would appear that Gary had higher hopes for continuing his education. "I once believe that if you really wanted something, and you tried as hard as you could, that there would at least be a chance." After hearing this all I could do was repeat a quote from Lenny Bruce. "Life isn't what should be, or what could be. Life just is." This is a phrase that in recent times I've grown to understand.

Gary's story was still not the only sad story I'd hear that night. Everyone I talked with seemed to have some form of difficulty that was causing them massive amounts of grief. Grief that is caused by personal relationships, future plans, or both. The growing hypothesis is that solar radiation storms that occur once in 12 years (this being one the 12 year in the cycle) is causing all these problems. Not a very good hypothesis, but good enough to give us all a little chuckle to forget our woes. The problem stemmed mostly from everyone hitting a big transition in their lives. The fun's over, and now it's time to be a full fledged adult and have the future already planned out. Graduating from college is an experience that makes one think that there are no more excuses for not having a direction, job, or plan for the future. The only problem is that getting through college guarantees neither.

Once the party began, I managed to catch up with a ton of old faces I haven't seen for well over a year. Upon seeing each person I'd receive one of these phrases that were repeated to me throughout the night.

"Wow, you lost a lot of weight!"

"You look great!"

"Oh no, that's terrible, I'm so sorry."

and

"We miss you. You need to come down and visit more often."

I wouldn't mind seeing some of these people more often. They're nerds like me after all. CS, EE, and Biochem freaks all chock full of technical skill, neurotic insecurities, intelligence, academic arrogance, freakish creativity, and a common love for hilarious animated T.V. shows cancelled by the Fox network. While I felt sad for saying goodbye for the last time to many people I once knew, I'm glad I went. The trip helped me come to terms with my overall feelings about the future. No matter what, the future will come and it will always be wide open. Everyone has a different path to follow and sometimes shit happens that will change the course of that path. We're all old farts now, dealing with adult drama as opposed to the immature and somtimes hilarious drama we experienced back in Yavapai. No matter what I'll always cherish the memories of watching movies in the lobby, the wall piercing twang of the 3rd floor electric guitars, the many nights spent on a bean bag chair watching episodes of family guy, the 1:00 am trips to Los Betos, and the assortment of wonderful people I had the pleasure of knowing.

So to Gergely, Shafik, Amy, Irene, Kevin, Gary, Kaylesh, Dave, Michelle, Kahtleen, Susan, Marc, Mandi, Jon, Steven, and Ron... goodbye. If I'm lucky, I'll see you all again sometime soon. I wish you all the best of luck as you struggle to find your place in the world.