Day 55: As with many things in life, the beginning actually may start well before the starting gun actually goes off. I officially enrolled and began taking classes at MSU in the Fall of 1994, but I was a Spartan many months and perhaps many years before that. It was the only school that I even bothered to apply to. One of the first events where that feeling of being an MSU student started to become a reality was actually during the spring of my Junior year in high school, when I attended the alumni distinguished scholar (ADS) weekend. The ADS weekend is a recruiting event that brought together a collection of academically minded high school Juniors from across the country to spend a Saturday learning about MSU's programs, a Saturday evening at a nice banquet, and a Sunday morning taking a grueling exam, the results of which would be used, in part, to grant full or partial tuition scholarships to a selected number of winners. I attended the weekend with several friends from Stockbridge and Dansville, and on Saturday night following the banquet, I found myself paying cards (likely euchre, of course) in the lobby of the Kellogg Center. Suddenly, I heard a piano playing in the distance, and after a few moments, I literally leapt up into the air, jumped over the table, and ran at full speed towards the music. The song I heard playing was today's selection, the hauntingly beautiful and sad "Asleep" from The Smiths. The song is obscure enough that I knew the person playing must be a like-minded soul. I quickly located the player and I am sure shouted something semi-unintelligible about how I knew the song and it was awesome. After some discussion, the suggestion was made that I attempt to sing the song while the guy at the piano continued to play. It was an awesome idea, and I did try, but alas, similar to my experinence at Mock Rock, I could not quite find the right place to come in and the whole attempt just died a slow death. I am sure that everyone in attendance (Jovon, Lissa, Ryan Bentley?) thought I was nuts, but that moment was perhaps the one that I knew without a doubt that MSU was the place for me. As for the song itself, like many Smiths songs, it is tragic and beautiful. The piano line is smooth as butter and the lyrics speak of a desire to rest and not wake up because, "I don't want to wake up on my own any more." and that "there is another world; there is a better world. Well, there must be." Only the Smiths can make song about suicide seem so beautiful. Is was on that evening that my journey as a Spartan officially began.
11/25/2014
Day 56: Yesterday, I mentioned how I attended MSU's Alumni Distinguished Scholarship weekend during my Junior year. Well, as it turned out, I must have done fairly well on that exam that I took because I eventually was able to earn / win a full tuition scholarship to MSU as a part of that program. The day I received the letter notifying me that I had won, I was sitting at home watching a taped episode of 120 Minutes. I remember quite clearly opening the letter as a watched the video for today's song for the first time. That song is "Possession" by Sarah McLachlan. There really is not any other connection between the two events, but this song always reminds me of that day. As for the song, it of course went on to be a pretty big hit and essentially launched McLachlan's career. However, I think that even McLachlan herself was a little surprised by that turn of events, as in a interview with her I saw a few years later, she commented how creepy the song is. On the face of it, the song may seem like a love song, but if you listen more closely, the lyrics speak more about the obsessive "love" of a stalker than of anything truly romantic. Oh well, it is still a pretty cool song. I should also note that as I looked through the paperwork from MSU while watching this video, I would not know it at the time, but it would be the first time that I would see a picture of my future wife. The letter contained headshots of all 25 or so winners, and one of them happened to be a cute brunette with a North Carolina address.
11/26/2014
Day 57: Making the transition from High School to College can be a tough one, but for me, the whole was a lot easier for one simple reason: I had Jovon with me. Jovon and I probably first met when we were 5-6 years old, really got to know each other through 4-H and church in High School, and when it became clear that we were both going to MSU (which was probably when we were 5-6), we decided to be roomies. Now, I am sure that there were times that we both got on each others nerves, but we spent 2 fun years together in Holden and Case Hall. It think that it is safe to say that we had a lot of adventures together, like when I almost destroyed the microwave while trying to make popcorn, or when Jovon messed up the TV with a magnet while try to impress Amy Youngdahl and I retaliated by putting a picture of a naked man on his computer desktop (which was tough to find on the internet in 1994... the naked man that is), or the time during a welcome week ice cream social that he glommed onto two nice girls from some place called Marshall, MI so that he could watch "Northern Exposure." But I think that it is also safe to say that we listened to a lot of music together. (Jovon was after all one of my 120 minutes mules for several years.) So, today's song: Frank Black's "Headache" is dedicated to Jovon. I remember the both of us being rather fond of the former Pixies front man's fun ode to love and aspirin ("my heart is crammed in my cranium, and it still knows how to pound.") We especially liked the little dance that Frank does... and his use of a chainsaw. I am sure that we must have done the little dance in our dorm room once or twice. Oh, and Jovon, sorry that I never cleaned the bathroom. You know I'm practically blind without my contacts and could never see anything in there in the morning, right? Right...
11/27/2014
Day 58: I think it is fair to say that in my youth especially, I have always been a fairly frugal person. So I was quite delighted that as a student at MSU, I discovered the many used CDs stores that used to dot Grand River Avenue just to the north of campus. I recall that for a semester or so, I made a tradition of hitting Street Driven Music across from Berkey Hall at least once a week. At this point, I had finally given in to the idea that CDs and not digital tapes were the format of the future, and I slowly began to gather cheap CDs as a quick way to build my new collection. From time to time, Street Drive Music would offer some crazy deals like "buy one used CD, pick one out of this box for free." That was pretty hard to resist, especially if you could recognize at least one of the tracks on any of the CDs in the free box. Sometimes, the CDs were just bad (and other CD shops in town would NOT agree to buy them from you), but every once in a while, I would discover hidden treasure, like today's track "Kite" from Nick Heyward's album From Monday to Sunday. I must have heard this song at some point on 120 minutes, but I didn't really appreciate it's brilliance until I had the entire, surprisingly good, album. To me, this song has always has represented the need to keep a youthful spirit as you grow older: "Everybody's young and far too serious. Oh, oh Mother, Don't let them shoot your kite down." Is was a nice reminder for a young college student, and it remains a good reminder even now to not to let life grind you down. I recall that I bought a 2nd album from Heyward a little while later, but it was frankly terrible. But, "Kite" remains one of my favorite alternative One-Hit Wonders of all time.
11/28/2014
Day 59: I can still remember the first day of class my freshman year at MSU. I believe that it was a 10:20 AM lecture on Fortran (yes, I am THAT old) in the Communication Arts Building. As I emerged from the lobby of Holden Hall to retrieve my bike and start my short ride, I was shocked and amazed by the crush of people... literally everywhere as the 20 minute rush to class began (kind of like Black Friday?). Of course, I grew up in the country and was not used to that many people, but instead of intimidation, all I felt was exhilaration. I LOVED it. Over the years I would rather enjoy the long bike rides or walks around MSU's lovely campus. But, from time to time, I would need a little pick-me-up or rather pump-me-up to get me motivated for the task at hand. I believe it was one Saturday in the Spring of Junior year when I was scheduled to take some sort of competitive chemical engineering skills test early in the morning. I was going into battle (similar to my old quiz bowl days) and I needed some tunes to get me going. On that day the tape that I popped into my walkman (yes, I am really that old) was PJ Harvey's tremendous sophomore album "Rid of Me." As the title track started up, I began my walk to the Engineering building. Like the song, I started my walk slowly and deliberately (I still love that simple guitar riff and light snare drum). As the tension in the song built, I am sure my heart rate and pace increased as well. By the time the song reaches the thunderous chorus, I was probably practically running. It was better than espresso. By the time I reached my destination, I was ready to run through a wall. As it turns out, I did not win this particular contest (I think that honor went to Bill Schmidt), but I had found my favorite pump-up song for life. I have never been a big Black Friday shopper, but I think the feel of this song is also appropriate for today.
11/29/2014
Day 60: That first summer of college is an interesting time in ones life. For me, it was 1995 and after one year at MSU, I was comfortably in my new routine. I had lived away from home for 9 months, and I was starting to feel like an adult. But, during the summer, I came back home to live with Mom and Dad, and my summer job was working on my Uncles' farm. In a way, it was a little like being back in High School again, and I think that this caused a fair amount of restlessness. My friend Jovon, as I recall, was in a similar situation over in Dansville. But Dansville it not that far away, and Jovon and I still found a lot of time to hang out in the evenings or on weekends. Much of that time, I just remember driving around rural Ingham County in "Norman," Jovon's beloved and ancient sedan. You would think that maybe we were driving around making mischief, but we really didn't. We just cruised around talking about our personally philosophies on life, and girls, work, school, and growing up, I guess. I don't really remember any specific conversations, but I think it was just our attempts to figure out who we were, and who we were becoming, and who we wanted to be. We also listened to a lot of music on those drives, and that summer for me was dominated by one album, Matthew Sweet's "100% Fun". I have always felt that this album was the ultimate summer time soundtrack. It is loaded with a dozen great tracks, many of which were introspective and strangely appropriate for a couple of 19-year old kids (such as Track 5, "Everything Changes" and Track 11, "Get Older.") But today, as a symbol of that great album, I offer up the classic first track "Sick of Myself." The song rocks as hard today as it did those 19 years ago, and I hope it brings all of you a bit of summer on this late November day.
11/30/2014
Day 61: I have known that I wanted to be a chemical engineer for a long time. (You can check the QuizBusters archive on that one If you wish). I come from a family of engineers, and I happen to like chemistry the best of the sciences, so being a ChE seemed like the logical major to choose. As luck would have it, I actually enjoyed taking those classes, and I can honestly say that I never really took a class at MSU that I absolutely hated. But the toughest class I ever took was most likely Martin Hawley's Senior Design Course. As it is a capstone class, it is meant to be tough and to be a rite of passage. And, it certainly was. I was never much for all-nighters (expect for when preparing for College Bowl Tournaments), but I had to pull at least one for Senior Design, plus several long nights. It took a lot of fortitude to spend those long hours in the Engineering computer lab, beating our heads against ASPEN or Excel. But, at least we had each other. Around that same time, today's selection "Tubthumping" by Chumbawanba was making the rounds on both college and even popular radio. I distinctly remember some of fellow classmates sitting bleary-eyed at their work stations half singing and half mumbling, "I get knocked down, but I get up again. No you're never going to keep me down. I get knocked down, but I get up again..." It didn't really sound that convincing, but it kept us going, and it was good for a laugh.
I have several other stories that I could tell about my days at MSU, but I am going to save those for another day. In the spring of 1998, I closed the chapter of my life as an MSU student, and today I will close this chapter of this story. As for tomorrow, I turn my focus to another school in the Big Ten. Tomorrow, my friends, will be time to Boiler Up!
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