Congratulations to me
The following is the post that I thought I lost yesterday. There have been many times that I've come to appreciate and have been willing to suffer through my laptop's slow performance that is the result of running Google Desktop Search. Well, I'm even more appreciative now that I was able to retrieve the text of the post on my graduation that I posted yesterday but lost when I got spammed. You see, all I had to do was run a search for "The Slippery Slope" on my computer and I found 256 cached versions of the site! Why didn't think of it sooner!?! If you don't have it yet, get it now! Here's the original post in full:
In just under three years, I've graduated college. Just in time, too, because I don't think I'd be able to afford traveling 60 miles each day with gasoline prices quickly approaching $3 per gallon (I'll be taking mass transit next year on my way to work at an undisclosed location).
Oh, and sitting in traffic won't be missed either. The longest it ever took me to get to/from was two hours and forty five minutes; that, for a trip that takes 35 minutes without traffic and 50 on average. I refused to deal with it yesterday, though. With emergency construction on the Goethals Bridge yesterday, traffic was backed up for the length of the Staten Island Expressway, across the Verazanno Bridge, and all the way back to Cropsy Ave on the Belt Parkway!...it's ok, it was a good excuse to visit Burgers Bar for the first time-IT'S AWESOME!!! (The hashgacha of the franchise stores in Israel is commonly regarded as "sketchy" but the one here in Brooklyn -- Coney Island Ave between Ave. O & P -- is completely legit.)
Yesterday I returned the key to the office I've been working in for the past three months as well as the key to the office of the club whose executive board I sat on. I drove out of the parking lot for the last time as a student (I'll be back on September 29 to take the LSAT) and was quite sad. It's been a great three years. I think I've grown a lot as a person. I was successfully able to balance yeshiva and college for a full three years (though some weeks, i.e. finals week, were not as strong as others) and while I still wish I would have learned more, I'm not disappointed. It was soooo difficult to arrange a schedule around yeshiva but I was committed to it and, b"H, I was able to succeed. I was able to learn parts of Chullin, Kiddushin, and Pesachim b'iyun, was recently mesayem all of Sotah b'kius, learned more hilchos Shabbos, hashkafa, became close with a rebbi and two chavrusas (and other friends from yeshiva) I'll stay close with for a long long time, and become a better eved HaShem while winning various academic awards and honors throughout college and maintaining a darn good GPA (the lowest among my siblings but only by a few hundreths so I think that's ok). I don't mean to boast but after having conversations with others not in my situation, I honestly feel that people who go to YU or girls who don't have the zechus of dealing with it or people who don't have the committment have no idea what a challenge it is and can't fully appreciate it. I really learned a lot about myself, especially my strengths and weaknesses. I met so many great people and professors, made many new friends, and had my first "serious relationship" with a girl (for tachlis, of course).
In that respect, almost as much as I'll remember college and the classes I took and the things I learned will be the extra-curricular things I was fortunate to do while in college. I danced at the weddings of several friends (not my own but I think that's a good thing), lost a few friends (not physically, we're just not close anymore), lost relatives of some close friends, made some new ones, became a huge fan of Rabbi Yisroel Reisman's navi shiurim in Flatbush on motzei Shabbos, was able to go to Israel for two consecutive winter vacations (I'd never been there before!!!...yes, now everyone knows I didn't go to yeshiva the year after high school-it was not my decision, please don't blame me), became "legal" to buy and drink alcohol (I've only bought three times and twice was for Shabbos, while the last was for a friend's BBQ), worked for Bais Ezra, Camp HASC, Yachad, and Governor Pataki's Jewish liaison, became a member of the Republican National Committee, Republican Jewish Coalition, and this great thing we call the blogosphere, was "in the house" (and on the actual convention floor) during last year's Republican National Convention (as well as many other related events), got locked on a beach at night, sat inside the United Nations for a day, was a member of the studio audience of a television show for the first time (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart...soooo funny!!!...and the only reason I'd ever get cable television, but still not worth it), got into two very minor car accidents (only one required any financial expenditure), bought the laptop I'm currently using and am faithfully devoted to, removed the television from my bedroom, grew a beard for the first time (sefira/"three weeks"-always shaved as soon as possible; I HATE the beard because it makes me look older and itches like crazy and doesn't look professional or good on me), went to Great Adventure for free and cut every single line to every ride I went on (ah, one of the many perks of going with Yachad on Chol HaMoed Pesach!), ditched class for Mets opening day, learned the joys of text messaging, wrote at least three 20+ page documents, enjoyed the benefits of independence, learned through experience how to drive in/around each of NYC's five boroughs and many of its neighboring counties and states and soooo much more. So much has happened, it's sad to say goodbye to such a busy and fun and productive era of my life and move on to another; one that appears murky at best right now.
But I must. I must move on and focus on the future in my new apartment at my new job and in my completely new (perhaps lonely and not as full of torah) neighborhood and make the most of it. And I will.
In just under three years, I've graduated college. Just in time, too, because I don't think I'd be able to afford traveling 60 miles each day with gasoline prices quickly approaching $3 per gallon (I'll be taking mass transit next year on my way to work at an undisclosed location).
Oh, and sitting in traffic won't be missed either. The longest it ever took me to get to/from was two hours and forty five minutes; that, for a trip that takes 35 minutes without traffic and 50 on average. I refused to deal with it yesterday, though. With emergency construction on the Goethals Bridge yesterday, traffic was backed up for the length of the Staten Island Expressway, across the Verazanno Bridge, and all the way back to Cropsy Ave on the Belt Parkway!...it's ok, it was a good excuse to visit Burgers Bar for the first time-IT'S AWESOME!!! (The hashgacha of the franchise stores in Israel is commonly regarded as "sketchy" but the one here in Brooklyn -- Coney Island Ave between Ave. O & P -- is completely legit.)
Yesterday I returned the key to the office I've been working in for the past three months as well as the key to the office of the club whose executive board I sat on. I drove out of the parking lot for the last time as a student (I'll be back on September 29 to take the LSAT) and was quite sad. It's been a great three years. I think I've grown a lot as a person. I was successfully able to balance yeshiva and college for a full three years (though some weeks, i.e. finals week, were not as strong as others) and while I still wish I would have learned more, I'm not disappointed. It was soooo difficult to arrange a schedule around yeshiva but I was committed to it and, b"H, I was able to succeed. I was able to learn parts of Chullin, Kiddushin, and Pesachim b'iyun, was recently mesayem all of Sotah b'kius, learned more hilchos Shabbos, hashkafa, became close with a rebbi and two chavrusas (and other friends from yeshiva) I'll stay close with for a long long time, and become a better eved HaShem while winning various academic awards and honors throughout college and maintaining a darn good GPA (the lowest among my siblings but only by a few hundreths so I think that's ok). I don't mean to boast but after having conversations with others not in my situation, I honestly feel that people who go to YU or girls who don't have the zechus of dealing with it or people who don't have the committment have no idea what a challenge it is and can't fully appreciate it. I really learned a lot about myself, especially my strengths and weaknesses. I met so many great people and professors, made many new friends, and had my first "serious relationship" with a girl (for tachlis, of course).
In that respect, almost as much as I'll remember college and the classes I took and the things I learned will be the extra-curricular things I was fortunate to do while in college. I danced at the weddings of several friends (not my own but I think that's a good thing), lost a few friends (not physically, we're just not close anymore), lost relatives of some close friends, made some new ones, became a huge fan of Rabbi Yisroel Reisman's navi shiurim in Flatbush on motzei Shabbos, was able to go to Israel for two consecutive winter vacations (I'd never been there before!!!...yes, now everyone knows I didn't go to yeshiva the year after high school-it was not my decision, please don't blame me), became "legal" to buy and drink alcohol (I've only bought three times and twice was for Shabbos, while the last was for a friend's BBQ), worked for Bais Ezra, Camp HASC, Yachad, and Governor Pataki's Jewish liaison, became a member of the Republican National Committee, Republican Jewish Coalition, and this great thing we call the blogosphere, was "in the house" (and on the actual convention floor) during last year's Republican National Convention (as well as many other related events), got locked on a beach at night, sat inside the United Nations for a day, was a member of the studio audience of a television show for the first time (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart...soooo funny!!!...and the only reason I'd ever get cable television, but still not worth it), got into two very minor car accidents (only one required any financial expenditure), bought the laptop I'm currently using and am faithfully devoted to, removed the television from my bedroom, grew a beard for the first time (sefira/"three weeks"-always shaved as soon as possible; I HATE the beard because it makes me look older and itches like crazy and doesn't look professional or good on me), went to Great Adventure for free and cut every single line to every ride I went on (ah, one of the many perks of going with Yachad on Chol HaMoed Pesach!), ditched class for Mets opening day, learned the joys of text messaging, wrote at least three 20+ page documents, enjoyed the benefits of independence, learned through experience how to drive in/around each of NYC's five boroughs and many of its neighboring counties and states and soooo much more. So much has happened, it's sad to say goodbye to such a busy and fun and productive era of my life and move on to another; one that appears murky at best right now.
But I must. I must move on and focus on the future in my new apartment at my new job and in my completely new (perhaps lonely and not as full of torah) neighborhood and make the most of it. And I will.
posted by Michael at 9:40 AM
1 Comments:
Congratulations on graduating college. I'm not too far removed from college and I'm still in school, yet while college was fun I was glad when I finished it. Hope your next stage in life was as good as your last.
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