Pointless College Stories: Out on a Limb II
Further reminiscing as spurred by word_geek...
Embracing Campus Life
It is one thing to be a geek. It is quite another when you draw attention to the fact. There were three things that radically altered my visibility on campus. The first was my moniker. At that point, I owned five fish ties and it was a goal of mine to wear one each day that I was in public... which turned out to be just about every day. The number of ties would increase over time, but this is where the practice had its roots even if the nickname did not surface until my migration to the main campus.
The second was the collection of name tags I displayed on my grey trench coat. This started harmlessly enough over the summer leading up to my freshman year. My friend, Dave, worked at a local supermarket in the bakery counter. He had a name tag that he detested and, in a fit of disgust, gave it to me. Being the pack rat that I am, I tucked into my coat where it was forgotten for a month or two. When it resurfaced, I was struck by the idea of just wearing it around on my coat. To my surprise, this got a huge response out of folks who first marveled at the coat and then, later, produced name tags of their own from their sordid brushes with retail employment. Soon my coat became a mosaic of tags with a breadth of names and origins. It certainly made it a pain to wash. As an aside, I will say that my favorite had to be a Wendy's tag named Wendy.
The third was more a skill than a fashion choice. I had learned some of the basics to locksmithing over the summer leading up this first year. My friend and I were actually fairly accomplished at opening a variety of locks and this came in very useful at the dorm when people would get locked out of their room by their roommates. It became habit for many people that I was their second stop after trying the dorm office.
Now because the campus was more geared toward off campus students, the haunt of choice was the Buck Union Building. It had a small stage where the theater people would practice, a fast food type place that took points (very important) as well as a book store and other areas downstairs. The BUB was also home to WPSM, a closed-circuit radio station that played into the building over the day.
This was were I got a crash course in card-playing. If you weren't in class or studying, you were in the BUB playing cards. Over the course of my tenure there, it was interesting to see how the tastes had changed. The first was Spades, because it was like Euchre but seemingly more simple. This progressed into Pinochle and then ultimately into Hearts. When it was just a pair of people, Bossita was the game of choice and conversely, large groups would tend to play Mao. But those two games are a stories in of themselves.
I also ingrained myself with the role-playing club. They were a really good group of people really. In fact, one of the Dougs swapped into be my roommate at the dorm after the first semester and that gave the group at large a place to hang out when the BUB had closed. It was here where I expanded my realms of role-playing into Shadowrun, Paranoia and Star Wars. Oddly enough, we did not play too many board games but stuck to the PnP stuff.
Through people I knew, I even managed to get an hour slot for a radio show. The board was simple enough and they had a library with breadth enough to keep it interesting. I tried to do themes in many instances, but I really couldn't sustain it. What I was most known for was my "Speed Floyd" track of the week. Basically I would take one of the albums and select a song. I would keep the turntable off and instead manually turn the song through as fast as I could. I knew I was onto something when I started getting threats of physical violence.
But I digress... in a roundabout way of saying it, the size of the campus made it very easy to get to know everyone and because I made an effort and stood out like a sore thumb anyway, it did not take long for me to make an indelible mark on the place. This is best characterized by something a friend said to me about a month into the semester: "You know, it really hasn't been that long since you got here, but I honestly can't remember a time when you weren't here."
Embracing Campus Life
It is one thing to be a geek. It is quite another when you draw attention to the fact. There were three things that radically altered my visibility on campus. The first was my moniker. At that point, I owned five fish ties and it was a goal of mine to wear one each day that I was in public... which turned out to be just about every day. The number of ties would increase over time, but this is where the practice had its roots even if the nickname did not surface until my migration to the main campus.
The second was the collection of name tags I displayed on my grey trench coat. This started harmlessly enough over the summer leading up to my freshman year. My friend, Dave, worked at a local supermarket in the bakery counter. He had a name tag that he detested and, in a fit of disgust, gave it to me. Being the pack rat that I am, I tucked into my coat where it was forgotten for a month or two. When it resurfaced, I was struck by the idea of just wearing it around on my coat. To my surprise, this got a huge response out of folks who first marveled at the coat and then, later, produced name tags of their own from their sordid brushes with retail employment. Soon my coat became a mosaic of tags with a breadth of names and origins. It certainly made it a pain to wash. As an aside, I will say that my favorite had to be a Wendy's tag named Wendy.
The third was more a skill than a fashion choice. I had learned some of the basics to locksmithing over the summer leading up this first year. My friend and I were actually fairly accomplished at opening a variety of locks and this came in very useful at the dorm when people would get locked out of their room by their roommates. It became habit for many people that I was their second stop after trying the dorm office.
Now because the campus was more geared toward off campus students, the haunt of choice was the Buck Union Building. It had a small stage where the theater people would practice, a fast food type place that took points (very important) as well as a book store and other areas downstairs. The BUB was also home to WPSM, a closed-circuit radio station that played into the building over the day.
This was were I got a crash course in card-playing. If you weren't in class or studying, you were in the BUB playing cards. Over the course of my tenure there, it was interesting to see how the tastes had changed. The first was Spades, because it was like Euchre but seemingly more simple. This progressed into Pinochle and then ultimately into Hearts. When it was just a pair of people, Bossita was the game of choice and conversely, large groups would tend to play Mao. But those two games are a stories in of themselves.
I also ingrained myself with the role-playing club. They were a really good group of people really. In fact, one of the Dougs swapped into be my roommate at the dorm after the first semester and that gave the group at large a place to hang out when the BUB had closed. It was here where I expanded my realms of role-playing into Shadowrun, Paranoia and Star Wars. Oddly enough, we did not play too many board games but stuck to the PnP stuff.
Through people I knew, I even managed to get an hour slot for a radio show. The board was simple enough and they had a library with breadth enough to keep it interesting. I tried to do themes in many instances, but I really couldn't sustain it. What I was most known for was my "Speed Floyd" track of the week. Basically I would take one of the albums and select a song. I would keep the turntable off and instead manually turn the song through as fast as I could. I knew I was onto something when I started getting threats of physical violence.
But I digress... in a roundabout way of saying it, the size of the campus made it very easy to get to know everyone and because I made an effort and stood out like a sore thumb anyway, it did not take long for me to make an indelible mark on the place. This is best characterized by something a friend said to me about a month into the semester: "You know, it really hasn't been that long since you got here, but I honestly can't remember a time when you weren't here."