Stephan is a softy

By Drew Stephan
Collegian Staff
April 26, 2006

For someone as pedantic and preachy as me, it’s hard to believe that I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what to write for this send-off. Maybe I should just follow the Advice From A Caterpillar and begin at the beginning. I came to La Salle and I didn’t know a damn person here.

It blows my mind to think that that was almost four years ago, that when I came here I was still really into going to the gym all the time, that I’d never read a book outside of Encyclopedia Brown that I’d really enjoyed, that I had never even seen Evil Dead 2 a single time. Am I still the same person? No, and that’s a good thing. But I had lots of help along the way. Shout outs!

Uber Street has been one of the best experiences of my life, and I can’t believe how much fun it’s been, however bad my sleeping habits have gotten. Gotta love a house where you’re not the only one up at five on a Wednesday night. Thank Vigoda that SportsCenter is on all night long. Drew, Lou, Taylor, Michelle, Gwen, you have been a family to me and I thank you for putting up with my general laziness and questionable hygiene.

Thursday nights will never be the same for me, and I am eternally grateful to the Doctor, Tsikitas, Norlen, Smash, Danno, Leo and the rest of the Borgota crew for accepting me into their strange, wonderful slacker culture. Though I think my gambling skills have actually gotten worse, how else would I have been able to watch Bill Nye at 6 on a Friday morning?

To the Collegian staff: where else would a kid who failed math in high school be given a position of (relative) authority? The slacker section of the school paper, of course. I apologize for all the tripe I’ve written (including this), but don’t apologize for yelling a lot and making everyone uncomfortable.

To all my teachers: thank you for everything. You’ve given me a new perspective on life, on writing, on reading, on thinking. I can’t even imagine how monumentally difficult teaching must be, so infinite kudos and I hope I speak for all of us when I say how grateful I am.

Kurt Vonnegut had an uncle who said that the problem with humans was they were never content with where they were in life. He decided that he wouldn’t fall into that trap and got into the habit of stopping whenever he was enjoying himself and saying, “If this isn’t nice, what is?” I think that’s a good thing to do sometimes instead of just complaining when things go wrong.

I guess the only other thing I have to say is to be yourself. I know; groundbreaking stuff. But, the poet e.e. cummings once said, “To be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, is to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” I first heard that when I was a freshman in high school, and it’s stuck with me. Don’t be afraid to stick out. It feels nice to catch a breeze above the crowd.

I’ll catch you on the flipside, everyone. It’s been real.

stephaa1@lasalle.edu