As an English major, I'm quite intrigued by the linguistic peculiarities within and surrounding my college. The colloquialisms abound like you wouldn't believe. I've lived in Florida all my life, but never have I heard such an...interesting take on the English language. Allow me to provide you with a few, poignant examples:
Elevator: (n) 1) a large, muscular, unusually attractive male between the ages of 20 and 23 who hoists between one and two hundred sets mini-fridges, pillows, tv's, stereos, large make-up cases and the like, up three flights of rickety stairs between the hours of 8 am and 5 pm in Floridian heat. He can be distinguished from the mere 'boyfriend' by noting that he is decked in Grecian symbolism denoting his political, financial, and sexual preferences. Also, he is usually surrounded by his soft, elegant female counterparts, not jealous freshman girls glaring at anyone who comes within a twenty-eight point six-six-seven yard radius of 'her man' 2) a male person of any state of physical stature, ranging in age between 40 and 60, who can be found carrying one unusually large set of dorm supplies up three flights of rickety stairs. He can be distinguished from the younger form by the following: profuse sweating, hovering wife and/or daughter(s) who carry nothing, golf attire, and the usual signs of heart attack.
Karioke: (n) a full-contact sport including stripping, booty-dancing college presidents, stagnant air, and some singing
Moccasin: (n) a snake. Though its connotation can lead one to believe you are being called 'a soft leather shoe worn, stereotypically, by Native Americans and given as presents to young maidens by the mythical, seducer-dragonfly, Cocopolo', it truly means that you are a venomous, high-strung, cold-blooded, irrational, reptilian member of a college.
Freshman: (n) someone in his or her first year of college. Despite having 31 (yes, t-h-i-r-t-y o-n-e) credits, I am in a freshman dorm, a freshman-baby-how-to-deal-with-life class, and have been listed on every non-necessary paper as a freshman. So, though my official transcript with the college says I'm a sophomore and will be outta here in 3 years, I'm still a freshman.
Tankle: (n) a sound somewhat like the northern 'tinkle' but said with a raspy Southern accent.
I'm sure, as the year progresses, that I'll be able to entertain you with more exciting elocution
on this invigorating subject. For the moment, I'm going to sleep in my wonderful room, with its wonderful view, to the wonderful sound of my neighbors slowly making their way in from ladies' night at the tiki bar, and dreaming of everything to come.
And Kat, I wish you a warm walk from your shower. ^.^
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
The showers are an experience. You just can't leave dry. You hang your towel and clothes on the hooks out of water's reach, but they are strait hooks, not really hooks at al, so by the time you are ready to get out, you find all of your dry stuff, on the floor, drenched in your shower stall's runoff. Its an invigorating experience to put on sopping wet, cold clothes. :O) then walk the whole way to your dorm dripping. It puts things in perspective. On the cold journey, I wonder, is this just one of the many life lessons of humbleness One is expected to learn at a liberal arts university. The same thought occurs to me frequently when i consider the other everyday hurdles thrown in our way. For instance, there is no soap in the rest rooms. there are four shower and bathroom stalls each, and five sinks, with one paper towel dispencer, but no soap. is this some sort of test in self sufficientcy, like, we'll see if you're smart and you bring your own toilet paper (which the custodial staff has not refilled... ) and soap.
Are these things really tests from Clark University directly? Probably not, but i am beginning to see that they are still tests in their own right. All of Clark's little quirks are. How smart of them was it to tell every freshman to get online and register at the same time starting at 9 am this morning? the system crashed within an hour. If i could pat an establishment on the proverbial head, I would. In the meantime, I have tests to take on. I love you all. Tori, Have a great orientation. pretty soon "Hi,I'm tori from ..... Hall. " will roll off your tonge like second nature. Just keep introducing yourself. Thats the trick. every 30 or so people will be worth it, but those few will be awsome. I love you. Keep in touch.
Gato
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
Hey Monkey =)
I'm going a little crazy over here. Its not the work. After you left...or, rather, sometime while you were here, it started hitting me. I realized that I'd wasted 10 minutes idly packing when I could have been spending time with you. Then I realized how much I'm going to miss you. How much I'm going to miss my family and Peter and Kennon and Kat and Geoff... THEN I realized: I have less than 2 days left! Ten minutes means so much in the span of two days. How many times this summer did I waste ten minutes? Six times? That's a whole hour. A whole hour with the people I care about. Come Monday, when my mom's gone and you and the guys and Kat and Geoff are all in class and I'm still going through the motions of orientation, an entire hour with you all is going to look unbelievably priceless.
So yeah...emo Camel.
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
We love you, Gato. We all love you: me, and Es, and G, and Peter, and Brian, and Kennon, and your parents, and my parents, and Theresa, and John-Andrew, and Nicole and the Twins, and the Santinelli's and Mrs Burley (who really and truely says "Tell her hi and I love her!") and and Mr. Beasley and
We are here for you! We are here for you. You have all the support we can possibly offer. If we could be there next to you, we would. You will have a great year if you give it that effort - you know it. You will achieve all you want. And you'll be home, wrapped up in the Floridian warmth before you know it. You'll be fine, I promise. *muah*DO I REALLY NEED TO GO ON!!!???!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
I'm here Tori, I'm still here. Don't you worry sweetie. I miss you to. And I'm depressed and missing you like CRAZY. Its strange and ... I feel so out of place. No one cares about anyone but them selves, except for some of the RA'S and PA's and theres a lot of immaturity in the sorms, its like being a freshman in highschool only now you have to live with the crap. Its kind of dissapointing (along with my spelling). Anyway, My room mate is way cool, and she's not into this crowd thing here either, so its not so bad, except that our meanl plans don't kick in till tuesday and they are only feeding us twice a day and i'm hungary... :O(
I miss home. I miss the atmosphere of florida, i never thought i'd say that, but i do. Its strange here, like and alternate dimention, like some freak accident that i, gato, from south, friend of g and tori, am somehow here with all of these old buildings, no ac, immature people, and no phone, no car, and no bus stops with which to get out. another funny little quirk, there is no cell phone reception here. Its like the twilight zone. We're stuck here. I'm stuck here, with no way to tell tori i'm ok. no way to talk to g or Es, now way to connect to my old life at all except through pictures and yearbook and random paraphenalia I brought with me. please send me mail. please please please please PLEASE. something i can hold in my hand and stick on my wall as a reminder that somewhere out there, bits and pieces of my world still exist. I love you guys. Write me or email, it might take a while for me to respond, but i definately will (i'm on my roomates computer). Love Always,
Gato
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
It's very lonely around here. When Brian's not here and when Peter and Kennon are at work and when my brother is at school and my mom's busy or letting me have my time, it gets very lonely. I miss Gato. Who else am I supposed to inform about the surprises and joys of being in a relationship again? Who else am I supposed to giggle with or worry with or cry with? When I break down Tuesday - and I know I will - who will hug me? Okay, I know the guys will, but will they really want to deal with me crying? Besides, I don't want to put that on their shoulders. And my mom will hug me, but she'll start crying too. And my sister will hug me, but I'll just sob harder.
So here I am, the only girl left. My only confidant is in Massachusets. She hasn't e-mailed me. I don't even know if she knows I'm with Brian (*sigh*). Its very disconcerting. It'll be horrible trying to tell Tiffany and Lauren and Helena everything. Because there will be things they just don't get about him because they don't know him like Gato and I do. I can't tell my mom, no matter how much she approves of him, because its the principle of the thing. Maybe I'll just write a book. But a book doesn't answer back. It doesn't sooth fears. It doesn't laugh at the funny parts. Or say "aww" at the sweet parts. Though it does immortalize every written moment, it just doesn't do the trick.
I miss you, Gato. Write me soon.
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
Well I'm leaving, on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again...( i couldn't resist).
Ok so I leave tomorrow. This is my last day home. It feels so strange to go away. I don't like it. I feel as though my current life is disapating right before my eyes. Another year has begun at school, there are already new seniors doing all of the senior things. Some of my friends have already left for school, with out so much as a goodbye. The new chorus teacher is settling herself in Mr. Luffred's old office, my room is completely packed, my walls bear. My friends coming over to say they're final goodbyes . The world, my world is changing so fast. nothing is staying the same. i look around me and i want to grip something constant, and there is nothing. Its sad and scary and lonely. Everything is ending too soon. This has been a fantastic summer. One I won't forget for years too come. Corny as it is, I fully agreed with the yearbook theme this year, I had the time of my life. And I'm not naive enough to believe that there won't be more amazing times ahead, because I know there will be. But for now I will be a little reluctant to let these memories slip from my hold. Things are changing, But I've got to learn to live with that. We live in an ever changing world. I just hope that the friendships forged over the last four years survive the changes to come. So i leave you now, my last words from ten minutes away :O). Goodluck you two. I'll hit you up later when I'm in Boston.
Love Always,
Gato
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
While you get to be an "Anti-Clarkie", I get to be re-introduced into my hometown of "L-Town". Okay...the only reason it's known as L-Town is because the Orlando people made the Podunkers - er - Lakelanders jealous that O-Town was a well known nickname (and a band???). So they created L-Town. Which is how I respectfully refer to it when talking to any of my "L-Towner" friends. Otherwise, I refer to it as the "sh**-hole", "Podunk", "Kaus Central" (Pronounced "Cows Central" after the famous wanna-be tiki bar everyone in L-Town frequents called "Kau Kau's"), or "there".
It's not that I don't like the city. It's okay. For a southern, semi-suburban area, its beautiful: grassy knolls, groves, parks, oak trees (which I adore b/c I loved them growing up) and million dollar + homes bordering alligator infested natural lakes that host international water skiing championships. There's space. There's clean air. My campus smells like a garden - there are roses and citrus trees blooming everywhere. It smells like Central Florida in its prime. Which it is: Central Florida in its prime.
But I can't stand the personality of the place. The "Southern hospitality". OMG... I HATE Southern Hospitality in L-Town. In Kentucky, it means a hug from a stranger who you can have a homey-conversation with. A dry porch when your car gets stuck in the rain. A cup of coffee and a bowl of grits when you're bluer than the grass. A concert for free cause you're an out-of-towner wanting to be cultured like they are. THAT is southern hospitality. In L-Town, it means that if your waitress at a sit down restaurant could be your mother or older, you have to eat your vegetables before desert. It means they physically drag you to church every Sunday. It means they'll go out of their way to convert you to their commercially reproduced, closed-minded, artificially sweetened conservative, city-hicker (not SLICKER, HICKER), Aunt Tilly's rocking chair, backwoods-wannabe-accent, REPUBLICAN way of life. And if you say "no, thank you," they're not allowed to cry, pout, scowl, or sulk. But it does mean they're allowed to shun you, talk behind your back, try harder, and add even more "Sweet and Lo" to cover their acidic criticism of your way of life.
So don't blame me if I come back and head straight for the first designer store and spend $300 on a pair of shoes (especially if they're Malano Blahniks). Because I'll be so sick of Wal-Mart that if I don't get does of actual, metropolitan couture, I'll become one of them. And I know we don't want that...
I'll just have to be the Mainstreamer Salmon in a Trout sorta world...
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
Nevermind. lol. I figured it out. So today we are having a garage sale. Its amazing what people will and won't buy. They will buy old clothes or shoes without matches, half filled bottles of lotion and purfume, but they won't buy my step Dad's brand new 200$ tools he's priced at 10 bucks. Explain that. People are weird. The packing is comming along. So are the tears. Oh well, its part of life. I went to this alumni pizza welcome thing at an Alumni's house in Boca. It was nice, nice people, nice conversation, except for the fact that I was the only student there, lol. I had to repeat my "why I chose Clark" story over and over. I figured " well, my top 6 other schools either didn't accept me or didn't give me enough money" would have been rude. Rude But true. So I said some stuff about wanting a liberal arts education and changing seasons and blah blah.. and that is sort of true. I do want those things, I just was hoping to get them from BU. Oh well, It was a nice night though. They gave out CLARK bars at the end of it, I thought that was cute. Everyone seemed down to earth and that made me feel a little better. I know its a good school, and all of that other important stuff, but i wish it wasn't so far away. What was kind of getting to me was the "clarkie" thing, everyone calling themselves "clarkies" and saying things like "arn't you excited?! Pretty soon you'll be a clarkie!!" If anyone calls me that again, EVER, they have a death wish. If they think I'm going to use the word "clarkie" they've got another thing comming. That name only works because their mascot is a dog. Oh how cute, "clarkie", someones creative. Imagine yelling that at a football game , "Go Clarkies!". It just doesn't seem to flow, lol. oy vey. What are your mascots going to be?
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
As I sit peacefully in my room, nursing my headache and sun-burn, I can't help but think of the threshold we stand on.
When I was little - meaning probably up until sometime in 9th grade - everyone told me that I'd lived my life in a little glass box like a delicate museum piece. I believed them, mostly, and eventually "broke out" of that shell and went to go see the world. But as it turns out, the only world I saw was what was in the museum wing around me. Every now and then, I got to venture into another wing and, oh, the excitement! Now, here I am, about to walk out of the world I've known my entire life and into a much more intimidating place. Its not as though I'm not coming back, its just that it won't be the same.
Childhood is ending. For real this time. Adolescence is - well I sure hope its over because I'd prefer a more solid ground than raging hormones, a haphazard idea of who I might be, and misplaced priorities. We'll get a second chance at beating those things right around our midlife crisis, we don't need more now. In just over a year (or a year and a half for some of us young'uns) we'll be out of teenage-hood forever. A year after that we'll hit the magic age of 21. Then comes undergrad graduation - Peter, first (Mr. Associate's Degree), then the rest of us soon after. Then what? Jobs, responsibility, families of our own, bills, debt, the problems our parents have, problems our parents never dreamed about, a declining environment, the weight of the current state of the US on OUR shoulders, kids blaming us for the terrible way things are run, new music we can't stand, back aches, wrinkles, our own teenagers to deal with, sucesses, losses, birth, death, a new type of hope, a million new ways to love, experience (eventually), and wisdom (sometime after we learn from experience).
Somewhere in that "modern mideval mess" (as the wise Merlin put it in The Sword and the Stone) we'll have the chance to grab the world by the tail and run with it. One of us may be the next Spielberg, or Albright, or Nobel winner, or Oates. What would we do with that kind of fame, that kind of influence on the world? I can think of a million things I'd do, and at least three quarters of them are unselfish, three sixteenths would be for my kids and their kids and their kids' kids, and the rest would be just plain fun =).
There's so much to look forward to that its hard to look back. I'll miss the Lunch Group in its many forms. I'll miss the spontinaity we've been allowed because we're so close to eachother. I regret not taking more advantage of it. I can't believe I've wasted a whole summer on me, and have seen Kennon once. I can't believe I didn't listen to anyone when I was with Dane. I can't believe I let Charlotte talk me into ignoring Kat for almost two years. I can't believe I wasted time worrying, or slacking, or arguing, or being self-centered. Because I can't go back and get everything I missed. And I can't relive the things I got either. There won't be another day we get to sit in Mr. C's or Mr. Ford's or Mrs. Sallette's or on the patio or in Mr. Friedman's or Mr. Madden's or Mr. Beasley's room. There won't be another Grad Nite, or another Senior Skip Day (even though I was sick, I felt the joy), or a Senior Nerd Day. I won't ever have another 18th birthday party (you all WILL be at my 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd and so on and so forth, not to mention other dates, both big and small) and I won't ever have another prom. I wish I could revisit every good day I've had.
But then again...If I did that, how many good days ahead of me will I miss?
In my museum, there is an unmeasurable wealth of memories, friendship, family, love, and passion. Beyond the threashold, there are chances to reach what I want in life, to fullfil dreams, to gain the experience and wisdom it will take to change the direction of the world for the better. On one side of the door, there's peace and solitude, knowing I'll always have my memories. On the other side, there's a mad race to the finish. We'll make it. I just know we will.
-
I see what you mean. I'm excited too about the new world that awaits us, Its just hard sometimes to leave everyone I've come to love. I agree with what you've said, though, about missing the moments to come because you're caught up in past memories. And wouldn't it be great if one of us were to make that much of an impact on this world as a noble peace prize winner or the next speilberg. that would be cool. And finally, remind me about your birthday, i'll save up and fly down :O)
Much love,
Gato :O)
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
Is everyone else going through the same Hellacious thing that I am? Well probably not entirely, since you guys were smart and decided to stay in state. By the way, nice choices guys. Whose Idea was it for me to go half way across the country for a year? What was I, On crack when I made that decision?
So now i've got to pack up all my stuff, and it just feels so weird to put things i've seen everyday of my recent life into a box and know I am not going to be able to see them for the next four years. Thats sad. That sucks. But you know what sucks even more? I feel like thats whats going to happen with all of my friends, except putting them in a box would be easier, that way they would still be there when I opened the box, a little tatered and suffocating lol, but none the less, there. I know you all are going off to bigger and better things, and its not that i don't want you to grow... I just wish we could all still do it together. This past year, with all of its ups and downs, all of the pain and heartbreak, all of the irritation and set backs, was really the most fun I've had ever. I wouldn't trade any of our talk, Tori, or our sleepovers or tiffs, or embarrasing moments for anything. It was great. So thank you for all of that. I won't be forgetting it.
Anyhow, I didn't mean to become weird and emotional, well, yes I did, lol, lets face it, its me. But I wanted to sincerly wish you all the very best new adventures. I know we won't lose touch with each other. I'm just a little sad about leaving. Good luck everybody. Much Love :O)
Gato
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I haven't started packing, honestly. I don't have half the stuff I'll take and don't know if I'll have room for the other half. And don't worry about being emotional - I know how it is. ^.^ We'll stay connected, I promise. You won't ever have to pack me away, because I'll always be right there - whether its on the blog, e-mail, phone, your doorstep, or romies in the big B (of course I'll need a job for that last one), I'll be there. Muah! Love you too ~ AJ
t h e . l u n c h . g r o u p
AIU Online
At 11:52 AM,
Gato said…
thanks for enlightnening me, and thanks for the warm shower wish :O). I'm trying to think of any strange and unique Clark lingo, but i'm going blank. I'll keep you posted. Love You.
Gato
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