So Where's Your College?

Let's face it, there's alot more than academics and cost to consider when choosing a college- proximity to an ice cream parlor, whether or not they serve pizza everyday, the general attractiveness of the female and male students (it would really be a shame if I had to attend a school where I was once again the best-looking guy; such a heavy burden to bear...). But there's something more important than that- as these formative years shape you, so will the geography of those years. Imagine if you were attending college...

In the Heart of the City
Some people live for the city, and don't sleep because of the city. Those are those insane individuals who believe that "being social defines you" or some other inane and blathering nonsense; something about "needing people to survive" and "no man is an island." Well, let me tell ya, perhaps no man is an island, but no man can possibly see the need to surround yourself with 14 million other small islands and/or miniature geographic features at all times, stranded within a bigger geographic feature.

In simpler words: no sane man willingly consigns himself to be in the company of millions of other men without some kinda catch, especially in college. Maybe you're in it for the ladies. Maybe you're in it for the 13$ a gallon gas or the 4$ a pizza slice pizza, but you'll regret it. Oh, yes you will. After finding out that my number 1 college was at the heart of a college town, surrounded by 7 or so other colleges, I retreated under my desk and curled up into a ball, sobbing and rocking back and forth. Save yourself.

Prime real estate: you can barely touch both walls at the same time!

In the Heart of the Cornfields
At the other extreme end of the spectrum is the "hole in the ground" college. Once upon a time, back when Manifest Destiny gripped the hearts of pioneers and shook them until they staggered out Westward, a lone caravan decided to settle in the single most desolate and abandonded spot possible. This is the town founded by complete loons for no good reason, and their descendants, continuing in the tradition of their mindless forefathers, have destined to lure other people into a town where the cows outnumber the people 3:1. Their bait: a modest college that looks nice and is inhabited by generally genial and amiable people.

Don't fall for this one, either. The only supermarket in town is Wally's Mart, and the nearest actual town is somehow 200 miles away, something you once thought geographically impossible in the United States. It's a shame that living in the cornfields is what finally forced you to learn how to use a map and figure out just how stranded you are. One day, the corn will rise up and destroy the town and the college.

"I forgot what hills look life..."

Abroad in the Jungles of the Amazon
"Gee, this is a neat brochure. Everyone in other countries is so blindingly good looking and happy all the time." The first step towards your timely decision to escape America, this brochure proves to have lied right into your face about everything. At the same time, it has collectively saved you more money than a fleet of dump trucks can transport in a week. No, really. It's cheap. The downsides, depending on your specific locale, range from living in a thatched hut with twelve villagers to living in a slum tenement with twelve other international students, and from eating purple earthworm larvae to drinking camel poop juice. Little did you ever suspect that camel poop juice denotes a delicious concoction of coconut juice and the blood of unicorns along with lime shavings, and it's surprisingly fecal-less. Enjoy!

Exactly like I... imagined it?... um...

Next Door, You Wuss
There's several reasons you didn't leave your house. For some reason or other, be it parents or tuition or something similarly absurd and lame, you figured that going too far from home might kill you- whether it's over-nutrition or homesickness, there are a thousand different maladies that can strike you dead pending your setting foot outside of state lines, according to their odd taste of logic.
There are some decent explanations for several of these phenomenons, such as helicopter parents or an irrational fear of being further than five minutes away from home, but I would personally like to reach out and say that perhaps you should accept the alternative that leaving home would help your health and be mentally healthy for your parents. Probably. This doesn't even deserve a picture. You're pathetic. Just kidding, please love me and my blog. You're beautiful. And scared of open spaces, that's kinda ok too (not really).

On the Beach in Suburbia
Either in a stilted hut or in a hammock between two palm trees, gorging yourself on the sunshine, this is the place to be. Even vampires can't resist- being in the beautiful sun is worth every cell in their body being scorched by the sun. When the sand is too hot and you burn your feet, that actually means you have vampire feet. Weirdo. Anyways. The Beach is the best place to live- better than cornfields, the Amazon, or two doors over from your house in a dorm.

"Class will be held at low tide." 

Right Now, I'd Rather Be...

It's been a traumatic night. I spent 7 nonconsecutive hours reading a 210 page book that I received three weeks ago. This kind of reckless literary abandon is nothing new; and besides, I relish the opportunity to ketchup on my reading sometimes. (Condiment joke!)
But as of now, the my stultified mind has succumbed to the wiles of the a-ccursed Internet, the bane of all humans and even slightly sentient beings. If frogs were useful for something other than shoe sole lubricant, they would also enjoy using computers. But right now, my mind rebels with every keystroke as it imagines several wonderful scenarios in which I am not being vaporized by the light emitted from a computer screen, such as...

Going for a Bike Ride : The Story
Biking is supremely supreme- supremerific, if you will. As a sport and as a method of transportation, it holds so much more promise than such foolhardy pursuits such as this "walking" people keep telling me about. In my heyday, I would glide through the streets and backroads of Bayonne, hair fluttering from under an only slightly ill fitting helmet and my eyes watering from the intense 12 mph's of velocitative movement the bicycle was sustaining... so like, fastish.

Height*Speed=Total Velocity, I think?

A Dam Bike Ride - The Hill
When I was a kid (summer 2011) and in Poland, I found myself in a similar situation. Luckily, the family hosting me lived in the mountains. No, really, you had to switch gears on the bike and all to get up to their house, perched precariously there like a tree jutting out of the side of a mountain. Why do trees do that? Anyway, I might've sustained several heart-attacks biking up to their house, and several more on the way back down. But this one morning, I was feelin' lucky. My friend, Piotr, told me about gorgeous hills and an active sawmill directly above a dam-caused lake not far from his house... who was I to resist this invitation? Wheeling a bike out and riding the few kilometers (that's right, Europe, baby) there, my front wheel finally began enjoying its true offroad environment by sinking several feet down into a swamp that was four inches wide and thirty feet deep (official estimates vary). As I looked up, my spine was thrashed by more than a chill- an icy freight train ran through it, rattling each vertebrae while stopping for fuel around my T4, then continuing on its hellish way. Before me stood not a hill- nay!; that description doesn't do it justice. Imagine a rocky, jagged precipice that giants jokingly chopped off the top of a mountain and plopped unceremoniously on a random hillside. Welcome to Poland.

The name of the town I was in. Why is it in English? Shutup.

The Ascent
In a fit of daring, imagine attempting to climb a skyscraper using thumb tacks as picks and toilet plungers as foot suction cups. Transpose this ridiculous scenario to Poland 2011, Wisla, and you would alight on a scene of me billowing full speed, wheel bouncing in and out of cavernous puddles, heading straight for a rock-studded wall. Okay, rock-studded hill. At a 89 degree angle. After the bike decided it wasn't feeling going vertical and started sliding down the rocky, muddy hill (I didn't mention it rained, did I? Because it rained the night before. Alot.), disembarking seemed the wisest course of action. At the top of the hill, the hill had another hill on top of it. This hill was barely on a 45-degree angle; might as well have been downhill for all I cared, and this hill was covered with tall grass and fallen tree branches, which was confusing because there was tall grass and no trees; yet there were tree branches. Poland. After 30 minutes of switching between riding my bike three feet and then getting it either stalled in water or stuck in mud, I just biked across the hill, because screw it, there was a third hill on top of the hill on top of the hill, and screw everyone, the bike was now sporting a brown coat of mud. Later, I would find out that the "trails" I thought I was using were actually just where the rain had worn ruts into the hill... but how did they wear ruts running horizontally across the hill?... Eh. Poland.

When I looked behind me on the road to the hill, casually passing by...

The Suici, er, Descent
There I was. Actually, that statement is definitively false, because I had no idea where I was in a geographic sense, but more of a local intuition. I was at the top of Suicide Hill. At a sporting 40 degree descent, this hill features a 8-inch gash running through the middle of the road until the bottom, where it crosses the left side of the division, forming a moat filled halfway up with rocks. The top half was empty space. After staring at this road for the span of 12 prayers to God to give me a sign whether I would survive the descent, I decided that signs are for wussies. But I waited an extra minute just in case, cause, y'know. DOWN I SPED, gripping the handlebars tighter than a fat kid defending a pastry. The wheels shook and grumbled, moaning for a sudden and violent release from their bicycle-frame prison, but the unruly rocks shattered them back into place with each new bump. Traveling at an estimated ten bagillion MPH (once again, official estimates vary, though consensus pegs it between 8 and 12 bagillion), I realized that the gash in the road had turned into a smirking mouth which was anticipating a delicious meal in the form of my entire front tire. In the most single daring moment of my life, I loosened my grip on the handlebars and hopped the voracious rock filled moat of doom only to land in a rocky road (not the ice cream, although that would've been nice) with the front tire swerving more erratically than a Batmobile with an entire birthday party inside. Forty feet later, the bike ground to a halt.

At this point, I decided to do something safer for the rest of the hour, like navigating through an active sawmill with logs rolling to and fro. And hour later, I went down suicide hill again, offering another baker's dozen of perfunctory prayers. After coming back to my host family's house and talking to Piotr Blazowski, who introduced me to that area, he told me he only goes down it with a helmet... when it doesn't rain.

.....................

According to the logbook (I never called it a diary) which I kept in Poland, this is how I introduced this entry: "I found out I can be declared clinically retarded today, and let me tell you why."

Era of Procrastination

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.--Charles Darwin

Anyone can tell you about procrastination. It is a universal conundrum, affecting drooling toddlers and drooling seniors alike, and striking down young high schoolers. It is the bane of all workers even slightly at risk to distractions... And like anything else universally affecting the entire human population, like a ludicrous love for peanut butter and ham waffles, procrastination can be broken down into a few different time frames...

A national dish of all 900 countries.

General Overview

Next time your parents try to convince you that sorting dominoes according to the number of dots on each side is less important than homework, try this: Ask them about their childhood and their own school procrastination. Chances are they'll tell you an interesting story and help you procrastinate at the same time; you just bought yourself some time to figure out how to arrange those two blocks with a 5-2 pattern on each side. Just don't glance at the domino box too often or they'll catch on. My mum recalled living across the street from the school, and as she went every morning her own mother would watch her... so my mum went in the front of the school and waltzed right out the back whenever she felt like it. But the point is, procrastination convinces you that an infinite number of things are more desirable than homework: smelling that stain on your ceiling, staring at dust floating in your room, even gazing slack-jawed at a pencil for three hours will suffice. But let me indulge you with a few slightly more specific and thoroughly incapacitating examples of procrastination that you're all too familiar with...

"Good habits start now!"

Sunday Night Blues

"Man, this was one great weekend. From Friday night hanging out behind 7-11 and getting yelled at by the Indian owner to Sunday afternoon having one-handed shoelace tying competitions with your friends, the excitement just kept on comin'!" Well, guess what, it's now Sunday night, 9:00, and it turns out your backpack hasn't even been opened. Hell, you can't bring yourself to recall where you put it. After an hour of digging  through layers of dirty clothes, food wrappers, and fruit husks, you successfully excavate your academic portmanteau and begin to peruse your papers. Time to get to work.

Three hours later, you wake up. Seriously, time to get to work... right after I check my email.

It's now 2:45am, and you're knee deep in three sentences of literary wisdom. The essay due needs to fill five pages. Single-spaced. Dude, just go to sleep at this point. Tell the teacher your backpack got buried in a landslide, it's basically the truth.

Except that's not homework. He's researching sandpit backpack removal techniques.

Day-Before Deadline

As you receive the assignment, you vow, "This time, it'll be done a WEEK before deadline. I swear, my work will overflow with grace, beauty, and education, and my teacher will deferentially bow before me for the rest of the year in awe of such a masterpiece."

This is what you said a month ago. You told yourself it would get done next week every weekend, and guess what, the deadline is tomorrow and the empty word doc is mocking you with a grin while it shakes its private parts at your auntie (Holy Grail ref). In other words, yep, you're screwed. Once again, the only option is to sit down and power through it... or you could go and raid the fridge for the ninth time today. Is there even a question which one you pick?

Too hungry to sleep. Too tired to eat. Still better than doing homework.

Period Before Class

Well, this time, the teacher assigned some asinine form of homework yesterday. But, once again, you had much better things to do after school like skipping rocks on the street and planking on top of moving cars dressed as a gorilla. When you got back home, between eating and eating, there was no time to pause your frenzied chewing and do 800 math problems. The next day, in school, you're too lazy to even copy the work. C'mon, even Ben copies his work in a timely manner, you lazy, poo-sniffing, no good yellabelly bum. But you have class next period, and it's now or never, buster... but your friends are playing cards, and they only do this the entire day, so it would be like a sin to miss out! At this point, just... just drop out of high school and become a Walmart greeter or something. But you'd probably suck at that, too.

A synopsis of the next five years of your life.

Next Stop, College: For now? DMV.

Sometimes, it's cold. Bone-rattling, spine-cracking cold. Usually, these cold days directly coincide with the days when your mom calls out, "Need a jacket?!?" And you simply smirk, walking into the icy mist with your bermuda shorts and t-shirt.

Totally normal behavior for me.

That was the day I ended up going to the DMV and waited on line outside at 8 in the morning on a Saturday; an ungodly hour at best. Getting your permit is one of the few steps towards becoming a real college kid, and one that's pretty easy to put off when your main modes of transportation are:

1. The light-rail in all of its fare-officer dodging glory
2. Footing it, usually in sandals or ill-fitting sneakers
3. Biking on a decrepit piece of metal that needs to be kicked in encouragement every few blocks

On second thought, maybe a car's exactly what I need. But let me say, getting to drive one could really be easier.

First: The lines. Good Lord. When you go to Six Flags and stand in line for Kingda Ka, at least you know you're getting a thrill eventually. Delayed gratification at its finest. But the DMV? Oh. Oh no. Oh, ohhhh no. Finally arriving at the end of a 'queue', as they're known in Britain, doesn't exactly kindle excitement in me. In fact, waiting and actually being served are almost equally horrible experiences. But the lines are incredible, just like accidentally slicing your own thumb off with a dull spoon is incredible. And imagine when DMVs were government run? You could camp out for weeks just to get halfway to the front door... shenanigans like that typify the pre-Internet era, when people were glad for distractions like that. 

This is what the 80s were like.

Next: The people. Nowhere else in America will you experience such a skewed, motley representative demographic of the American peoples. When a line drags itself slower than a turtle through barbed wire, distractions truly are easy to come by. In this case, counting Indians. Looking around "Step 1" of the DMV line, I racked up a head count of 16 Indians out of... 20 people. Given, it was early, and I guess they're all about early birding the worm, but... seriously? If I yelled, "Shah! Patel!" half of the entire building would turn around and stare at me. The oddest thing, though, is that many of these immigrants spoke better English than a majority of people I know or have met, including the Hispanic lady who was attending to me at "Step 29C."

Sketching from memory, she looked something like this.

Last: The silly paperwork. I accidentally filled out "USA" in the county box of my permit application (county, country, all the same!) and was viciously beaten by a troop of DMV commandoes. When I handed another kind, large black man my blue card for my actual permit (after 4 layers of overlapping paperwork and running around counters to fix errors made by other workers) he told me it was going to expire soon and I had to retake the knowledge test. On the spot. At the touch screen station I was ushered to hastily, there was lots of  punching letters and then confirming that yes, indeed, I am sure you're supposed to stop on railway tracks when the red lights flash... right? The passing grade was 40/50, and at 32 right, I had 9 wrong. THIS close to needing to change my dungarees on the spot.

Previously, I've lamented the services of post office workers. In fact, I am now eternally grateful for the wonderful, luminescent, saintly workers of the post office. At least their faces aren't permanently fixed in grimaces and scowls; their mindset one of undying resentment of all humans brazen enough to appear before them... WELL. Am I excited for my driving test or what!

**If you are offended by the mildly offensive racial remarks here, please go chase yourself. And then accept my insincerest apologies.

Beach Bumming: An Indefinite Manifesto

What has two legs, chronic sunburn, and nothing but a loincloth and sunglasses to its name?

THAT'S RIGHT! A beach bum! Though I'd honestly prefer you stop objectifying beach bums. They're people too, you insensitive clod. 

Well, everyone except for whoever lives in this pretentious husk. Beach bums draw the limit at cement sandcastles and cigarette bungalows. Hmph.

Sure, there's lots of appeal to becoming a beach bum, you may say, but what about, like, life? Well, what about it? If your parents ever loved you (and just look at you... doubtful at best), then they'll be happy to let you wander around beaches nearly nude as crabs slice open your feet and the skin peels off your body like  snakeskin. Otherwise, the only reason they ever raised a child was to live off of its fruit when they grow older- in other words, they secretly believe you're a fruit tree.Assuming you're an independent human, let the completely objective analysis of beach-bumming continue at its best. If not, then... oh, goodness, the fruit trees. THEY'RE READING MY BLOG! And alive, I guess. Eh.

            The main tenet of beach bumming has yet to be created and instituted. Why? Beach bums are busy doing amazing things, like surfing on scrapped car doors and panhandling on boardwalks. A life filled with excitement and natural wonder holds no room for meaningless cultural pursuits like this "hygiene" and "intelligible communication" everyone keeps talking about all the time.

WGHZYITT? RRRR!

            What this means, is that you don't have rules. No curfew (as if that existed either way), no designated mealtimes (or permanent definition of "food"), and noone looking over your shoulder trying to tell you cigarette butt necklaces aren't art! And yet, with a great lack of rules comes... nothing, I guess. The ocean is your brother, the beach is your mother, and the sun looking down in you in withering scorn would probably be your resentful father. I mean, take a look at Lord of the Flies. They tried to have rules and they ended up burning down a forest and squashing an asthmatic kid with a boulder. Rules are another way of saying you hate asthmatic kids, and that kind of intolerance will not be tolerated. Unless you're on a beach. Because, well, there are no rules on a beach.

What's that, gravity? I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

Well, unless you're on the same beach as the Jersey Shore cast. Then the only rule is aim for the face, but I digress.

CollegeThefts and the Beach

"Wow, five colleges? That's alot. Like, woaaaaah." (just kidding about the last bit)

That's what someone blurted out in their decades old-knowledge of college-applification processes when I lowballed them with a five college application estimate. Seriously, five colleges aren't that many... though I'll probably defer to four. Seriously, who, other than masochistic serial killers and disassociated geniuses (genii?) would apply to more than 6 colleges? The most common defenses:

1. You're a secretly a serial killer looking for quarries filled with mines of easily developed relationships.
2. "Why not?"
3. "Listen, I only have twelve safeties and eight reach schools. Can't be too sure these days..."
4. "It's just to see if I can get in. (And kill everyone.)"
5. "Listen, I only have four safety schools(!), (and three of them are Rutgers.) Can't be too sure these days. Wait, I submitted four separate applications, one for each campus. Is that how?..."
6. "Nine's just a nice number. It has this... mysterious ambiance. Of serial killeryness."
7. Dangit Jeff, stop implying I'm a serial killer!

"This is actually my nice face."

                 It's safe to say that American society has bloated expectations for just about everything. College is not exception. I'd venture a guess and say that a vicious cycle of feelings of insufficiency, the behests of admissions officers, and simply culture itself has steered us into an adolescent frenzy of collegehoodness. And not the where-I-live hood, the suffix hood kinda hood. Still with me?

                 There isn't a wrong college to go to if you've researched it and you know you want to go there. At the top of my list stand the following colleges: Wheaton and Westmont. Both choices are easy to justify, and I know exactly why I would like to attend each college. In a walnut shell (normal shells are so mainstream):

Wheaton- top Christian college in the US. Full of rich white kids and has an ROTC program. In suburban Chicago, which I hear enjoys wind. And more wind. And then more wind... disguised as rain.

Westmont- The other day, I hop into the car with my pops and he turns and asks me," Jeff, what's your obsession with the West Coast and California colleges? I think you hit your head when you were a little guy." Westmont embodies Livin' the Dream, that's why I'm obsessed! It's a Christian colleges five minutes away form the beach, it's in Cali, small prof-student ratio, they're selective enough for my taste, and they have a very, very nice looking female-male ratio, chyaknowImtalkingabout? And it's five minutes away from the beach. And it's in Cali. And everyone knows serial killers are scared of beaches and SoCal.

"I have a philosophy degree. Just kidding, this is where I'd end up anyway. That or shoe-shining in Istanbul."

Backup: Westmont is good for another reason, a reason so disingenuous it belies my very nature of being a cultured, dancy gentleman (haha, riiiiight): it lay on a hillside five minutes from the beach. So, even if I don't get in (or just plain give up on college after a week of classes) the option of beach bum remains, standing on the sandy golden Cali shores, beckoning to me with its finely chiseled arms and dollar-menu-crumb decorated hobo beard. If I need to elaborate on the perks of beach-bumming, then the rest of this sentence
(mouse over to reveal text due to censored content).

Haha, fooled ya. (Or not, in which case I feel dirty about pretending to be vulgar and stupid. Double whammy, kiddo. Next time be gullible, jerk.)
Really, I'm just bitter about people being so proactive and pro-stealing-spots-they-don't-even-want-in-colleges. In the meantime, I'll be figuring out if any colleges offer vocational training for beach-bumming. Another article on that, dear reader, on another day. And yes, I assume there's only one of you. Pathetic? Maybe. Realistic?... *sobs into board shorts and wipes with beach towel* yes...

Rutgers Essay

I forgot what the prompt, but that will do little to stop me from posting my Rutgers admissions essay. Too sensationalist? Boo-hoo. Too brazen and tongue-chokingly funny? A tad. But consider for a moment that these poor admissions fellows, enclosed in their itty bitty offices, have to read thousands of illiterate, boring, mangled essays for a living. They probably perfect speed-reading after two days in their careers... Imagine...

"Hmm, he knows words. Good. *Grunt* More essays. More eat.... *Grunt* Person use vocabulary bad. Gr. No like..."

I defer to my first mini-college admissions opus.




“Is the couch fine for ya? The rotten orange smell’s been there for awhile.”

“Um, I’ll be fine, thanks!”

Couchsurfing is something everyone should try- it’s basically arranging sleepovers while traveling, sans the mass murderers. Traveling runs in my family. One of my grandfathers would travel around the US and Britain giving sociology lectures, my parents would find summer jobs all around Poland while in University, and my brothers went on a two week trip around Iceland last year exclusively to hitchhike and climb through the entire country. I’ve traveled extensively in Poland and Greece, and breezed through Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia a few times.

One of the most enjoyable secrets of traveling lay in going out on a limb- talking to strangers, taking public transportation, and making unexpected friends. But throwing caution to the wind doesn’t limit itself to traveling in my case…

“Jeff, I can’t believe you’re taking dance this year! Serious?”

“Jack of all trades, master of some, kiddo. I’m serious.”



I learn for the sake of learning, and taking dance as my senior major epitomizes the “Scientia potesta est” mantra that I hold so dear. My favorite field of study is writing; I love writing letters, cards, and essays, always flavored heavily with subtle humor. Dance opened up a whole new world of writing to me- one of movement, pirouettes, tap dancing, and good Lord, she really just did that with her leg.

Though I would normally hesitate to say that I am an interesting person, after deep reflection, my life would intrigue even the mythological evil twin of Davy Jones, Coldhearted Jones. I am a writer, gentlemen, scholar, and almost a dancer (much harder to learn than it looks). Clearly, Rutgers would make an absolutely fantastic home away from home. As a seasoned learner and magnetic leader, I offer Rutgers a top notch pupil that aspires towards excellence. As a Christian who goes to a Filipino Baptist church, I offer Rutgers a solid, honest character which encourages and inspires others.



At Rutgers, thousands of driven young adults strive to learn and achieve great things in a widely ranging spectrum of educational fields. Each one of them stands capable of helping me to learn more and expand my worldview to span cultures, languages, and various “ologies”. Professors eagerly await new students, and counselors anxiously expect scholars to advise. Social events patiently count the minutes until slews of hungry undergrads flock, and multicultural mingling parties expectantly tarry for every last nationality. As a fine educational institution filled with bright staff and students, Rutgers lacks little.