Last Wednesday, I gave thanks.
Sure, I was planning to wait until Thanksgiving, when I could give thanks for my loving family, a home-cooked meal and finally getting to meet my cousin's extraordinarily cute baby daughter. But no, my moment of real gratitude came while I was waiting for my delayed connection flight and sitting in the destination known worldwide to soul-searchers in desperate pursuit of enlightenment.
That's right-the Cleveland airport.
Before Wednesday, my semester was really wearing me down. I had 65 pages of term papers still to write, Madison was getting cold and People Magazine once again failed to name me Sexiest Man Alive. Things weren't going well.
But the Hopkins International Airport has perspective when people like me need it. And last Wednesday, I did.
Airports are normally easy for me, because my favorite hobbies are listening to music and looking at people. But as I sat there checking out strangers, my fun was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of chewing. I turned around to see half a dozen female students from Oberlin College, all chomping gum with the ferocity of a tackle sport.
And chewing wasn't the worst sound coming from their mouths.
\Oh my God, you should have been there on Saturday,"" one said. ""We were making Jell-O shots with Grey Goose. It was so good.""
Don't get me wrong-I like blowing through my parents' hard-earned money as much as the next guy. But if you're buying $50 bottles of vodka to make a dessert endorsed by Bill Cosby, you've gone too far. I turned around to check if they were sipping Cristal with their airport Cinnabon.
But when I did glance at the Oberlin students again, I saw that they all wore long, dangling earrings, earth-toned scarves and funny-colored boots. Their pants were designed to look homemade, yet clearly were expensive and store-bought. They were silver spoon bohemians. And they kept on talking.
They talked about everything from recent hook-ups to gender inequity on ""Dawson's Creek,"" trying to sound deep about every mundane subject and validate their sophistication. The problem was how much effort these people put into being interesting. They were obviously trying to talk like people they had seen in movies and yogurt commercials.
And it was that moment when I became thankful for going to UW.
Sure, UW has plenty of idiots and some of the best people I know have gone to Oberlin or liberal arts colleges like it. But while UW has just as high a proportion of idiots, we're free-range idiots. Students here have to spread out, and idiots can't walk a block without meeting peers with different experiences. People complain about the lack of diversity here, and I don't blame them. But no one can come to school here and find a dorm floor full of people exactly like them-socially, politically or otherwise.
People grow by exposure to the individualities of others, not by making friends who share the exact same quirks. Trying to make social insights involving WB teen dramas doesn't make you interesting. Being interesting is something you gain from experience, not something you hang from your earlobe. And in a town with so many thousands of students, that's something we're able to do.
The day before Thanksgiving, I learned to be thankful for that in the Cleveland airport.
Even if I have to wait another year to be named the Sexiest Man Alive.
Amos Posner can be reached at amosap@hotmail.com.
