Life Is a Mix CD, Part Two

Put Title Here Volume 1 (Spring 2001)

1. Craig's Brother “Masonic”
2. Hot Water Music “Free Radio Gainesville”
3. Alkaline Trio “San Francisco”
4. The Anniversary “Emma Discovery”
5. The Cars “Since You're Gone”
6. The Get Up Kids “Washington Square Park”
7. Braid “The New Nathan Detroits”
8. Green Day “Nice Guys Finish Last”
9. Ozma “Natalie Portman”
10. Joe Christmas “I'll Bet You Do”
11. Elvis Costello “Radio Radio”
12. Midtown “No Place Feels Like Home”
13. Ramones “Pinhead”
14. Reggie and the Full Effect “From Me to You”
15. Too Bad Eugene “Hypothetical”
16. MxPx “Christmas Only Comes Once a Year”
17. Blink182 “Mutt”
18. A New Found Glory “The Glory of Love”

Music was my thing. It became who I was. Oh, there goes Shelby with that band's t-shirt that I have never heard of. He is always telling me about his trips to Austin. He is always trying to get me to listen to his radio show (even though I never do). This was a mix tape that I made primarily for the purpose of playing on my radio show. The radio station on campus, KANM, was a dedicated non-top 40 radio station where people like me, that is people who didn't really fit into the norm at Texas A&M, vented our particular brand of musical quirkiness on the world (not that the world was listening . . . at all). My friend Jay originally got me hooked up at the radio station. It was a place where I made some friends and felt a part. There were definitely all different kinds of people at the station. There were the indie kids (like me), metalheads, underground hip-hop folks, and those that listened to world music (whatever that means). Now when I say that I was a radio DJ, you might be picturing me doing my best Wolfman Jack impersonation with a lit up switchboard where I would answer calls and fulfill the onslaught of requests that came pouring in. This was just not the case. Most of my broadcasts were probably being streamed by 3 or 4 of my internet friends across the country and maybe one or two of my friends in College Station might be listening on their AM dials.

It is a good thing that I had the radio station at this point. Being a DJ helped me hang on to the root of who I was when I was losing part of my identity. I was underperforming in my classes. I had always been good at math and science in high school without much effort, but engineering classes were hard. I wasn't enjoying them, and despite always going to class and working harder than I ever had in my life at school, I was scraping by with Cs. I had wanted to be an aerospace engineer since the fifth grade, and I slowly felt that dream slipping away. By the end of the semester, I had definitely come to terms with the fact that engineering was not for me, but the process was a little painful. It was hard to let go of the dream of one day working for NASA.

Another new method I had for coping with this slow realization that I would never be an engineer was reading books, and not your run-of-the-mill supermarket bestseller crap, but literature. I had been an avid reader as a child, but I lost my passion for it in high school. I didn't enjoy 9^th through 11^th grade English at all in high school. Senior year was much better, but I had already made a habit of not reading most of my assigned reading, and I read very few books for entertainment in high school. One of the first books I picked up was Catcher in the Rye. This book was it for me. It changed my life. It made me appreciate literature and wonder where these books had been all my life. I devoured books like On the Road and Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 and Brave New World. I found refuge in them. I also spent a lot of time watching movies alone in my dorm room, including Almost Famous, which is still one of my favorites and also changed my life. Natalie Portman movies were also in constant rotation in my dorm. Notice that I put the Ozma song called “Natalie Portman” on this mix. Sure Ozma sounded a lot like Weezer, which is great in itself, but they also sang about my favorite actress in the world. Where I found time to read these books and watch these movies is still beyond me, especially when you consider that I was actually pouring lots of time into my homework. Of course, I was very sedentary during this semester, and with good reason.

Perhaps the most significant event during this semester of my life, as I did live my life in semesters and not seasons, months, or years, is the dislocation of my knee. This injury still rates as the most painful and debilitating injury I have suffered to date or ever wish to suffer. Any time I mention the dislocation of my knee people always ask how it happened. I usually begin the story “I was walking.” This is pretty much the truth. I had just gone out for some groceries and was on my way back to the dorm. As was often the case, I had to park at least half a mile from my dorm room. College Station had just gotten an afternoon shower. It felt like Spring, even though it was just the end of January. I was outside of Walton Hall. I remember this very particularly because Walton was notorious for loud, overtly masculine guys that drank copious amounts of alcohol and were loud and rambunctious. They also liked to change the words to your favorite songs like “Hail to the Bus Driver” and make them as lewd as possible, and then sing them all together outside their dorm building at midnight or 1 AM. My dorm during the previous semester had been right next to Walton, so I knew this all too well. Anyhow, I was walking by Walton and some mud had oozed on to the sidewalk where I was walking. I stepped in the mud and felt something pop as my knee twisted, which was accompanied by horrendous pain. I knew what had happened immediately. The rush of adrenaline was so intense that I actually blacked out, though I remained conscious, and could hear every thing around me and talk. I got down on the ground and began to halfheartedly yell for help. There were people around, so I knew I wouldn't have to be too loud. When my sight returned after about thirty seconds to a minute, I had a crowd of people gathered around me and could hear the campus ambulance on its way. I noticed the two guys that had been throwing around a football in front of Walton. I felt embarrassed and weak and hoped there weren't too many girls around. Luckily, the pain was no longer a problem—the adrenaline had seen to that. The ambulance arrived, and I got a ride to the hospital.

I spent almost the entirety of the semester somewhat immobilized. The first few days I was on crutches. It was hard to get up and down the stairs to my dorm, so I went very few places. The six weeks after that, I was in a straight knee brace that did not bend. It was still an adventure to get up and down the four flights of stairs, but at least it was possible to walk around campus and make it to class. Every thing just took a little more time and effort. It was tiring to walk, so if I didn't have to leave the dorm, I usually didn't. After getting out of the straight brace, I was left with two more weeks in a spring-loaded brace, which was a great relief, and I welcomed the change. It really felt nice to walk like a normal person again and not have to endure people looking at you and wondering why you were walking so strangely. I had no roommate because he was kicked out the first day of the second semester. I never really got to know the guy, but he seemed nice. I guess that is just what happens when you fail every single class your first semester of college. All my alone time had to be filled somehow. It was filled mostly with homework, but reading, watching movies, and listening to music became how I spent my spare time and was how I unwound. What is amazing is that these are the things I still like to do today, along with playing music. It is funny how something as seemingly meaningless to life as a dislocated knee can affect you. I changed more this semester than any others in my college career (as far as I see it), and “found myself” more than any other time in my life. At the time, I sort of felt lost, but I guess to find yourself, sometimes you have to get lost first.