CHAPTER XI: STANFORD UNIVERSITY, AS IT USED TO BE KNOWN BEFORE THE...

BREAKING NEWS:

DYLAN, ZACH, AND ASSORTED AND OTHER CARBON-BASED LIFE FORMS OF THE HUMAN VARIETY  came saw, conquered, fainted dead away, revived, studied, partied, fucked their brains out, drove their professors nuts and put several in 'the home' and then graduated with honors (anything to get rid of them). THEN WHAT?

As I reflect on our time at Stanford and as we compared notes with Alex and Tony periodically, we did ok, maybe even better than ok. Zach and I, bright little suckers that we are were at the top of our class just as in high school, (and suffice it to say so were Alex and Tony at Harvard. WE SO KEWL).

But again, then what?

Seems anymore like everytime I turn around, it is this huge shift in the life agenda. Sorta a sea change and I am usually SO NOT READY for it.

If it wasn't for Zach, I don't know.

I look back now and wonder how we survived it all, but survive it we did. As I have said, we did get our bearings and our footing eventually somewhere toward the end of Freshman year and by the start of Sophmore year we kinda got into the swing of it. Zach and I, much like Alex and Tony, love learning. It is ingrained in us and always has been. One of the reasons I love to write and read so much is because learning is an integral part of it all. It is wondrous to see the entire world laid out before us and the sense of adventure in me finds me fascinated with the prospect of mining all that I can out of it. Zach is the same, but so are Alex and Tony. Even Luke and Vinnie have caught that bug too...and it will I think serve us all well as we enter full adulthood and go out into this big and challenging world. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't share that fascination with LIFE. LEARNING. FUN.

Stanford University is a wonderful place to come and explore, and we had some great professors who encouraged and poked/prodded and propelled us forward, AS THEY SHOULD and all great professors DO...and we suckled at their teats like the good pups we are and I know that Alex and Tony did the same at Harvard.

Of course eventually we kinda got into the swing of University life and soon discovered that Stanford is a really cool place, with an abundance of food and drink/hang-out places. The whole Tressider area (treehouse, coho, jamba juice, subway, etc) has a wide variety of relatively cheap and decent food. Also, there is always University Ave with some amazing restaurants (cheesecake factory being our favorite). 

Toward the end of Freshman year, we also began to pick up some friends. Some gay and some not. But we finally felt we belonged and that was a good thing. Tony told us that he and Alex were finding the same thing. It gets better after awhile. Easier and then the ease begins to make it all more fun.

Fred and Rick were one couple we encountered and began to see a lot of. Fred was a Sophomore from Great Falls Montana and Rick was a freshman from Des Moines. They had met at the student union early in this semester and it was love at first sight so they claimed. I can't imagine that. LOL. We spent a lot of our time from then on going to movies and plays and bowling and eating out and it was all fun. Once in a while we would go into San Francisco and explore new (to us) night spots and restaurants. It just neve got old and I do think that having a small cadre of friends really made a difference. Adulthood became less of a hassle for some odd reason.

At the end of our tenure as undergraduates, Zach and I decided to stay and do our masters...he in applied management technology with a minor in computer science and I in journalism and communications but also with a minor in computer science. Fred and Rick also decided to go for their masters degrees so we hung out a lot all through Grad School. We really got into it and finished and got our graduate degrees in pretty much record time and then we were ready to set out to DO ADULT, armed with knowledge and ambition and an immature sense of our own ability to do whatever we wanted and nothing could stop us and BY GOD we were IMMORTAL AND IMPERVIOUS to the bad shit out here, and all that crap.  Hehee.

We would learn and do and find out that maybe we were mortal humans after all and so it will come to pass and YOU get to share our journey.

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CONTINUE TO CHAPTER XII:  THE JOURNEY BEGINS