If a senior falls but no one is around to hear it...

Oh Fall ’08, where have you gone? The autumn wind that brings fallen leaves to my window also scoops up the discarded pages of my calendar, and with them, the daily reminder that my time in college is one day closer to the end. This solemn fact has stalked me since last fall, and was a big motivator in the creation of this space to chronicle my last go around.

But the time has passed too rapidly to put anything in perspective; it is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is a mere 7 days away. Soon, it will be on to December, to final exams and then to what was supposed to be a victory lap in Spring ’09.

But the parade route is still being finalized, pending approval from the Fraternity Corps of Engineers. Senioritis has gripped the vigor I felt for the Fraternity all the years it has been part of my life, and has strangled it nearly to death. The Chapter House gets vandalized, and I barely bat an eye. Party with a sorority, yet I don’t feel like dressing for that theme. Another opportunity to clinch a sports championship, but I’m too consumed with my own stuff to attend and cheer the team to victory.

The Fraternity was my chance to meet friends, girls and people to fill the time between class and bed every day, but now having achieved a girl, friends and some people, what personal incentive is there to continue with it? It has given me fond memories, great parties and funny stories, but my senior year has been devoid of many of the people and things that had me banging on its door each day in my younger years. This does not appear to be my problem alone; on Tuesday night, the Fraternity had a pre-drink with Audrey’s sorority, and she was the only senior in attendance. Where, oh, where, have the seniors gone?

I relayed this to Lil’ Sis last night, the oddity of being the oldest guy in the room at parties. She just laughed and told me I’m making a big deal out of nothing, that I’m only two years older than “people her age” and should stop pretending that I’m too old for college. I agree that two years isn’t that great a gap, and that I’m certainly still ok with having too much to drink, but there isn’t the same fulfillment there once was.

It is impossible to deny the differences I as a senior have with sophomore girls at parties. I am concerned with finding a job and paying my bills, and they’re just too busy talking about their cute TA and complaining that we’re out of Rikaloff. I wondered aloud the other night if I had become uncool and too boring to meet and make friends as I once did. But Audrey said she had the same problem, so much so that she knew more of my friends than she did girls in her own sorority at the event two nights ago.

“It’s not fun anymore,” she said. “And other girls feel the same way. We used to go to things, look around the room and know everyone there, but they’ve all come and graduated, and now the room is dominated by the new girls. A lot of the older girls just say ‘Fuck it,’ because our friends aren’t out.”

I had always heard the senior classes of the past complain about the senior girls of Greek Life, huddled away at home with boyfriends, but I never grasped it till now. My time to party and act irresponsibly is coming to a close, and I fear I am failing to seize it. What once was fun seems dull, and what used to be important is now on the back burner. I got what I needed from the Fraternity, and now that she has little to give that I wish to take, I make little time for it. I just hope my last memory will not be as a bored, bitter senior.