It's Personal: A Major Change

It was August 1995. Four hours after we departed the house in Connecticut, we arrived in Delaware. Yes, Delaware. The butt of Wayne's 'Hi, I'm in Delaware' joke. The home of the Blue Hens, or as those in Delaware suggest, the ass kickin' chickens. A freshman in college...

I moved into a double that housed three of us. I, TD. And they, Chris and Chris. I felt like I was in an episode of Newhart. Except these two were not at all similar.

There was the Chris from New Jersey. The pretty boy. Surfer. (From New Jersey? Yeah, I didn't really get it either.) Loved The Cure. A band I loved to hate by the end of freshman year. (By the way, in a war between The Cure and Wagner, Wagner wins.)

Then there was the Chris from Staten Island. The city boy. A short Asian who had a ridiculous amount of charm. A diplomat. And a good one at that. A good smile. I got along with him.

I went into Delaware as an International Relations and Economics major. I had no idea what to do with them. I had little idea what one could do with them. I thought, maybe, I'd become a translator. Maybe work for the UN. I never really believed either of those. But thought that I could get away with not thinking about it. I was a frosh after all. Experimenting with vodka and Coors Light. Living in a co-ed dorm where life was always an adventure.

Each and every one of us on that floor had a major or minor breakdown during that first year. I was no different. For me, it came during the second semester. Relatively soon after the beginning of spring semester. Which, for Delaware was well into February, for whatever reason. The breakdown came in early March. Before the drop date. I attended an introductory philosophy course. And we were assigned a paper based on Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane. All we had to do was discuss the sacred and... wait for it... the profane.

I went to the library. Then back to my room on that warm, rainy March day. I tried to write the paper. And nothing came to me. I argued with the book. Threw the book against the wall. Literally. I tried. God knows I tried. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't write the paper. There was a mental block. That's when the breakdown came. I put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. And I ran. I ran all the way from the dorm to the football stadium. A full 2 miles. In the rain. For no good reason. I'm not a runner. I don't particularly like running. But I ran all the way there. When I got there, I figured out that I had to walk all the way back.

I went to sleep that night.

The next day, I changed my major to math education.

I later changed that major too.

And, after I left Delaware, I got a degree in philosophy...