COLUMN: Remember the time we

From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Fien Print," Fall '99 From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Fien Print," Fall '99Looking back on our time at dear old Penn From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Fien Print," Fall '99Looking back on our time at dear old PennA few weeks back, in the darkest depths of my jobless abyss, I went up to a family gathering in Toronto. And y'all know how those things go. Relatives who have met you maybe twice gather around and pester you about your lack of future aspirations, or at least your lack of immediate prospects. Finally, one great-uncle pulled me aside, looked into my eyes and whispered one word of advice to me. Sometimes, you see, columnists feel the need to manipulate historical events toward their own nefarious purposes. In truth, besides my parents -- they wish I was coming back to New Hampshire to work at a video store, substitute teach at my brother's high school and sleep in my old bedroom -- nobody actually wished a career in retail upon me. All they said was that I should listen to my heart. And sometimes listening to your heart is a scary thought. But I've ceased to be afraid. Getting a job was a big part of that but, more importantly, realizing that I'm only 21 has been a bigger step. I don't for a second believe that what I spend the next couple years doing will necessarily be my vocation for the rest of my life. Every day I check my e-mail expecting an message from Career Services about the upcoming "Second Career Fair: For People Who Are Already Sick of the Jobs They Got in November." Graduation means that we're all moving on, but most of us will need to move on again. Listening to your heart means that no matter which profession earns you your first grown-up paycheck or which vocation gives you the money to get that retirement villa on the Riviera, you can't make the wrong choice. Two full years ago, I made a right choice when I begged the Editorial Board of this paper to let me write a column. Some 40 pieces later, I wish I could go back and rewrite every column I wrote during my first semester. They were too preachy. I wish I could rewrite every column from last spring in England, because they were too snarky. I wish, actually, that I could rewrite every long-winded thing I've ever written and make it pithy, brilliant and well-observed, or at least meaningful, laced with emotional gravity and moral correctness. Fortunately, even at my worst, I've always had something important to hide behind: I don't look very much like my picture, so even if you wanted to complain, you couldn't find me. It has repeatedly struck me that everybody at Penn has a doppelgSnger, or rather somebody who looks almost exactly like you, but not quite. Different hair, slightly thinner or with dynamically cooler fashion sense, these doubles are useful if only because we all need more embarrassment on Locust Walk ("Hey Dave! I hear you got totally wasted last night! Oh. Wait. You're not Dave at all.") However, sometimes it's cool just to vent at your friends' mirror images because the worst you can do is confuse them and it saves the trouble of actually starting a meaningful fight. I've been fortunate in that I've been my own doppelgSnger. Angry e-mails have gone to a DP copy editor who looks nothing like me and to a Med School student who shares my name, but not its spelling. And I've kinda liked dodging the ire. Instead, mostly I've been able to concentrate on the good stuff. It's been four years of super memories, hasn't it? Remember when? The boys of Lambda Lambda Lambda teamed up with the girls of Omega Mu to humiliate those evil Alpha Beta jocks? Everybody thought Gabriel Higgs was killing the people ahead of him on the Johns Hopkins Medical School waiting list? That crazy hunchback guy in the bell tower swung down onto campus green on a rope and basically messed up our medieval fair? The stoner house and the lost pre-frosh threw raw meat from the cafeteria windows down at the milling vegetarian ralliers beneath? Those opera loving "Cutters" taught us lessons of respect, friendship and Italian when they beat all of Penn's best cyclists in the annual biking event? Dean Wormer blew his top and banned alcohol on campus because of the antics at Delta House? Even when we've thrown our hats in the air in gleeful exaltation and our parents have taken us for expensive dinners and we've written thank you notes to the cousins who sent us Cross pens, we'll still have our memories. I can only hope that for one or two of you, The Fien Print has served as an acceptable diversion -- with a cup of coffee in Commons, while your Calculus professor droned on, sitting in the lobby of a high rise until a friend makes it down, waiting for something better to come along. We'll meet again.