Tuesday, May 25, 2010

My Island

Yesterday was the series finale of LOST. 6 years of biting my nails, pulling my hair, hold my fist in anxious agony in the air, crying, and gasping, and thinking about the last episode for two weeks after its aired. Granted, I must be honest and confess that I started late. Half-way through. So 3 years. I will not disrespect others who have started from the beginning.

The finale came on at the end of a very eventful weekend. Friday through Sunday were all a rush to the head. Friends walking across stage after stage. Screaming and waving proudly and lovingly, I lost myself.

Though we were not on an island, being chased by ravenous polar bears or haunted by whispers, we were in it altogether. "It" being college. The Big Times. The Don't-Fuck-Around Time (even though most do and did) but we wanted something out of the four or five years we spent at San Diego State. You come here and tell others you are there, high academia does not come to their minds. They see a visual train of parties and booze, loopy girls, and horny guys.
But trust me, it's a misconception or really a reflection of a minority.

In my group (The Herd) we felt larger than our school and the lost souls who majored in business. (I'm sorry, but most times out of not people who say their majoring in Business at SDSU are the ones who couldn't major in undeclared.)

We crashed unknowingly into college, hitting the land of Zura first. Dorm rooms, dorm halls, dorm showers, dorm food. The ravenous polar bear was actually the guy who wouldn't stop being half-naked-preying on the floor's female virgins. A half-naked man dressed in a tuxedo thong in the dorms was like a polar bear in the jungle for me: I never saw the logic.

We traveled away from Zura and headed to caves-the first apartments. They were dirty, messy, and home. We gathered and help each other cook, and sustain life. Learned out to go out for our food and collect it. And I got a job. I got a job at Blockbuster and life-our lives-would never be the same again.

Watching Lost for the first time is so like that first and final shot. Your eye shoots open and you, see. You see the beginning of a fascinating journey. I was Jack my first night in the dorm. I laid there, not being able to move, my eyes unable to close and the noise around me, muted. I had no idea where I was and how I got here.

Throughout LOST you are as the titles says: lost. They have set up a labyrinth and the end seems impossible. College is this-seemingly impossible. Instead of cutting down jungle trees and hunting boars you're cutting down courses and hunting A's (The rarest meat).

But it's your fellow survivors that keep you sane. You're not alone, and that by far could be what college is truly all about: not the educating (of course you learn) but about the surviving. And you choose in the beginning whether you want to die alone or live together.

I know this a real cheeseball analogy I'm throwing at you but please, bare with me. There is a point and or really hell, this is just how I see it. Deal.

I always choose to "live together" because I am only as good as my friends. I am only a better person because of them. That's why I highly believe that husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends must be friends. You have to both "love'" and "like" the person. There is a difference, and it makes all the difference.

Over the years people have figuratively died out of the herd. You make friends-you lose friends. The black smoke monster eats them up-they were no good.

Jacob is embodied in the professional world awaiting us at our collegiate end, telling us we're all its "special candidates-" if the resume is right.

Watching the end of LOST hit close to home. Close to this entire analogy I laid out for you. Fans talk of the sad goodbye to a show they were connected to for 6 years, and I, I said goodbye to college a year ago, but my friends, will now be moving on to say goodbye as well.

"The Herd: SDSU Years" is a series coming to the end this August.

The series finale is of a certain time we have spent here: living every day with them. Knowing and sharing the small little things: what they eat, when they shower, and how they burp.

I have the Sawyer to my Jack. The Kate to my Claire. The Hugo to my Ben, and the Locke to my island. Your own life, is unexpectedly the best written show out there-besides LOST.

So Thanks Damon Lindef, J.J. Abrams, and Jeffery Lieber.
Thanks Darrell, Gina, Kristiana, Megan, Shanna, and Alex.

Happy Graduation to you both-I love you (Lost and you guys).

Namaste.

1 comments:

Kristiana said...

It's the right amount of cheese. I love you!

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