The title of the blog - part 2

There are very few choices that I've made in my life that have shaped me in quite the same way that my decision to go overseas for my junior year at Wabash. The Girl had gone to France for a year after high school (we were dating before that and kept faithful to each other while she was gone), and after she got back I spent half a year feeling inferior, less cosmopolitan than she until she sent me packing that next Thanksgiving break.

I spent the rest of that school year moping around and gaining weight. Luckily I was headed to Scotland for the next school year, and I sure as heck wasn't going to head over there (to a college campus, a real city with girls) as fat as I'd let myself get. So I spent the summer playing tennis two hours a day, eating right, and building that destination up into a pretty big thing in my head.

Luckily for me, it lived up to every bit of everything that I had hoped for.

I am who I - in my mind, at least - to a large extent because of that year. I was free to craft whatever personality I wanted - those folks didn't know me. I could party, I could be wild and crazy, I could be academic, I could be thoughful, I could be introspective. It was a fresh start. And I figured out just what kind of person I wanted to be. It took a bit of playing around to figure it out, but I think I got a good idea.

And in my second column for The Bachelor, I chose to encourage the other guys on campus to do the same.

Go. Leave. Get the hell out of Dodge and don’t look back. This may be your only change to leave before you get trapped, stuck forever. So you don’t damn well better take advantage of it. I did, and I know I’m the better for it.

Last year, for the first time in my life, I did leave – the country. I’m a Hoosier by birth, and until September 13th, 1994, I had stayed most all of my life in my home state: first in New Albany and now here. On that day I stepped aboard a flight bound for Detroit. From there my journey continued, landing me eventually in my new home, Aberdeen.

My flight across the Atlantic took eight long hours, but that first step that took me onto my plane to Detroit was even bigger. I know New Albany and Crawfordsville. I knew nothing of Aberdeen. That first step took me away from friends and family for nine months – away from Turkey Run, spring thunderstorms, and backyard basketball. But it gave me Seaton Park, snow in Vienna, and a new meaning for football. I saw a sunrise over the North Sea, and I saw a whole new horizon open up for me.

The light first began to show slowly, bringing the beach into dim focus, and I first saw that horizon at the beginning of my sophomore year. Professor Beck told my German class of his college travels to Germany, and suddenly I knew I had to see Europe, I’d been in the dark there on the beach, and I had before seen what lay ahead of me for my junior year.

With a bit more light, I could see the ocean receding from me, the sand taking temporary domain back from the sea. I saw just how far I could go and still be safe. I probably could have gone further than Aberdeen and still been safe, but I didn’t know that until I met Nancy Doemel at the Off-Campus Study fair two Octobers ago. She told me of her program that would fit my major and satisfy my major needs. The ocean looked cold that morning, but my prospects were starting to warm up.

The light grew until I could see other people down the beach form me, plating volleyball and having what sounded like a great time. Once I’d decided upon Aberdeen people I knew who had been there began to seek me out – offering advice, congratulating me, envying me. I even met someone who would be in Aberdeen with me. I wasn’t alone on that beach, nor would I be alone on the shore of the North Sea for those nine months.

Then came the anticipation. The clouds were few and far between. The sky was incredible, waiting for the sun to break the waterline and bathe the whole city behind me in a brilliant, liquid gold. All summer long I waited for my chance to see Aberdeen. I packed and waited, then I stepped onto the airplane. Then I flew and waited, not knowing what I would see when we touched down in Glasgow, when the sun finally shone in full brilliance.

And then there was light. There was a golden-pink sun, a brilliant sea, and another glorious day. There were new friends in Aberdeen. There were castles filled with history and mystery, and there were sunrises like this one.

I want you to have your own moments like that morning to me and there’s no day in hell that you can have them in Crawfordsville. Our Wabash does an excellent job educating us in its ways, but so many more lessons yet to be learned lie beyond our insular, friendly confines. Perhaps you want to walk in the foothills of Kilimanjaro or sift through the ashes of ancient Pompeii or stand triumphant atop Ayers Rock I want you to know that you can do just that. All you have to do is realize that the sun rises differently every day and for every one of us.

You need, however, to start thinking and talking and planning now. Wabash isn’t going to let more than a third of your class leave campus hen it’s your turn. You have to prove to them that you deserve to go more than the fifty other losers who applied for your place. That means that you have to know what you’ll take, where you want to go, and – above all- why.

But they want to send you, honestly they do. John Fischer, Bill Placher, Frank Howland, and the rest of the off-campus study committee all want to let you chase those dreams. Talk to them now; they will help you convince them; they’ll help you to pick where to go. But you’d better hurry up, because once this article gets out there, no telling how quickly their offices will fill up.

I wish you luck…enjoy your travels…and don’t forget to write…