Relationships: A Behavioral Analysis

For those of you that have spent more than a few hours interacting with me, you surely know my philosophy about passing on my genes.

And so as not to tarnish my pool of potential mates, I won't elaborate on it here.

Instead, I'm going to present an argument about one aspect of relationships in an extreme and likely horribly offensive way.

But at its very core, it will be based on sound principles of animal behavior.

For years, people have studied animals and their behavior in a variety of ways. I'm sure you've all heard about Pavlov's dogs learning to salivate at the sound of a bell.

Humans, for all their complexities, are still animals at their very core. As such, their actions can be predicted on the same set of principles as those that apply to animals.

Today we are going to explore the concept of reinforcement versus punishment.

For all of us that have dated someone for more than three days, we are familiar with the situation of having to do something nice for your significant other to make up for some prior dumb action.

Examples of dumb actions would be hitting on someone else, getting too drunk, forgetting your anniversary, etc.

Typically, the male performs the "something dumb" and "making up for it" roles, but I haven't lost hope that eventually these roles will reverse.

This situation presents a prime example of negative reinforcement. As the male repeats the bad behavior, he is forced to perform some "make up" action that requires significant inputs of time, income or other valuable assets.

In theory, the male will eventually associate the negative consequences with the dumb action, and the behavior should be eliminated.

I have never actually achieved the elimination phase, but people change.

So what does all this mean, you might be wondering. How does this help me?

I'm glad you asked.

A key step is missing from my original equation. It should look something like this:



Male does something dumb ---> female gets mad ---> male performs compensatory action.



Because let's be honest, most males will not waste their energy performing the compensatory action if the female doesn't "suggest" it is necessary with her less than ideal mood.

So now let's examine this equation from the female perspective.

The female is undoubtedly harmed, usually emotionally, by the actions of the male. And her response of anger is normally justified. Normally.

The female is then the recipient of some beneficial goods or services on behalf of the male.

But herein lies the problem: the compensatory action of the male must only be just enough to offset the initial harm done by the male.

If the balance is tipped in one direction or the other, the relationship is doomed to fail.

Allow me to explain.

Say, for example, after a minor error by the male, the male performs an overly elaborate compensatory behavior.

Let's get back to the female perspective. Subconsciously, she is associating her anger with the overly kind compensatory behavior. Thus, the male is positively reinforcing the anger of the female.

This is not good for the male.

It can result in the female looking for opportunities to display anger so as to elicit the compensatory behavior from the male, which would rapidly deplete the male's resources.

How can we avoid this from happening? Punishment.

It is clear that the negative reinforcement males get from having to perform "make up" behaviors is not sufficient to eliminate the "dumb" behaviors.

So, rather than continue the current system of negative reinforcement, I suggest either positive or negative punishment.

Positive punishment is the administration of some unpleasant stimulus. An example would be an electrode implanted under the skin of the male that shocks him when he performs a "dumb" behavior.

Pain aversive behavior is one of our basic instincts.

Negative punishment is the removal of a pleasant stimulus. An example would be withholding from the male access to the female.

This speaks for itself.

I know, for me, that either of these options would be more effective.

If males and females could agree to one of these techniques, not only will the males' resources be preserved, but the "dumb" behaviors are likely to be eliminated much more quickly.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying...

Aging

Joking about my age used to be exactly that, a joke. That is, until recently.

I was sitting on our front porch Friday morning, enjoying the nice weather and an interesting chat with a friend, when I noticed his eyes wandering from my face to the top of my head.

I tried to shake it off, but I just couldn't concentrate on what I was saying. It started with a quick glance, became a slight pause, and ended up in a full on stare.

Frustrated, I gave up on our conversation. And for the first and almost definitely last time in my life, I got to experience what it must feel like to be a hot girl.

"Don't move," he ordered as he slowly got up and approached me.

I felt my heart rate increasing rapidly as he hovered over me before he delivered the fateful blow:

"You have a shining silver hair right here."

And just like that, I saw my world crashing down around me. Visions of myself walking with a cane, and then scooting around in a Hoveround bombarded my brain.

Before the shock subsided and I could mount some sort of defense, I was surrounded by people combing through my hair like a gold rush, or a primate grooming session.

Not two minutes had passed before claims had been staked on at least a dozen silver hairs.

Taken alone, perhaps I may have been able to brush off the incident, or chalk it up to the stress of the interviews I had just had the last few weeks.

But this was a day I had seen coming for a long time.

As many of you may know, I am approaching the ripe old age of 23. On the upper end of the college spectrum you might be thinking, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

Well, Robin Williams was only 22 in Jack when he graduated, and he still looked like this.

Others of you might be thinking that a few gray hairs don't necessarily convey old age.

But there have been other signs...


Like, for example, the high blood pressure I was told I had during a routine physical last year.

Or my recent inability to walk due to severe back pain after a few hours of basketball.

Pretty soon, crippling arthritis will be setting in. And after careful consideration, I've decided that drastic action must be taken. Here are the options I'm currently considering:


1) Continue Ponce de Leon's search for the fountain of youth.

This option has the advantage of being the most permanent solution, but the disadvantage of having almost zero chance of success. It's a gamble to be sure, but when you're feeling lucky, you're feeling lucky.


2) Shave my head.

I'm not exactly sure there are any pros with this option. I got a buzz accidentally when I was twelve and it looked horrible, so I'm not sure how a shaved head would look any better. But considering men have used this technique for centuries, I figured I ought to at least consider it.


3) Seek hormone therapy.

This is the most physically attractive and fiscally unattractive option. While I've seen the wonders testosterone therapy has done for a formerly prepubescent 19 year old friend of mine, I imagine I would have to steal in order to fill my prescription.


4) Take a class in meditation/relaxation techniques.

Let's be honest, this wouldn't help.


5) Dye my hair with Just for Men's Touch of Grey

This is my number one option at this point. With this product, according to their advertisements, I will "look like I know what I'm doing, and can still do it."

This would be a significant improvement on my current state of looking like I don't know what I'm doing and not being able to do it, and all for only under $10.



If option 5 makes me look like Brett Favre then I'm golden. Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath.

Senior Class Events

A friend and loyal follower of my blog recently told me that he feels that more people don't read my blog because of the overriding negative themes that seem to characterize my posts.

"All you do is pick something and complain about it for a long time."

I wish to refer him and anyone with similar sentiments to my first post, which, in spite of being horribly written, does in fact mention my intention to use this blog as a forum for uninterrupted ranting.

So without further ado...



I'm a senior now at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (it sounds so regal when you say it like that).

Hurray for me, right?

Right (gotcha).

Seriously, it is quite an accomplishment. And although many of us may have been raised in an environment where graduating college was an expectation and not an achievement, it is still something worth commemorating.

Seniors choose to do this in many different ways. Some relax their study habits and lighten their course load.

Others spend a few more nights with their friends out socializing.

Many do both.

But regardless of how someone chooses to treat their senior year, there is one thing we all have in common.

With very few exceptions, we are all dreading the thought of venturing out into the world in a few short months.

The uncertainty surrounding the transition from college student to adult is unlike any we have yet to experience.

So how does the university help us to deal with this?

By forcing us to congregate on and off campus in the form of exclusive senior class events.

Why, after two years of being forced to strike out on our own, does the university decide that it needs to provide a social forum for its next graduating class?

I understand that there are many traditions associated with being a senior. Although I don't know any of them yet, I do intend to partake in them.

And I also understand the need to leave our mark on the university and in the community as the Class of 2009.

What I don't understand is the concept of having senior-only social gatherings.

The result is a scenario as awkward or even more so than that of orientation.

At orientation, all incoming freshman can bond over the fact that they are merely a group of strangers thrown together and forced to interact.

The need for friendship is so strong that even the most shy people can force themselves to struggle through several awkward introductions, knowing they could be forming a potentially lifelong friendship.

Neither of these applies to senior class events.

Not only do most seniors already have a strong group of friends, but the appeal of going to a social gathering of only other seniors is nonexistent.

And those awkward conversations you had as a freshman? At least they weren't entirely predictable.

Any conversation between two seniors that don't know each other will inevitably move towards "what are you doing next year?"

I, personally, have a few problems with that question.

For one, I'm not entirely sure yet. And although I'm reasonably assured that something will work itself out, until that happens I don't want to talk about it.

Secondly, how often do you think we each answer this question?

The answer is enough times to make me tell people that I'm a junior at first just to avoid that follow up question.

But back to the senior class event. Best case scenario, against all odds you survive the awkward introduction, and avoid the topic of graduation.

Say you and this person really hit it off, and strike up a friendship.

And then you live happily ever after.

That is, until the guillotine that is graduation comes along three months later and severs your friendship at the head.

Let's be practical, university.

If you want to help us celebrate surviving until senior year, give us a bar special or something.

Just don't lock us up someplace where everything reminds us that our time is almost up.

Snoozers

Sounds like the name of a horrible band, or perhaps the new high school drug fad.

And I must admit, I am a snoozer. Well, was.

As facebook would say, "it's complicated."

Snoozers are the people that set their alarm clocks long before they actually want to get up, just so they can hit snooze several times and still get up on time.

Think about the logistics of that.

Isn't the whole point of snooze to indulge yourself in a guilty pleasure, to steal five minutes of sleep from all the other things you should be doing?

Aren't you supposed to get that "I'm a badass" feeling you get when you consciously do something you know you shouldn't?

The process is similar to becoming a drug addict, just a little less expensive.

The first few times you try it, you still get that glorious feeling.

Then you have to snooze more and more to get the same high, until eventually, the high is gone and you are hopelessly addicted.

I thought I was bad when I would routinely get up 25 minutes before I needed to so I could snooze it up.

But I only stopped at 25 because someone had the foresight to program a maximum number of times you could hit snooze.

And in the cruel and ironic world we live in, it was probably the same moron who invented snooze in the first place.

Then, the guy had the balls to make the snooze button 100 times bigger than all the other buttons.

Even if you want to turn your alarm clock off, chances are you're going to hit the snooze button.

Granted, it would have been hard to predict the lasting implications his/her invention would have on our society, but I still want to hit that person in the face.

Or better yet, repeatedly slam my alarm clock in their face.

I mean, there are people in this world that begin every day by spending the last two hours of their night repeatedly waking up, pressing a button, and sleeping for five more minutes.

And they wonder why they need to hit snooze so many times in order to, as a snoozer will tell you, "wake up gradually."

These people have decided that waking up 24 times a night is the best way to get them ready to take on the day.

But even in the face of such sound logic, they vigorously defend their way of life.

And what this has done is create a huge demand for alarm clocks that can effectively force people to wake up in order to turn them off.

I had the fortunate experience of attempting to study while one of these gadgets was going off.

This particular variety had wheels and would scamper around the room, forcing you to chase after it.

Which is precisely what my friend did, but only after enduring 15 minutes of its high-pitched shrill.

And when he finally caught up with it, he smashed it to pieces in a fit of rage.

Although this reaction may have been a bit above average, imagine having to wake up every day to the frustration of attempting to find a tiny robot in the dark while it screams at you and runs away.

Anyone who could find some way to help rehabilitate these poor souls would be a millionaire.

Which is why I came up with a few ideas (patents are pending).


1) Sync alarm clocks to showers.

When your alarm goes off in the morning, it turns on your shower to a pre-set temperature.

But the temperature you select will only run for ten or fifteen minutes. After that, the hot water is shut off and you have to take a cold shower.

I don't know about you, but this would be sufficient motivation for me to get up.


2) Create a financial incentive for getting up on time.

Bear with me on this one.

What I'm imagining is almost like a lottery of sorts.

For a small monthly fee, every morning our users will log onto a website with a name and password to confirm that they are awake.

If they indeed get up by a certain time, they are entered in a lottery where they can win a range of prizes.

The site will offer different types of subscriptions, with different amounts of money you can win at different odds.

I guess what I'm envisioning is kind of like an online casino that is only open early in the morning.

And the best part is, we'll be marketing this to people who have already demonstrated they have addictive personalities.

We're just substituting gambling for snoozing.



Anyone want to invest?

Voicemail

I don't know what you call them, but there is no ambiguity in my feelings regarding voicemail a.k.a. messages.

I hate checking them, and I don't know how to leave one.

In fact, I just wish they didn't exist.

After years of bad experiences both leaving and receiving voicemails, I feel like I have come to a sound conclusion.

And perhaps the following scenarios, which I'm sure many of you have experienced, might make you feel the same way.

CHECKING MESSAGES:

In the modern era of text messaging, the use of the voicemail as a social tool has become all but extinct.

And if it were not for the 160 character limit, or the impossibly small buttons on cell phones, I'm not sure anyone would use voicemail at all.

The only thing keeping voicemail alive is technologically backward people like myself with second generation cell phones that use the index finger of one hand and the thumb of the other hand to text with.

I could write a letter, tie it to the leg of a carrier pigeon with the proper postage, and have it delivered to a person in about the amount of time it takes me to text them.

Thankfully, this is not the case for most of my friends, or really anyone from the ages of 8-50, and they text message me often (read: I check 75 times a day and receive on average 1.4 texts per day).

Occasionally, I do receive voicemails. And when I do, I categorically respond to them in the same way.

I would say at least 75% of the voicemail I get is from my parents, whom I love dearly.

But I don't even have to listen to their messages to know what they are saying:

"Hey Gar, just wanted to check up with you, see how things are going. [Something about the current issue of interest.] Anyway, give us a call at home when you get a chance. Love you. Bye."

That doesn't sound so bad, does it?

And taken individually, it's not.

It is the sheer number and repetitiveness of these voicemails that drives me crazy.

And I don't blame my parents. I know they mean well. But I wouldn't mind if they would somehow coordinate these phone calls.

Because every time one gets the feeling they haven't heard from me in a while, so does the other, and so on that day I get two calls, and two voicemails.

And also on that day, I get two reminders about whatever the current issue of interest is.

Most of last semster, it was secondary medical school applications. Now, it's my efforts to get back in shape.

But since I know what the message says, I have no inclination to check it.

Only an abnormal increase in frequency of calls will cause me to stray from my regular schedule of calling home and elicit a response.

So the voicemails just pile up.

Rarely, I will get a voicemail from a friend.

And by the sheer infrequency of such voicemails, I assume the matter is somewhat urgent, and immediately call back.

Plus, I know in order to access this voicemail, I have to get through about eight other old voicemails first.

Our conversation goes something like this:

Me: "Yo, what's up?"

Friend: "Nothing, you get my message?"

Me: "No, sorry, just saw the missed call and called you back. What's going on?"

Friend: [Repeats content of message].

So those voicemails just pile up as well.

The only motivation I actually have to check my voicemail is when I get a missed call and a voicemail from a random number.

And for whatever reason, you always assume the best possible scenario.

For me, it's a random girl that thought you were cute and asked a friend for your number so she could ask you to their upcoming cocktail (a situation I will revisit momentarily).

So far, this has happened a grand total of zero times.

And until recently, I did not know that you could delete voicemails in the middle of them by pressing "77".

What this means is that every time I got a voicemail from a random number I had to spend at least five minutes listening to my parents ask me to call them and my friend tell me a story I've already heard while eagerly awaiting the faint possibility that I will hear the sweet, sweet sound of a young woman's voice asking me to court her.

Those were some of the biggest letdowns of my life. Right up there with the Easter Bunny.

But that's not all.

Most of these random numbers don't leave voicemails, because nobody leaves voicemails anymore.

You can respond to this situation in one of two ways:

1) Not do anything and hope this person contacts you again while your curiosity eats away at you.

2) Contact this person, having no idea who they are or what you want to say to them.

A good example of a lose-lose situation.

I typically choose the latter, again out of hopeless optimism.

But to save some measure of pride (read: I'm too big of a pussy), I go with a text that says:

Hey, sorry, who is this? Just got a new phone.

And in my experiences, the responses have typically been either a wrong number or someone who thought we were better friends than we were and is slightly taken aback that I have not taken the time to store their number.

It might be time to consider option one.


LEAVING MESSAGES:

Many of you might be thinking that you leave messages all the time, and that it is in fact quite easy to do.

Well, you are referring to casual messages, which are about as useless as the messages I described earlier.

I'm talking about serious messages that you only have seconds to prepare for when someone doesn't answer the phone.

But let's back up a step.

Let's use the cocktail invitation for an example.

Before I make any call of such magnitude, I prepare both for the possibility of speaking to the person and leaving a message.

This is usually done in a small group with one or two of my closest advisers.

When I feel satisfied with the plan, I throw everybody out of the room and lock the door.

Then, depending on my mood, I blast either loud rap music or Backstreet Boys, insult myself in the mirror, throw up and make the call.

Those seconds listening to the phone ring are the worst.

For the first couple rings, I am rehearsing the funny story or small joke that will serve as the transition from "Hey, what's up" to "do you want to come to our cocktail with me?"

But as the phone continues to ring, I begin to devote some of my energies to regurgitating the message I had memorized two minutes before.

Once you reach this step, the potential for disaster is high.

Say, for example, she answers on the last ring. At this point I am so focused on my message I will probably just start talking non-stop as if I were leaving a message and she didn't actually pick up the phone.

But alas, I get the machine.

Sweet relief, right? Absolutely not.

There is no centralized form of answering machine.

You could get hit with an immediate beep, and then be expected to leave a decent message.

Or, if I do hear the person's voice, I will commonly mistake their answering machine as them answering the phone, and will start leaving my message, only to realize my mistake and become so flustered that I completely mess things up.

There is also the possibility that you get the hypnotic voice of an operator that effectively lulls you into a trance until the beep suddenly brings you back to reality.

Or, the operator gives you a menu with several options that prompt you to press a key to leave a message, only that when you press it nothing happens and you have to wait for the ever looming beep.

And if you can somehow avoid all these obstacles, and calmly leave your message, you're home free.

Well, not quite.

In the most cruel twist of fate, in the middle of your message the person you called will beep in.

If this happens, just go ahead and start thinking about another date.

You again find yourself in a lose-lose situation:

1) You can answer their call and attempt to reconstruct the conversation you had planned had they initially answered the phone.

2) You can ignore the call, finish your message with a sense of composure, regroup and call back.

Option one has the advantage procuring an immediate end to the fiasco the situation has become, and through your awkwardness you either manage to salvage the conversation or completely implode.

Option two presents a cool, suave demeanor, but does not account for the fact that she will eventually check your message and realize that you ignored her call while leaving it. This typically makes for an interesting conversation when you pick her up at the beginning of the night.

So as you can see, I have conclusively demonstrated that voicemail no longer has any utility in today's world.

From now on, don't bother leaving me one, and don't expect any from me, as I will no longer be using it.

I'll just have to figure out some other way to deal with those unknown numbers...

Sharing and the Slippery Slope

Kind of sounds like the name of a fairy tale, doesn't it?

Well, I can assure you this is much more serious than that.

As I often have, I like to blog about my past, vast experiences in relationships, during which time I came to realize a few things.

Also, I guess without knowing it I have written a disclaimer of sorts, so that if for some unknown reason I was ever about to reenter the world of relationships, I could go ahead and show future-girlfriend my blog so perhaps we can just have one giant fight instead of 4,817,329,473,671 small ones.

I'm talking a two week long epic brawl.

But anyways, it wasn't until I had had my first relationship that I realized it, but...

I HATE sharing.

Thank god this sentiment didn't manifest itself during kindergarten, I would have failed and had to repeat it.

Kind of like second grade...

But I really do hate sharing. And I bet a lot of you do as well.

Let me give you some examples.

EXAMPLE 1: It's a hot, summer day, the kind where you sweat the second you step out of the air conditioning.

Your girlfriend wants to do some shopping, and since you have no balls you tell her you'd love to come along.

So you park the car by the first store, which of course is as far away as possible from the other stores in the shopping center she wants to go to.

But rather than drive, she wants to walk, because "miserable heat" translates as "a nice day" in the absence of a Y chromosome.

And as you're walking you pass one of those lemonade stands that always seem to be positioned just far enough from your destination that you don't think you can survive without one.

So you decide to get one, and, being the gentleman that you are, you offer your significant other one as well. But she politely declines.

Then, about ten steps past the stand, she asks the dreaded question...

"Can I have a sip?"

It seems innocent enough, but you know what a sip means.

The damn things are filled to the brim with ice. You'd be lucky to get three good gulps out of the glass before you had to wait for some ice to melt.

And all you want to do is explain that you ordered the precise amount of refreshment that you wanted, which is exactly why you asked if she wanted her own drink.

In fact, you were willing to pay the price of an entire drink for her in exchange for the fourth of your drink you knew she would ask for.

And god only knows how much damage a whole group's worth of sip requests would do.

Which brings me to my next example.

EXAMPLE 2: As you are returning home from a night out on the town, you decide to splurge on a late night snack.

In Chapel Hill, the popular fare is Pokey Stix.

Other than being described as a heart attack in a box, for all of you non-Chapel Hillians (or is it Hillites), Pokey Stix are essentially a salty, crunchy cheese pizza cut up into breadsticks and served with ranch and marinara.

And for whatever reason, around 2:30 am they might as well be manna from heaven.

Which is actually a better analogy than I originally intended, because any time you purchase Pokey Stix, everyone you come into contact with feels that they are entitled to eat some.

So as you sit down on the couch to enjoy them, you notice people slowly creeping closer to you, like hyenas circling the kill of a lion.

And you can see the gears spinning inside their heads, frantically searching for anything that will help them obtain a few Stix.

Eventually, you'll get a few "I bought you this and thats" and "you owe me such and suches."

But whatever you do, you must absolutely refuse to share, because once you give away one, you might as well give them all away.

And that's because of the slippery slope, by far the most terrifying of all the logical fallacies.

But every once in a blue moon, someone will attempt to monopolize the market, and prevent the slippery slope, by offering to pay for some of your Pokey Stix.

This sounds a lot better than just giving them away. And it is, if you can't eat as much as you've ordered.

But if you are hungry enough to eat them all, their faulty logic is almost insulting.

And it wasn't until a banker friend of mine explained it to me that I finally understood.

When you ordered the Pokey Stix, your intention was not to bring them home and sell them to your friends at face value.

Because surely the price they are offering you does not include the opportunity cost of the time you spent waiting for them to be done, picking them up, and bringing them back.

At the point where you are about to eat them, the Pokey Stix are in fact worth way more than what you paid for them.

I don't exactly know what all that means, but I guess it's the biological equivalent of a mother bird going out and hunting all day only to come home and have to vomit in the mouths of all her young.

But anyways, I guess the lesson here, if any, is to think twice next time before you pull out a pack of gum in a crowded room.

Or at least be willing to face the consequences.

Your Real Resume

Faithful readers,

Please allow me to beg and grovel for your forgiveness, as I have finally returned to the world of blogging after my ten day hiatus. After some thinking, I came up with several reasons why this may have occurred:

1) My last 4 posts (which after rereading all my posts were much better than the rest) received zero comments

2) I'm at home with my family, who does not and will not ever know that I have a blog

3) I've developed a new sleep schedule (watch Heroes from 11:00pm to 6:30am, sleep until 2:00pm, repeat)

However, none of these excuses are valid, and I am asking for your forgiveness.

If you forgive me, I'll attempt to entertain you with the following post. If not, I guess it's goodbye forever.

And now for the main event...



I have had a lot of time to think over the break thus far, and try as I might I couldn't completely block out the feelings of nostalgia that flood my mind when a little reminder of my impending graduation pops up.

Now these reminders can come in several forms, ranging from mildly pleasurable to entirely infuriating.

At the positive end of the spectrum are the feelings that arise when you stumble across an old picture or a funny email.

Moving towards the neutral end of the spectrum are the reminders from the university to register for graduation, buy a cap and gown, etc.

But by far the worst reminders are the incessant questions from your family and friends about what you are doing next year.

To be fair, question itself is relatively harmless, and is a great filler for an awkward pause in conversation with old high school acquaintances or twice removed cousins.

It is just the sheer numbers of times you have to answer this question that makes it so loathsome.

Now if you guys are anything like me, you have enough trouble figuring out what you are going to do for dinner that night, much less planning out the rest of your life.

It makes me long for the days when any answer to the question "what do you want to be when you grow up" was the right answer.

Because no matter what you said (cowboy, astronaut, scientist, sports star, etc.) you were always reassured you could do anything so long as you put your mind to it.

And although I wasn't cognizant of it at the time, I would have to say one of the worst days of my life was the day it became no longer acceptable to tell people I wanted to be a cowboy.

If I had to guess, I'd say it was around my 11th birthday. But I digress.

Often times when you are asked what you want to do next year, you'll find yourself face to face with someone who does precisely what you want to do, or at least knows someone who does.

Sounds great, right? I'm sure they would have a lot of great, reassuring advice.

Wrong.

Without your consent, you immediately launch into an impromptu interview and you are asked to go down the laundry list that is your resume.

But the one thing that never comes up in these conversations are the experiences you can't put on a resume (read: nobody would hire you if they knew what you actually did).

But seriously, did you make lifelong friends? Do things you'll never get to do again? Take chances? Make memories?

Answers to these questions can only be found on what I call your real resume, that only you have access to.

Allow me to explain.

Sure, it's important to make good grades, give back to the community, get involved on campus, etc.

But it is just as important to live a little bit.

So, if your resume is one page, on the front you have your formal resume that you would present at an interview.

For those people that treat college as a checklist to get into some professional school, their resume might even spill over onto the back.

These extra accomplishments listed on the back typically come at the cost of lost experiences, which I believe fill up the back page of your real resume and complete it.

By the same token, anyone that has too much fun in college will be forced to fill up the front page of their resume with items like high school assistant junior varsity soccer team manager and spelling bee winner.

Cheesy, I know.

But I've only got one semester left. I can get away with saying stuff like this.

Now it's time to go ahead and fill up that back page...