Well it’s been a bit, I’ve been super busy and I finally have a night to sit down and write.  I am dvr’ing the Voice right now so I can watch it commercial free later.  Eat it corporate sponsors!  I toyed with a few topics for the night, but I thought I would take the serious route.  Life’s been getting me a bit down lately, and I found myself, like many others, wishing they had a second chance on some things.  Ever wonder what would happen if you knew back then what you know now?  Jeez, would I make some changes.  For one, I’d totally stalk Danica McKellar, since her choice in men is clearly horrible, I would have had quite the shot.  But, alas, there is no reset button in life.  No matter how much we wish it, holding down that gray button on the old school Nintendo when you fail at something in life won’t make any difference.  Except when hunting ducks or dropping Mario in a pit on your last life.  Old Skool Nintendo represent!  So here’s a few things I’d change…

Kill YOOOUUUU!!!

Degree

I love my Anthropology degree, love love love it.  I know so much random crap about random crap, it’s stupid.  As I’ve said before, it’s a great conversation piece, and helps a lot while watching Jeopardy or the Discovery Channel with friends, but it hasn’t done two craps for me in my life.  Yes, having a degree has helped me get a good job, but if I actually focused it in something useful, I could be much farther in life than I am now.  I love computers and techy stuff.  That would have been great.  Politics, advertising, writing, hell even ::shudder:: business.  But, alas, 18 year old Greg really wanted to dig up ancient artifacts and talk about mythology in every goddamn paper he wrote.  I would go back and smack myself in the face and make myself change my major.  I could still study the stuff I loved, in fact I would probably know the same amount of stuff.  I just wouldn’t be mocked at job interviews EVERY GODDAMN TIME, when they ask what I was thinking when I got my Anthropology degree.  

My Nephew Majored in Anthropology…You Know Where He Is?  Dead.

Eating Habits

When you’re a kid, you are told to eat your vegetables, hold off on the cookies and not eat an entire pizza by yourself.  A pox on that my friends.  My eating habits are so terrible, the mom from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo would shake her head at me.  Dear young Greg: “Eat a goddamn salad you fat piece of crap, it won’t kill you.  No, it will not taste like delicious meat, but your colon and your heart need it.”  Changing eating habits at 30 years old is like detoxing.  You come to crave crappy foods.  If I have a rough day, I’ll be on a Hershey bar faster than a hormonal, emotional, stereotypical girl whose boyfriend just dumped her for a supermodel.  I love me some chocolate.  When faced with choices for dinner, I pick meat.  I don’t care how that meat comes, and my only decisions are chicken or beef, and “Can I put bacon on that”.  Living this lifestyle is rough, and I am making little changes to better my eating habits so my heart doesn’t explode in a blind ball of heated grease and fury.  It also requires me to work out two hours a night for at least four to five days a week so I don’t chub up again.  Each day I don’t stop at McDonald’s after working out for two hours is a small victory.  It’s like goddamn trench warfare, and my heart is getting boot rot.  That was gross, I’m sorry, I was trying to make a World War 1 reference.

Be Thankful I Gave You This and Not the Picture for “Boot Rot”

College

This is way different from my degree.  This is also the most important.  I would be set if I took the time to research college and how it would affect me in my future.  Firstly, I would not have went to a goddamn 110,000 dollar private school.  What the hell.  Student loans are the devil.  I am disgusted with how this country treats its newly crowned “adults”. Now I’m not saying people shouldn’t pay for school.  This is a huge debate right now, and I won’t go way into detail, but you know what would solve most of it?  Education.  When I was applying for colleges, my useless guidance counselor said, “yeah, this one’s good…go here”.  Stupid 17 year old Greg went “Yeah!  College!” and signed my life away.  Student loan companies circle innocent, idiotic 17 and 18 year olds like sharks.  They never explain, or at least they didn’t to me, what having student loans entail.  They never told me the breakdown, or what I would have to pay when I graduate, or that these bastards would be following me around like a mortgage for a long, loooonnnggg time.  If I could have a do over…just one, it would be for this.  The debate and problems in this country would be all but over if kids were just taught what it meant.  No one should trust a 17 or 18 year old with a decision like this.  It’s horrible.  The system is flawed and it has caused so much of the problems in this country right now.  Everyone deserves to better themselves, n matter their background, family, or past.  If someone wants to honestly give it a go, they should be educated on how.  Not thrown a bunch of paperwork from some smirking a-hole probably making 15 bucks an hour to lure teenagers to their financial doom.  I’m getting pissed off just thinking of it all again.  

Just Sign on the Line and Leave Your Balls at the Door!

Well, that’s my beef.  Could have…should have…would have.  Unfortunately, my friends, life does not have a reset button, or a redo, or a gentleman’s mulligan in mini golf.  I wish it did, but if wishes were like assholes, we’d all have the runs.  Ha, that was good.  Anyways, that’s that.  One day I’ll figure it out, until then, I’m stuck here, writing a semi-famous Internet blog for the masses, eating double cheeseburgers and telling stories of Greek gods at parties.  That’s right ladies, I’m single.  Come and get some.

This won’t take long.  I’m still astounded at what just happened.  Did you watch the season finale of Glee?  I did.  I want to track Ryan Murphy down and punch him in the face.  In a good way.  Not only did he have us all going with what was going to happen next season, we were all led to believe everything was going to be wrapped up in a neat little package.  It’s like he adopted a puppy.  He let that puppy grow up.  Fed that puppy.  Played with that puppy.  Patted that puppy.  Then he ran over that puppy with his SUV and beat the bloody corpse with his fabulous pink baseball bat.

No, I’m Not Mad, I Always Look Like I Just Smelled Shit

New Directions won nationals!  Puck gets to graduate!  The fat, ugly, annoying girl was only in one episode!  Jeff Goldblum played a gay dad, and it had nothing to do with chaos theory!  (or did it…?)  But then the season finale happened.  For weeks, statements were released that a show within a show would happen where Rachel, Finn and Kurt all go to New York to live out their dreams.  Then Finn didn’t get into his school…then Kurt didn’t get into his school…then Rachel did.  Wait, what?  Ok, that’s fine, they can all still go together.  Burt Hummel just did the single ladies dance, now anything can happen.  But then Finn “let Rachel go” and she gets on a train to New York.  Alone.  Fade to Black.  WHAT.  WHAT THE HELL.  No wrap up for Santana?  No wrap up for Finn and Kurt?  The army?  WHAT???  I JUST got on board for Finnchel…and I was just starting to tolerate the existence of Lea Michelle as a human being.  For years, the much more talented Jenna Ushkowitz stood in her shadow, while I gritted my teeth in annoyance.  Her humongous mouth turning every song into a show tune.  However, I started to come around to the two of them.  People cried, not me, because I was in shock.  I’m not saying this because I’m a dude, I’ll be the first to admit it that I cried when Topanga broke up with Cory and moved away in Boy Meets World.  But this.  Oh boy.

Shut Up!  The Only Reason I Keep You Around is Because You Know Vader!

I have to hand it to Mr. Murphy.  Hand it to him in the shape of a sock full of quarters which I will use to knock him out…but still hand it to him.  He played us all.  Will the storyline still commence of a show within a show?  Maybe.  But now we have to wait what seems like six years before we find out anything.  I’m pissed.  But that is what makes for good television.  I took a deep breath and compared Ryan Murphy to a good heel.  For those of you who have never watched professional wrestling, a heel does his job right by making the crowd hate him.  He entertains by making filthy, fat, hicks sporting John Cena t-shirts boo and chant “you suck”.  You caught me with my “rise above hate” hat on Mr. Murphy, and fine job.  It takes a lot for me to get emotionally invested in a show and even more to get legitimately upset about it.  So good for you.  Now we just have to wait forever to see how the hell he is going to pull this storyline out of the toilet. 

I Spend The Money I Would Waste On Dates On Replica Belts.  Who’s a Loser Now???

Many people view season four of Glee as what will probably be a disappointing end to a once great show.  Those people are probably right.  Glee definitely lost it’s luster it once had in season one and a majority of season 2.  Hell, anything that has Uncle Jessie as a guest star wins awesome points in my book.  But now the cast is scattered, story lines were left unfinished that can’t be salvaged next season and more importantly, we will be seeing much less of Lea Michelle’s monstrous mouth.  Don’t get me wrong, she’s one of the most talented girls I’ve ever seen on tv…but she just irks me.  I still have a soft spot for any of the kids on that show…and now maybe with the main cast gone, they can focus next season on the other kids who have more than proved their worth and talent this season.  Take the reigns Mr. Murphy…the ball’s in your court.

McKinley Horror Story…Hmmmmm….

There are very few moments of my life where I can look back and say “I am honestly happy.  Everyday.”  College was one of those times.  I look back at those ridiculous times fondly and every day I wish I could go back.  For those of you that went to college, you know the stereotypes, the jokes, and the idiocy that went on behind (and in front of) closed doors.  In the following, I am going to tell you about a few rumors you hear about college, that happen to be true.

5.) You Will Gain Weight

People joke about the freshman 15 as the curse everyone endures just by signing up for classes.  I’m not sure what it is, but the minute you walk into that cafeteria, your ass just expands.  I don’t know if it’s the cooking lard, the never ending cheeseburgers, or the gallons of booze college kids drink every day, but you’re going to gain some weight.  My freshman year I actually lost fifteen pounds, but that was purely because I did not have a constant access to cookies and saturated fat based treats as I did when I lived at home.  Unless you were on a sports team (which I was not, unless Playstation has become an intramural sport as of late…) you find yourself playing video games, sitting around, watching tv and studying (ha!)  Doing all those things is something that does not burn a lot of calories.  I may have lost weight my freshman year, but dammit, it found me come Junior year.  I also may have lost weight due to the cafe’s laxative based cooking oil that I swear gave the entire student body a fine case of the ass vomits. 

Memories ::Tear::

You also have a lot more opportunities to eat.  Everyone in college stays up very late, and most kids take up binge drinking like it’s a sport.  The later you’re up, and the more inebriated you are, “Hey, lets order cheesy bread and buffalo wings” at 2am sounds.  Not a good combo.  The laxative food is not needed here.

4.) You Will Work a Shitty, Low Paying Job

Living on a campus is cool, but making money to support your new Ultimate Frisbee and beer swilling habits is hard.  I went to college in New Hampshire, which pretty much is the south of the north.  Most colleges also have something called work-study, which allows kids to get extra tuition money while working.  Work study does not fall under the minimum wage laws.  I worked two jobs while in college, one as a TA/lab assistant for my Archaeology professor and the second as a “chef” in the cafeteria.  While I made $5 an hour as a TA, the cafe was where the big bucks were.  My weekly 35 dollar paychecks weren’t cutting it, so I applied to be a chef.  Hell, I knew how to eat the hell out of food, how hard could it be to cook it?  I guess the screening process wasn’t to thorough, so I was hired for a cool $6.15 an hour.  Rakin’ it in bitches!  I made pizzas and mopped floors.  The steam in the dish room caused me to not be able to breathe.  Not sure why, but my boss laughed and said “it does that to everyone”.  Safe.  New Hampshire.  I hated the job.  I hated the job so much I slipped pepperoni in the vegetarian pizza.  I’m not proud of this.  The problem with college jobs is that you will work for someone who lives in a college town, who generally hates college students, and will go out of his/her way to make your life a living hell.  The head “chef” was a fat, balding, dirty sack of fecal matter that used to stick his pudgy fat sausage fingers into the food and taste it.  I was eating dinner on my break one day and he told me I was one minute late coming back.  I don’t know why but that was the last straw.  I called the manager of the cafe and quit that night.  I would like to say I flipped out, I threw a pizza in his fat face or I took a dump in his stew…but no…I just kept the chef’s hat.

No, I Swear It’s Vegan…Hippie…

I hated that goddamn job, and that day marked the last time I would ever work in food service.  I like to eat food.  I love to cook food, just not in a cafeteria.  Few things suck more than getting up on a Sunday at 8am to cook omelets en mass for hungover college kids.  One of those things is getting your paycheck and realizing it’s not even enough to buy a case of Natty Ice (Yes, I heard that complaint in college, I do not know it personally as I would never drink that swill.)  No I will not make you a lucky charms omelet you fat turd.

3.)  You Will Experience Poverty

I heard a great quote the other day.  “If you mix taco bell sauce into your ramen, it will taste exactly like poverty”.  I laughed for a while then realized I, on more than one occasions, mixed the cheese sauce from mac n’ cheese into my ramen to change it up.  While working in a work study program as I touched on before, you make very little money.  Back in my day, I could get a half a tank of gas for five bucks.  But that was an hours work.  I then walked back to school, uphill, both ways in six feet of snow, wearing nothing more than a burlap sack.  I kid.  But seriously, having no money sucks.  You find new ways to entertain yourself because you have no money.  I think I watched the first two seasons of Family Guy 65 times.  I can recite the entire script from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”.  We played a lot of Ultimate Frisbee, and when we got bored with that, we invented new rules for it - like D.U.F.F. (Death Ultimate Frisbee).  Mix the rules of Ultimate Frisbee and backyard wrestling and you get D.U.F.F.  You also get a screwed up hip for the rest of your life, like myself.  Life was tough my friends, but we got by.  Now, I eat out once or twice a week, but back in college, going out to eat was like going on vacation.  When we all got together to go to the 99, or dare I say it, Applebee’s if we skipped eating for an extra day, it was amazing.  All you can eat riblets?  DON’T MIND IF I DO!

Rue The Day!

People kid about all the ramen you will eat in college.  It’s not funny, because it’s true.  I only survived because of ramen, easy-mac and Wal-Mart brand Mountain Dew.  A grilled cheese was like a fine steak.  Senior year was my own stupidity.  Someone found a loophole in the system.  If you cancelled your meal plan, the school would write you a check for $2,000 or so.  A bunch of us did that in September, laughing that we could make $2,000 last until May.  We were broke by December.  Never underestimate a college students complete inability to manage money.

2.) You Will Freak Out

I don’t mean the “OMG, my girlfriend just broke up with me” or “WTF, I failed the quiz” freakout.  I mean the whole, “I am questioning my life, my major, my existence” freak out.  The full blown, what the hell did I do freak out.  Something is going to happen where you are going to be so upset you are going to regret going to college.  You are going to regret your choice of major.  You are going to regret everything.  It is usually spurred from an academic failure.  You flunk a class, you fail a giant paper, etc etc.  But, I will tell you, it is because you are going to start to feel overwhelmed.  Many of these freak outs come either Freshman year, or Senior year.  Either because you were just thrown into something brand new, or because you think you didn’t accomplish enough or get good enough grades to make it in “the real world”  (FYI kids, that “C” in Biology 101 isn’t going to keep you from getting your dream job).  Let me tell you about my freak out.

Finally, It’s Everything I Hoped It Would Ever Be!

Without boring you with the details, I focused my degree in religion and mythology.  Much to the annoyance of my professors, I managed to turn every paper into something mythology based.  Senior year rolled around and I got to work on my thesis, in between video and card games.  Ok, I waited until the last minute, but I work best under pressure!  Anyways, I wrote my whole thesis and presented it to the three professors who I had chosen to be on my board.  The history professor I had chosen, read it, looked at me and flat our said “This is completely wrong.  This thesis, is wrong.  Here are 25 books why your thesis is wrong.”  I wanted to cry.  I did cry.  I threw a chair.  I yelled, I gave up, I cried some more and I drowned my sorrows in easy cheese and Oreos.  I had failed.  For the first time in my life, I gave up…but that’s when I realized…

I’ll Tell You When I’ve Had Enough!!!

1.) You Will Make The Best Friends You Will Ever Have In College, And They Will Be There For You Whenever You Need Them

Token College Friends!….No Pun Intended!

I stormed back into my girlfriend at the time’s apartment, sulking and full of processed cheese.  I explained what happened and that I had given up.  I’d screw the thesis, fail, but I still had good enough grades to graduate.  That’s when someone made a call to my old friend from Freshman and Sophomore year, who had transferred to another college by this point.  Unbeknownst to me, he heard what had happened, gotten in his car and started driving.  Two hours passed and the door swung open.  “YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT, YOU DON’T GIVE UP.  NO ONE KNOWS MORE ABOUT MYTHOLOGY THEN YOU!”  The rant continued for about ten minutes and we got to work.  With the help of my friends, I used the books this professor had given me to prove me wrong…to prove him wrong.  This plucky little Scottish bastard drove all the way up there and singlehandedly made me pass my thesis.  Sometimes, all you need is a little help.  You will learn that. 

After college, a lot of your friends will move away, far away so that you can’t drive to see them.  They will still be there.  Especially today, with all the Facebooking and Tweeting you damn kids do.  I can hang out with these friends and it’s like no time has ever passed.  We may give each other crap, get married, have kids or do other adult stuff, but nothing ever really changes.  I know I can count on all my college friends to be there for me when I need it.  I love all my friends in their own ways, but why I think the ones I made in college were different is because we all but lived together.  Hell, I did live with some.  We saw each other at our best, our worst and all our inbetweens.  Now who’s up for some Ultimate Frisbee?

This is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside down.  Not really.  If that were the case, I’d be mooching off my rich, fat uncle in Bel Air.  That and I’m terrible at B-Ball.  Anyways, this is the story of how I became an Archaeologist…wait…that’s not right.  This is the story of how I pursued my degree in Archaeology.  There we go. Grab a snack, sit down and relax. 

You’re Going to School for WHAT

Twas the summer of 2000, fat, dorky Greg was fresh off of graduating high school and had just frosted his tips (Pacy represent ya’ll).  I decided to attend college in middle of nowhere New Hampshire.  I was up in the air as to whether I should major in Archaeology or Environmental Science.  I had a passion for both.  However, my true passion was for Paleontology (dinosaurs for the common man).  Ever since I was in kindergarten, I wanted to be a paleontologist.  My teacher was astounded I even knew the word.  5 year old Greg knew more about dinosaurs than most adults.  However, I opted out going to a state school in Colorado, pretty much on a full ride, because I “didn’t want to fly that far”.  Oh, if I had a time machine…and a bitch slapping machine, things would be a lot different today.  That is probably my greatest regret.  Anyways, after I took one Environmental Science class I realized, since I was not a dreadlocked hippy, I would not fit in.  I opted for Archaeology.  The school offered classes in Egyptology (longtime love of mine), religion and other cool classes.  On my first day I found out the old Archaeology professor retired and almost all of those classes were cancelled.  A new professor took over that focused in Native American Archaeology.  Not my cup of tea, but nonetheless, it was cool. 

Me Freshman Year

I had a very romanticized idea of what Archaeology was.  I figured the needed materials for the first class I took were not going to be books, but a bull whip and a khaki vest.  Boy, was I wrong.  I skimmed through my 500 page textbook and there was no mention of whips, Nazi’s, Lara Croft’s boobs or minority sidekicks.

I Bought This for NOTHING!

My first dig was on a small Native American site near the school.  I had a lot of fun and we dug up projectile points (arrowheads for you non Anthro geeks), pottery shards and flakes.  A flake is the trash rock that falls off the arrowhead when it is being made…yes everyone, we were digging up trash…and documenting it.  Wow…I was thrilled.  I was never disappointed in my major, and it led me to concentrate in Cultural Anthropology (mythology and religions) which had been a HUGE passion of mine my entire life.  I had an amazing professor (who I will not name drop on the Internet for privacy reasons, but I will be sure to tag her on Facebook) that guided me and led me through independent studies that were not offered by the school.  She is and always will be my greatest Anthropological influence, and her belief in me is the only reason why I made it through college with the degree I did, and indirectly, is the reason I completed my novel. 

I took a summer field school in New Hampshire as a required class to graduate.  Where most kids get unpaid internships, we get to spend two months in the blistering heat, digging 90 x 90 holes with nothing to crap in but a spider infested portapotty.  Those were some good times.  Nothing beats summer in the New Hampshire wilderness.  Waking up at the ass crack of dawn to do hard labor…and having to pay to do it.  Now that’s a class.  Did we find anything?  Yeah…some projectile points…pottery…reasons to hate each other.  No crystal skulls, no ark of the covenant.  The best part of the summer was learning that a “pocket flamethrower” was actually a thing.  People were so testy by the end of the summer, they were ready to shank their neighbor for their ham sandwich.  Every damn day…the school packed us ham sandwiches and a bag of chips.  But that’s what it took…and we did it.

File Photo

No, I do not use my degree for my job.  Having a college degree definitely did help me obtain my job, but it is far from exploring tombs in Egypt.  I explore a cubicle daily.  Sometimes, I get to plug stuff in under my desk…it’s scary down there.  I should have bought the whip…As much as I would like to work in the field, jobs in Anthropology are very scarce.  I applied for a job as an assistant to the curator for $10 bucks an hour at the Boston Museum of Science…which the HR lady told me that people with PhD’s apply for.  For $10 an hour.  I made more working event coordination at Toys R’ Us.  Keep it.

Do You Want Fries With That Student Loan Deferment?

I do not regret my degree for a second.  I love the field and it is always a conversation starter…a $100,000 dollar conversation starter….oh God…but it is always funny to see people’s reactions when I tell them that I majored in Anthropology.  I think I heard at least two Indiana Jones references at every job interview I went on.  I bit my tongue and did not correct them.  I smiled while they turned their noses down at my degree.  I don’t care, because you know what?  I’m happy.  I got to spend four years of my life doing something I love.  That degree inspired me write a novel.  That degree made me learn things I never knew about.  Interesting things that most people love to hear about.  So in the end, to me, it was all worth it.  I still wish I bought the whip…

Pictured: Worth More Than My Degree