Biker

My first day of class, or FDOC (yes I’m almost cool enough to use this acronym now), was interesting to say the least.

So, I’ve had a tendency to be directionally incompetent. If someone could get lost in a dead end, it would be me. When I come out of somewhere like Target, I can never find my car—not because I forget, but because I have no idea where I am in what I think is an intimidatingly big lot.

Knowing my accident/episode-prone self, I rode my K-mart brand bike the day before to find all my classes’ buildings in order to avoid the inescapable mishaps that seem to follow me from school to school. I even wrote notes in my phone about each one (“looks like big version of Pizza Hut”), so I could remember them on my own terms.

And shockingly, nothing went wrong. I went to all my classes on time, took superior notes, and even met a few people who willingly sat next to me.

What happened on the way home is a different story. For now, I’m just riding my bike, trying to maintain the little semblance of coolness someone who rides a bike can maintain.

And I’m lost.

For most people, this would be an opportunity to harness any James Bond-like resourcefulness, and ultimately find his or her way home using logic and shrewdness. Well, for me, I know it’s time to pull out my phone for GPS. At least I acknowledge my own ineptitude.

During the configuration of my GPS, I inadvertently begin to traverse down an extremely steep slope. As the slope increases, so does my sweat and agitation. My hands begin to sweat so much that my phone screen isn’t picking up any of my typing. In true Ryan fashion, I am now blaming everyone else for this now claustrophobic and unsettling experience—like my History professor, who had the nerve to talk too long after class when I asked him a question.

The GPS finally configured. During every voiced instruction by the female robot (“Continue for 1.2 miles”), I cough so no one can hear the bike-riding, sweaty, red-faced new transfer student GPS-ing his way home to his dorm. I’m really going fast now.

With my right hand on my phone and my left hand trying to hold my handlebar, I feel the wheel of my K-mart bike go down a few inches. A few milliseconds after, I look down and see that I am in a staircase. It was a hidden staircase, concealed within the chasm of this this precipitous nightmare of a hill. With the speed I have accumulated, I reached a point of acceptance. I am going to fall hard and it’s going to be painful.

Unable to regain grip of my bike, I consciously said to myself, “You are going down.” And I did. I soared through the air, down the hidden staircase. My bike followed, being sure to make all the necessary loud noises to draw just the level of attention I needed during such a mortifying blunder. Although I sustained minor physical injuries, my embarrassment was major.

I will say that this was, in fact, a learning experience for me. It taught me not just that paying attention to your surroundings is important, or that GPS-ing and biking is very dangerous. It taught me that when people ask me what happened to my battered leg, saying, “I fell,” is better than blaming a hidden staircase.

—Written by Ryan Schocket

Scarred For Life

Coming to North Carolina, where it takes people approximately four New Jersey minutes to say five words, was, and still is, a huge transition. People here do all different types of things – like pronouncing the word “aunt” like a British person, or holding the door for people a couple yards away. My roommate even chooses to sleep with the lights on. (Colin, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry again for locking you out two weeks ago.)

It’s safe to say that I’m still adjusting to things at a consistently glacial speed.

I’m not entirely sure if this classifies as a “type of person,” but I’m the type of person who genuinely values the twelve or so minutes before class. It’s a sacrosanct time for me, where I can change, get my books together, and most importantly: have a sold-out concert with the imaginary 10,000 people that are watching.

I avoid the “singing-into-a-hairbrush” platitude, as my set up is substantially more innovative and realistic. Equipped with my 6-foot tall floor lamp as my microphone stand, and my iPhone as my microphone, I’m ready to go.

Since I’m pressed for time, I start to change my clothes as my impressively high-quality headphones blast the opening song, Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” I know every word, and each is bolstered by my obnoxious—yet indispensable—headbanging. It gets tricky trying to change out of your clothes, while maintaining the particular set-up, but I’m a pro.

With only a few minutes left before I have to leave, I end things with Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”—a song that has proven to be one of the best songs to jam out to in your room (alone and in your underwear). This song requires the wireless microphone, so I’m able to interact with the entire room. There I was at one o’clock in the afternoon: jumping around, dancing terribly, and personifying the word “embarrassing.”

Shake It Off’s bridge is up—my favorite part. I hit the high note with precision. A+ performance. As I wipe the sweat that’s accumulated from performing, I go over to my bed to grab my backpack to go to class.

Then, I look towards the lofted bed parallel to mine and see a skinny head with black hair slowly adjust his pillows and now type on his phone. My face turns crimson with embarrassment. He was napping during that—lights on and everything, just how he prefers to sleep.

To this day, I still have no idea how much he saw. I have no idea if he experienced my headbanging-laden, half-dressed performance of Pour Some Sugar On Me, or if he saw any of my Shake It Off dancing. I’m not sure how to find out if I’ve scarred him for life.

And I just don’t think I’m ever going to ask. Ever.

– Written by Ryan Schocket