The Melting Pot

Spring. You’ve got to love it; and no place better to love it than here at Maryland. Where else can you find a mall filled with scantily clad women lying everywhere? And I won’t even get started about the pool; I could write an entire column on that alone.

All right, so you could probably get all this at another university, and it would probably be a lot better than it is here. But there are still the little things. I can almost guarantee that our religious fanatics are second to none. In my two years here, I think I have seen just about every attempt under the sun by these guys to "spread the word."

Some of these encounters have been pretty freaky. One time when walking back from a late class, a couple of old guys (whom I suspect to be pedophiles to this day) started grilling me on my name, where I lived, etc., all to which I promptly lied. After all that, they asked me to join some kind of Bible group. Since I didn’t exactly know what to think after that, I just ran.

Others have bordered on the asinine. A couple occasions have occurred where I’ve seen guys using stupid magic tricks to attract attention, after which they somehow link it to a Biblical reference ("Watch as I turn your $20 bill into a $1... just as I have done this, there is only One greater than us all... No, you can’t have your 20 back; it’s the Lord’s now). Now call me crazy, but I’ve been brought up my entire life being told that sorcery, magic, and all that good stuff was directly counter-productive to Christian beliefs. Maybe it’s just me. I could be nuts; that might be why I’m the only one that remembers that one-time clip they showed at the end of The Simpsons about running the show into the ground the day The Cosby Show ended.

Finally, there are the cases where you can’t decide whether to be shocked or to giggle incessantly. A man that decides to build a cross and crucify himself as a publicity stunt is a sight you will only find here in College Park, I guarantee. What can you say about something like that? I know I’m speechless.

Who says that College Park doesn’t have enough diversity? I dare – no, I challenge - anyone out there to find me one other place on our green Earth where you will find so many people finding so many different ways to preach to the masses.

And it doesn’t end there. There is something else unique to us with which I’m sure everyone in College Park is familiar. In case you haven’t guessed what I’m hinting at yet, let me pose a sample situation. You wake up in the morning to 40-degree weather outside, so you throw on a sweater and go to your first class. An hour later when the class is over, you find, much to your chagrin, that it’s a bright, sunny day outside, and suddenly you find yourself sweating buckets. So taking off your sweater, you trudge over to your next class. On your way over, you hear a noise that sounds like thunder; but you think "Nah, not a cloud in the sky. Must be someone banging on trash cans." After your next class, you emerge to see a thunderstorm, or in some cases, even snow. A few hours later, all signs of rain or snow are gone, and it’s bright and sunny again. This phenomenon comes under several names, but its common name is "Maryland Weather." Nowhere else but Maryland can you experience all four seasons in a single day.

So next time someone tells you "School X is better than College Park," don’t let them get away with such blatant lies. Allow me to tweak a quote from The Simpsons, since we all know that gives us all the education we really need anyway: "When you eat that food, you’re eating Springfield. When you drink that water, you’re drinking Springfield. When you breathe the air, you’re breathing Springfield." How similar we are to that great town. For when you eat the food in the dining hall or the colored charcoal that passes for chicken at Adele’s, you’re eating College Park (for the few hours you battle with indigestion). When you drink the overpriced drinks that some dining hall exec had the nerve to lecture you about refilling a few drops, you’re drinking College Park. When you are being kept awake by the false fire alarms, street cleaners, and nearby trains so long at night that your professor at your 8AM class sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher, you’re hearing College Park. Never forget that, because from now on, College Park is a part of us all. A part of us all. A part of us all...

Sorry to repeat, but you’ll remember it better that way.