SO LONG GAY BOWSER BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY
BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM
So Long Gay Bowser Binghamton University By Matt Gagliano
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hat’s up gamers. Normally I would punctuate that sentence with an exclamation point, however this time, that “what’s up gamers” is somewhat somber. You see, I am graduating in a few weeks, and this will be my last article as a member of Binghamton Review and as a student of Binghamton University. As the editor-in-chief, I feel like I should follow in the footsteps of the previous editors and write a reflection on my time here and give some parting advice for those just joining the Binghamton community. I was originally unsure what approach to take with this article, seeing as everything I’ve written in my three years with the Review has had a sarcastic, comedic tone to it; obviously, something like this should be serious, otherwise, people will be unsure what’s actual advice and what’s just me being stupid. For a while, I wrestled with what to write here: What’s oversharing? What’s too vague? What’s the point of sharing anything if people probably won’t be in the same position I was in anyway? Eventually, I came to this conclusion: if sharing my college experience can possibly be of any help to anyone reading this, then it’s worth it. Even if only one person takes anything away from this article, then I will have achieved my goal. Now then, where to start? I guess I should start at the beginning: move-in day. I remember move-in pretty well. I was living in a five-person suite in Hinman (the RA suite), and I hadn’t talked to any of my suitemates yet. I knew literally nothing about the people that I was about to live with for an entire year, so naturally, I was extremely nervous. My brother had told me a bunch of stories about how much fun he had when he lived in a suite in Hinman, and how well he got along with most of his suitemates. That’s the idea I had in my mind when I picked my housing and every moment up until move-in. It was only once I actually began to move in that I began to have doubts. What if my suitemates are mean? What if they don’t like me? What if they’re really clumsy and they accidentally end up burning down the entire building? Once I met my suitemates, I began to calm down a little bit. They seemed nice enough. Throughout the first few days, they would always try to talk to me and invite me to hang out with them and their friends. My actual roommate didn’t show up until four days after the rest of us moved in. We didn’t talk much, as he was rarely ever in our room, which is a shame, because he seemed like a really nice guy. I wish I had talked to him more, as he was probably the only person in that suite that I could see myself being friends with. “What about the other suitemates,” you may ask, “you said they were pretty friendly.” They were, for a time. After a few days they stopped trying to talk to me and stopped inviting me to things, so I guess I was right with the whole “what if they don’t like me” thing. After about a week of being in Binghamton, I was already struggling to find my place. I didn’t talk to my suitemates at all, I hadn’t made any friends, and I hardly spent any time outside of my dorm room, besides the time spent in class. It was at that moment, when I thought things couldn’t possibly be going any
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worse, that things got much, much worse. It was a Friday morning, the second week of classes was just about to wrap up. We had a three-day weekend, so I was looking forward to taking some time to relax. Unfortunately, my body had other plans. I woke up that morning at 7 am, well before my alarm went off, feeling a slight pain in my stomach that was growing stronger by the second. I downed a few Tums and tried my best to go back to sleep. No such luck. By 8 am I was kneeling over the toilet, spewing my guts up. This is where I stayed until one of my roommates knocked on the bathroom door around 9, wanting to use the shower. I spent most of my time that Friday and Saturday in the bathroom, everything that had ever been put in my body making a mad dash toward any available exit. I had been talking to my parents non-stop throughout this whole ordeal, and eventually, I was able to convince my dad to pick me up and take me home. That Sunday, I tried to slowly replenish the food and water that my body had just spent the past two days expelling. After three Saltine crackers and a few sips of water, my body had decided it had had enough and rejected that which I had just consumed. No matter how much I tried, I was unable to keep any food or liquid in my body, which was a problem, because I had now gone three full days without eating or drinking immediately after draining all food and water from my system. Every part of my body was aching. Any small movement resulted in cramping and pain. Quite frankly, I felt like I was dying. And if I’m being honest, I probably was.
“It took only two weeks of eating dining hall food to give me food poisoning bad enough to put me in the hospital. Thanks, Sodexo!” On Monday, my mom finally convinced me to go to the doctor. We went to a walk-in clinic, and I guess I looked as bad as I felt, because the doctor took one look at me and then told me to go to the hospital. After a long day of hospital procedures and tests, I spent a few hours in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV drip to get some fluid back in my system. After some more time, they had me try to eat some crackers, which I was finally able to keep down. All of the tests they ran seemed to indicate that there was nothing wrong with me, so that left only one option for the diagnosis: food poisoning. It took only two weeks of eating dining hall food to give me food poisoning bad enough to put me in the hospital. Thanks, Sodexo! Surely, the worst of it was over now, right? How could things possibly get worse than that? Well, let me tell you. After I was healthy enough, my dad drove me back to Binghamton, where I once again spent all of my time alone in my dorm, doing nothing and talking to no one. I was certainly miserable when I was sick and in the hospital, but at least then I had my parents with me. Spending all that time alone made me feel awful, which in turn made me not want to do anything. As you can probably guess, a cycle started to form, a cycle that would result
Vol. XXXIV, Issue XII
