Upon seeing the decrepit condition of the arm rests of the chairs in the eighth floor lounge area (I love that lounge area — there need to be more in existence throughout the VC) I was immediately reminded of one reason I despised my high school’s atmosphere: the meaningless crap that was etched into desks and written on bathroom stalls with magic marker. “Love is a drug”, “Baby don’t hurt me” and “So-and-so slept with so-and-so” were among my favorite statements that I read through my four years. Such soul. Such depth.

I absolutely adore good quality vandalism. I love it. I appreciate artwork and I appreciate anonymity and I appreciate tags. There are probably moral hypocrisies going on in this paragraph right now, but it’s true. I looked down closer at one armrest in particular and I see the words “Think While You Still Can” engraved in the wood. Next to the phrase, “VIBRATO” is etched, and below that, “XPLICIT” looks like an etch that had been there for a long time. How many people have sat in this chair, I thought. How many people have looked at the words and thought nothing of it, or thought something of it and decided to take a sly iPhone picture of it, because they can? Why vibrato? Musicians exist at Baruch? Of course they do. Philosophers exist at Baruch? Hm…

“Think while you still can?” Did this person feel stifled? Did this person feel trapped? Whatever the reason was for writing this, I take it as a statement from someone who did not necessarily want to be at Baruch. Then WHY are you here? I could go on. I will not.

This photo sums up many of the thoughts I have had at school this past semester, from the end of August until this moment in time. A GREAT handful of people, for the most part classmates from high school and the occasional belligerent “rando” at a party, have spit words at me for the past few months — “College is a waste of time.”

These words, this school of thought, this concept has eluded me. It eludes me – present tense. It did elude me – past tense. It will elude me – future tense. College is a waste of time? I assure you, it is not. At least, I don’t think it is. I am on my way to receiving a degree in about three years, and I cannot wait. One goes to college to gain knowledge of concepts that I could not gain otherwise. I have not had the opportunity or the privilege of studying abroad or living abroad or even leaving the country yet, so this is the closest I have come in my eighteen years to seeing SO many different walks of life at once. I love it here, and I love New York City. I need to surround myself with the people who I have been surrounding myself with. I need to keep on doing this.

VIBRATO.

I really, really enjoyed Voices in the very beginning of the semester. There is actually one girl who graduated from my high school on Long Island who attends Baruch, whom I only know through mutual friends, and a snippet of her’s was presented. It was so comforting to hear her name spoken up on that stage by the actors who were so passionate about the monologues being expelled… I loved it. I do not know the girl personally, however, I always knew her to run with a crowd that I didn’t particularly associate myself with. She is currently studying international business and she is a perfect example of a girl who rose out of a group of seemingly unmotivated kids who didn’t do a whole lot in high school, but is making a huge difference in bettering her life. It was so inspiring to hear her name up there on the stage back in September. September feels like years ago. It shouldn’t, but it does. I am not a fan of theater, so when I knew that this would be some kind of performance done by Baruch students, I was less than excited about it. I clearly misjudged the quality and content of the performance, and was extremely proud to call Baruch the school I attend after hearing these monologues. I think the actors were incredible, as well.

I just finished viewing the second Presidential debate on NBCNews and I’m thinking, what a beautiful time to be alive. It is 11:30 and the debate has been over for an hour and the fumes are still coming out of my ears. Smoke is everywhere. These two thoughts don’t go hand in hand but I don’t need validation from anyone hearing me to know that my thoughts about the beauty of this day are true to my own brain.

Damn, Mitt Romney is a card. And by a card, I mean that extra plastic-y paper card that comes in a deck of 52 playing cards that states the brand name and logo of the playing card company, and long before you start playing Spit, you throw that card down the garbage disposal.

Something that the Governor touched upon in his arguments was that, and I quote, “…because if there’s a two parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will — will be able to achieve increase dramatically…”

You see, I resent that. I had seen and heard this noise from a mouth on the television and shot up from sitting on my bed. I am furious, and I was furious. I am small yet I am angry.

I am a product of divorce, product of a beautiful single mother who raised my brothers and myself on one income and one impeccable set of ethics. I know, just as half of this country knows, that you can come out on the other end of a divorce with just as much nerve and just as much courage as you did the day your dad left the house. I don’t live in poverty, and neither does my single mother. How can she live in poverty, she says, when she knows she is the richest woman in the world because of the love of her three children? And my opportunities are everlasting halls with wide-open pane-less windows at the end of them as long as I make them that way— my opportunities did not suffer because my father decided to abandon his responsibilities as a parent.

You see, I am in Manhattan and I am working and I am trying and I am writing and I am breathing much more than I did when I lived home on Long Island. My mother tries to come here on Sundays to have brunch with me, for we are Italian and very selective about our meals. Not to say any other ethnicity is not selective about their repasts, but I just know that I won’t settle for a bad bowl of pasta.

My mother, brown-eyed and more intelligent than every scholar I have met here, is a reminder of why I am at this school and paying for a degree. Can I receive a degree in life? I am here to write and I am here to place more knowledge in my head than it can fit.

I had said earlier that I had come to the hasty conclusion that today, now, 2012, is a beautiful time to be alive. An African-American President is up for re-election, and I am able to cast a ballot and elect him as leader of the free world? Is free world capitalized? There is so much destruction a few blocks down in an unfortunate vicinity of blocks. Then to the other side of my building, is the opulence that is the Upper East Side of Central Park. The contrast is surreal. The opportunities, nevertheless, are bountiful. No opportunity dissolved because I was raised in a single-parent home for half of my childhood, and I know many more humans than not who were raised in single-parent homes. They are all fine, fine humans.

Albert Einstein once said that if we did all the things that we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.

There is no time to do everything we are capable of doing. I know this. If I could bring together the residents of the south of my building with the residents of the north of my building for a feast, I would. I know I am capable of attempting it and I know the effort I could put forth is present in my body and that would literally astound me but alas… I could never do that. I know the world in which I dwell and I know that it is not ready for mass gatherings, literally and figuratively, of people who are so fearful of each other. I know that the world in which I dwell is not ready for my mother and father to sit down in a room together to dissect the intricacies of a disastrous separation.

I don’t know where to draw the line with these things, so I’ll wrap it up as best I can.

My opportunities are here in this city and I know I will live here and die here. My mother, remarkably strong like that of a tree trunk that has withheld hurricanes and withered but still towers, brought me into this world with knowledge of persistence and desire.

I know that if I die when I am 106 years old, I will have lived in the 20^th, 21^st, and 22^nd centuries. If and when I die when I am 106 years old of natural causes or of pure poisonous happiness, I hope that I had taken advantage of everything pure around me both breathing and not.

Once in a living room on Long Island I saw a parodied t-shirt that read, “I heart New York, but only as a friend.” I love New York, maybe as more than a friend. As my home and my origin, roots of my desire and my drive.

I know I want to embody my mother and I want to embody every good soul who I have ever come across. “Single mother” has a new connotation than it did ten, maybe twenty years ago. I am a product of a single mother, which I define as “noun. A Flower. A translucent flower made of yellow tissue paper that I wish to save forever and smells of lovely conversations and embraces.”