This essay was a writing assignment for my composition class. We had to inform future St. John's students about our time at the school. This is what I came up with:
Dear Future St. John's Student:
Sometimes when someone knows what NOT TO DO, it gives them a better idea of what TO DO in order to succeed in a particular environment. My first trip to St. Johns was a complete and utter failure to say the least. As I tell you this story I'm going to point out what NOT to do so hopefully you can put together in your minds what the right moves in the situations would be. I need to emphasize that this is a completely true story, 100% completely true.
I will start off with some background information, which, in turn, will help you fill in some blanks later on in the story. I am from central Pennsylvania. I live in a six-house development. There is a creek in my back yard with a cow pasture on the other side of it. The closest “city” is the size of St. Johns Campus and the tallest building in that city is about the height of one of the light posts in Manhattan, well maybe an exaggeration but its fairly closer than what you might think. Can you say small-town kid? I think so.
For the fall semester of my college venture, I went to a small school called Lock Haven University, which was only about forty-five miles from my house (As a New Yorker this may sound far but in PA if a place was 45 miles away, it took 45 minutes to get there). During my stay there I made some good friends but I realized that I needed to experience something bigger, something a little more than cornfields and soy beans. After continually searching, my sights finally rested on the Big Apple. While at Lock Haven I applied for a transfer to St. John's University, got accepted, and began moving my things out of my dorm. Before I made the trip for the Spring semester I had decided that I wanted to visit the campus to get an idea of what I was getting myself into. Everything online, the campus, the buildings, had looked very nice, but I wanted to see it for myself in person. One Friday I called up one of my friends who attends St. Johns and I told her that I was coming for a visit.
The following morning, I woke up, looked up directions to the bus station and began packing. My bus was scheduled to leave early afternoon. I drove to Hazeleton, a small city nearby, where my bus was waiting to pull out. My mom had made peanutbutter cookies for my friend as a gift, which I carried in a plastic bag. I took a seat near the back of the bus, slapped on my headphones, drifted away into a nice nap, and off I went. So far so good. Somewhere between the time of falling asleep and waking up I must have disturbed some kind of supernatural force, because everything was about to go just downright bad.
Something I most likely should have mentioned earlier was that I have never been to New York City. Not one time.
When I awoke from my nap, I looked out the window and noticed that the bus was careening down blacktop streets while huge buildings, buildings taller than I had ever seen up close, were towering over us. “We're here” I thought, in my ignorant little country brain. The bus pulled up to a building that read “PENN STATION” in big stone letters. The bus driver, in the thickest accent I had ever heard yelled back, “New Wyoerk Penn Station”. I know what you're thinking. No, that is not a typo because that is exactly what I heard from the back of the greyhound charter. My mind began racing. “I think this is it.” “I'm pretty sure.” “What if this is it and I miss it?” After a few seconds of sitting there in a cold sweat, I grabbed my things and raced off the bus. FREEZE!
Alright. Here we see a perfect example of what NOT to do. We can see here that I basically just panicked. I had no idea if I was where I needed to be and I was stepping off of a bus, that was for
all I knew, the only way that I was getting to New York City. What could I have done better? If you don't know something, ASK. There are 7 billion some odd people in this world, one of them are bound to have an answer, and hopefully for you, they will be within shouting distance. A simple solution to the problem would be asking the bus driver, “Excuse me sir, where are we?” There is no shame in that. You might get laughed at, but hey, its better than what I decided to do, run off the bus in sheer panic. Okay, moving on.
After I had abandoned my mode of transportation, I still had faith that I was in the right place. I set my stuff down, whipped out my phone, and called my friend who was on her way to pick me up. She picked up and right away asked where I was so I answered, “I'm at Penn Station.” She paused for a second before relaying the same answer back to me. Somehow we were both at Penn Station but we couldn't find each other. I began shooting glances around, and I saw a bus that read “Newark” on the side of it, and then a building “Newark.” “Newark” “Newark” “Newark!”. The bulbs in my head weren't only lighting up, they were exploding all over the inside of my skull. I was fairly good in my knowledge of geography, so I knew it right away, “I'm in New Jersey”. I relayed my new found discovery to my friend, and after laughing and calling me a few names not appropriate for young ears, she tried to figure out how to get me from Newark, New Jersey to Manhattan. There I stood, on some random sidewalk in New Jersey holding a bag of peanutbutter cookies and a blue suitcase, just thinking, “Why o why didn't I ask the bus driver?” My friend called back with a plan. She told me to go into Penn Station and ask for the next train to Manhattan, sounded simple enough. It may have sounded simple to a city kid, but not me. The only train I had ever come close to was in a Toys R' Us when I was nine. So in my mind at this point I'm picturing something between the train from Harry Potter and the Polar Express. Anyways, I got my ticket and decided to follow the women behind me who I thought was going to the same place I was. We walked down a long corridor and out of no where she began running. So what did I do? Well, I ran after her, peanutbutter cookies and suitcase along for the ride. I know I broke at least one New York state law when I hurdled a turnstile while chasing this random woman. Trust me, you can't make this stuff up. I finally caught up to the my friendly travel buddy just as she was boarding a train. I picked up speed and barely made it as the doors closed behind me. FREEZE!
Lesson number two: Never board a train when you have no idea where it is going, especially while chasing a random woman. This is a bad idea in just about any case, okay scratch that, it is a bad idea in every single case imaginable. I could have been on my way to Rochester for all I knew, and I probably scared the bejesus out of that poor girl. Instead of panicking for a second time, I should have gathered myself and made a rational decision.
As it turned out, lucky for me, the train was in fact headed to Manhattan. I arrived in the big city and let my friend know where I was. It didn't take long for us to find each other. She greeted me with a hug and introduced me to her friend who had accompanied her. Her friend was a pure New Yorker right out of Long Island, and she seemed quite ticked off that some idiot country guy had her walking all over Manhattan. I apologized for my complete ignorance and we proceeded to the nearest subway entrance. This was yet another first for me. I had never rode on a subway in my life. When we boarded the car, all the seats were filled so I dropped my bag in the middle of the car and hung on to the railing. My friend and I laughed about the struggles of our trip, as I thought were now over. Again, I was completely wrong. A lady was sitting nearby with her head between her knees, as she appeared to be sleeping. While I was in mid sentence with my friend, without warning the woman, who was in fact not sleeping, released a stream of vomit everywhere. Again, you CANNOT make this up, I promise you. I lunged to get out of the way as vomit splashed up onto the backs of my legs (I was wearing shorts if that makes it even more disgusting for you). My two friends got out of the way without a drop, but my legs were a victim and even worse, my bag. I didn't have time to move my bag out of the way as it was the main target of the stream of vomit. Covered. Absolutely covered. My black bag was now a shade of pale white.
I will give you time to relieve yourself of the lump in your throat from that tasty bit of the story. From here we can see that when on a subway, you must always be ready to act, because you never know what is coming. I'm convinced that there was no possible way I could have saved my bag in that situation but if you are willing to conjure a solution, be my guest.
Back to the action. I looked at my bag, then at my legs, then back to my bag, then finally at my friend. She looked at me, waiting for me to explode with anger, but was surprised when it never came. I then broke out in a hysterical laugh and she joined in. Tears were streaming down my face as my stomach cramped up. This had been a classic, “What else could go wrong” moment. I felt bad for the woman, who looked to be sicker than a dog at Six Flags. Our stop finally arrived and we were able to get off the train from hell. When we arrived on campus we went back to my friend's dorm room and passed out, what a day.
As of right now, I am still a student at St. Johns. I cannot yet consider myself a city kid by any stretch of the imagination but my experience has taught me much about how to survive here. After finishing up the dinner that you had elected to stop eating, you can pick out many good lessons from my first trip to St. Johns. You don't always know what troubles you are going to face, but past experiences can guide you in route to overcome those troubles. Life is all about living and learning.
