“I’ve been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I’m no dummy.” So sayeth Charles De Mar, best friend to Lane Meyer, the hero of Savage Steve Holland’s batshit crazy, impossibly hilarious absurdist comedic masterpiece, 1985’s Better Off Dead. The movie is probably best known for the paperboy character who chases Lane all over town, eventually following him to the top of a mountain, just to collect his two dollars. If you haven’t seen Better Off Dead, you should change that ASAP. Unless you don’t enjoy laughing. I read somewhere that John Cusack doesn’t like it, but pobody’s nerfect.

I didn’t go to any high school for as long as Charles De Mar (just the standard 4 years for me), but I did attend classes at Indiana University for somewhere in the neighborhood of eight years, and unlike Mr. De Mar, I was something of a dummy. I skipped lot of classes to dick around online in computer labs (this was the mid-90’s, so the internet was still new and exciting), and I also spent a significant amount of my time playing the Star Wars pinball machine they used to have in the billiards room in the student union (IMU). I had lots of false starts and part-time semesters and dropping out for the semester only to re-enroll the following semester only to drop out again the next semester after that, and I never really had any interest in going to college anyway.

The thing with me and higher learning is that I was a smart kid, and I always made good grades (except for a single D in 4th grade math – fractions and decimals still counfound me) and everyone in the family (myself included) just assumed I’d go to college. I didn’t plan for it, and I only even requested an application to one other place, that being Pepperdine in Malibu, CA. I saw a picture of the campus and decided I wanted to see that every day, so I got an application in the mail, and then I didn’t fill it out because I knew I’d never be able to afford the place. I didn’t know how to study, because I never really had to up until then. I might’ve performed better if I’d taken a gap year first, but it’s more likely that I just would’ve never gone at all.

Anyway, after 8 years of fartin around, I finished what ended up being my last semester at IU and fucked off to Austin, TX in mid-2003. About a month after I arrived in Austin, I received a letter of congratulations and acceptance from the College of Arts and Sciences at IU. The letter went on to invite me to attend a reception and get a free t-shirt, and I was pretty pissed that I couldn’t afford to come back up and visit and get the free t-shirt and light appetizers that were rightfully mine.

When I was planning my move to Austin, I came up with this harebrained scheme to transfer to the University of Texas after I’d lived there long enough to get the in-state tuition rate, as I was starting to mostly enjoy the experience of attending classes at the collegiate level. Instead, I made the brilliant decision to attend culinary school (mostly out of boredom), and now I’ve forgotten how to do all but the simplest of math, and the only foreign language I know is some Spanish cuss words, and a few Spanish words for food items.

Anyway, plot twist, motherfucker! I’m not here to talk about all that shit today. I’m here today to share some photos I took recently that I kind of enjoy, and – for the most part – didn’t bother editing. A couple of weeks ago I knocked off work a couple hours early and walked around the IU campus with my camera (Lumix GX-85), my cheapo zoom lens, and my new to me, previously untested, cheapo fish-eye lens. It was spring break, so campus was pretty deserted, though I did encounter a few other people walking around. I didn’t care much for that, but I suppose it was fine in the long run. I saw more squirrels and birds than I did people, which is the way I prefer things. I also made pals with a very cute chipmunk toward the end of my walk, but there’ll be more about that later.

I started my adventure by making my way up the stairs between the IMU and Beck Chapel. I’d been to Beck Chapel for a wedding somewhere in the last 12 or so years, but otherwise, I hadn’t really been on campus since I took my last classes in April 2003. The majority of my classes were in Ballantine Hall, so I figured I’d go there first.

Next I headed south toward the Biology Building (f.k.a. Jordan Hall). The majority of my experience in that building came from working for my friend Kai’s catering company, where we catered the biology department holiday party, and even though I don’t like cooking for a living, or interacting with most other people, those events were really, really fun, and we cranked out an impressive amount of high-quality food every year that we did the event. At any rate, I think it’s a pretty cool looking building.

My next stop was the area in between Memorial, Goodbody, Morrison, and Sycamore Halls. A very vivid (and very mundane) memory from my first day of classes happened in that space, and I wanted to be there again, briefly.

After that, I walked over to the Chemistry Building, where I got some cool pics from inside the li’l courtyard on the southeast corner of the building.

I wandered around through Dunn’s Woods, watching birds bobble and squirrels scamper, then made my way back toward the IMU, passing by the Student Building, where I captured another self-portrait.

And then, on the walk back to my car, down the hill from Beck Chapel and the li’l cemetery, I met my new chipmunk friend, who you may recall from back toward the beginning of this thing.

I don’t really have much else to add here. It was pretty surreal checking out places I haven’t seen in 21 years. I’m looking forward to the end of the semester, when most everybody on campus fucks off for a few months, and I’ll be able to explore even more. Maybe I’ll post a dumb thing about it then, too. You’ll just have to wait and see.