Wait. I'm graduating?

The first thing I learned at IU three and-a-half years ago was it's pronounced "Loo-vle," not "Louie-ville" as I had always assumed. The next thing I learned was it takes a while for them to figure out you're not actually in the Optometry building, which means you can park there for free for a couple of weeks.\nThat second lesson came sophomore year, and then for a long time, nothing happened -- now here I am, about to graduate, and all I can think is "Wait. Isn't that too much vodka?"\nYes, there are lots of lessons learned in college, and being that I was the rare person who did not start drinking until I was 22, I've found lots of those lessons revolve around alcohol. I'm sure many of you discovered this long before I did, so it's nice to finally be caught up.\nActually, one of my all-time favorite memories at IU involved alcohol use -- although not from me. It came during December or January of my junior year, when at around three in the morning my roommate and a friend of mine were watching a movie and having a pizza. A girl we didn't know knocked on the door and told us there was a car in the parking lot with a car on it, and she and her friends were pretty sure the car underneath the other car belonged to someone in our apartment. As it turns out, it was my roommate Ric's Toyota Prius underneath some drunk kid's Buick. Funny sight.\nThe lesson here is drunk people will park their cars wherever they damn well please. And who can blame them? After a confused and blurry drive, I'm sure it was comforting for this guy to finally be home, his car resting safely atop another car.\nAnd maybe that's the real lesson of college -- you're bound to see some crazy things. Have I made any growth academically? Probably not. Did I get incredible tips delivering at Dominoes the night we beat Duke? Absolutely. So there's a balance.\nThe very fact that I just referred to IU as "we" demonstrates perhaps my biggest IU-related growth. Coming to school here, I was -- and am -- a huge Northwestern fan. To me, NU was the team I'd grown up with, while IU was just a school I had chosen since the application was only one page. I'm still a huge NU fan, and I still pull for the Cats over the Hoosiers. But during my time here, I've grown to love IU and everything it encompasses -- a school, a town, and its many athletics teams. \nOf course my time here hasn't been all Final Fours and cars on cars. Coming from the greater Chicago-land area, I've had to make a huge food adjustment here in Bloomington due to the lack of legitimate hot dog stands. I mean, what's that about?\nBut I suppose one has to make sacrifices, and to that end I've struggled mightily with pizza upon pizza and a few burgers to boot. \nAnd so as I finish this four-year retrospective column in order to fulfill my contract with the IDS as an outgoing senior, I say to all of you young kids: Don't wait three years to go to an IU basketball game like I did. They're quite a good time, and more than make up for the money you spend going to football games. And finally to my buddy Pat, since I promised I would three years ago: What up bro? You're in the IDS!\nBOLD PREDICTION FROM THE JOHN: The Bears will go to the playoffs this year and win the Super Bowl in 2005.