"What a long, strange trip it's been..."

April 30th, 2004: My final column for The Student, which I found in a moment of serendipity. Please note the prediction at the bottom.

In honor of Shazz Wilson, page two's most decorated columnist, I offer these words to sum up my collegiate career. While Jerry Garcia isn't my idea of a life philosopher, the words are fairly fitting. Who knew college would come to an end so soon?

People tell us all the time, "Time flies when you're having fun." These words cannot be truer. I had some fun, wrote some stories along the way, and made some spectacular friends. But it's hard to sum up with just a few hundred words my feelings on leaving Alden Street behind.

It hit me when I was driving back from Easter break: This is the last time will travel from my home in Methuen, Mass., to Springfield College as a student. The next time I make the trip will be the awkward first alumni weekend. Even the words "College Graduate" sound peculiar, as if I always associated the words with someone much older than I am.

All throughout my life, I couldn't wait to be done school. The weekends, the summer vacations, and, ultimately, the date approaching in May were all things I looked forward to. And it wasn't so much school that I hated, it was being in class (although, being in class grows on you. There was a point where I realized there are reasons we pick our own classes. I started to like what I was learning. Take that advice). I was the king of being tardy due to conversing in the hallways, or out in the schoolyard. Ironically enough, that sounds like my time spent here.

College is the best years of your life, a gathering a friends from the schoolyard never going home and continuing recess for four years. It is organized chaos. Every year you'll keep some friends, lose a few, and maybe gain a couple more. Sometimes you'll end up with a completely different crowd you did just the year before.

Isn't it crazy to think that these same friends are the same people we absolutely feared to be stuck in the same tiny dorm room with? Now, as the seniors head out into the "Real World" (wherever that is) we can't imagine having so much space to ourselves. Some people may fall out of touch, some people may stay close, but the most important thing is that we did this thing together, and nothing can ever change that.

The biggest change will be the adjustment of living at home again. This, of course, is for those of us that don't have jobs. And it might not hit us until the Fall. At college, there is a certain amount of of freedom allowed. Parents don't know, and trust our judgment, about what time we stumble home (and, boy, did we stumble sometimes). No longer are the days when we can come home at the we hours of the morning, turn on the radio, and stay up a four hours longer just because "we could."

Throughout these four years, I've attempted to enhance my skills as a newspaper writing by submitting works to this publication. Sometimes I hit; sometimes I missed. I want to take this opportunity, in this my last piece I submit, to thank all who have consistently read my work. You've read my stuff whether it was treacherously written (which some of them were), or whether it had any semblance of a fine journalist; you read even when you agreed or disagreed, or were entirely enraged. For all this, I thank you.

Since my time writing for this paper has been mainly sports influenced, I promise I will remain loyal to my Boston teams wherever I end up in this profession. So I end my sports commentary for the Springfield Student with this: the Celtics and the Bruins have two of their sports top players for the future; the Patriots don't show any signs of slowing down; and, of course, this year is the year, I just know it, for the Sox.

I hope that someday each and every one of you will open a newspaper and see "Matt Osgood" in the byline. I will be honored to have you, once again, as as reader. But this I promise, you'll never have to look at this ridiculous headshot ever again.

In retrospect, I could have ended my collegiate writing with a poetic quote to sum up four years, I also underestimated the Bruins front office in keeping Joe Thornton around in black and gold. I also wish I had a picture of my headshot for my columns. It was me, my weight influenced by numerous weekends of beer drinking, with a shit eating grin on my face. I think I should try to find a copy.