Through an odd chain of thoughts related to trying to find a picture of one of my past college friends on Google in an attempt to play matchmaker I was led me to purdueonline.com. Here, I started reading one of the past active discussions, which happened to be about the “I agree with Matt” campaign, which I had completely forgotten about (or repressed). My freshman roommate was actually part of the movement and wore the t-shirt. Now, I couldn’t remember exactly who Matt was, so I ventured to the Purdue Exponent archives and did some searching. The memories came flooding back.

For a little background, about 700 students wore lime green t-shirts that read “I agree with Matt” for a week. At the end of the campaign, the identity of Matt was revealed. This was Matt, and 3 months later, this was Matt. I had completely forgotten that aspect as well. Three months after initiating one of the largest religious campaigns I witnessed on campus, he & his best friend were dead. Within a week, another Purdue student was found dead and a week prior there had been another student death, a strange occurrence for so many unrelated deaths within such a short time. I recall being very disturbed by this news, especially since I was sitting on the fence as far as believing in God.

But anyway, on to more positive things from the past. Looking through the Exponent archives, I remembered Brian Dillon, my favorite opinions columnist. I was sure to get the paper every Monday (I think) just to read his columns. That was freshman year, and I still remember some of the topics of his columns. Here are links to a few of my favorites:

Oh! I just remembered the invisible pink unicorn. Now that was a knee-slapper. I even started an anonymous email address and emailed one of my friends this huge email about how he was the chosen one to spread the word of the pink invisible unicorn. He called me, freaking out about this odd email he’d gotten. I’ve never had to fight so hard to hide my laughter, except for recently when my boss came in wearing a superman t-shirt. Anyway, it all started here. And a month later, this, which reminds me of another huge thing, Richard Hayward, the grad student who made time to write at least 2 letters in EVERY issue of the exponent. I know there were conspiracies underway to bring him down. I worked at The Exponent for 3 semesters, and I know he was the opinion editor’s best friend, because that poor guy had to call and verify the identity of every letter that was written. I couldn’t imagine the pain involved in talking to Richard Hayward on a daily basis. Reading his bullshit was painful enough. I hope he’s far, far away now.

Well, my break time is up. I gave myself until 1pm to have this blast from the past fun time. I am going to think of a tagline for my posts though, like Dillon’s “Til next week guys.” It’ll make my words so much more official.