Rory Levine: Reflecting on Penn in the spirit of Felicity

Dear Sally,So, this is it, my final tape to you. Ten days from now, I'll be done. College will officially and forever be over. I'll sit in that rented van with my dad on that likely-to-be-chilly Saturday afternoon, with my tattered spiral notebooks, my printer and my stacks of sweaters all hastily packed away into cardboard boxes and look out the smudged window as the familiar buildings and storefronts fly by, not knowing when, or even if, I'll ever see them again. I can't say how I'll feel. I really don't know -- anxious, excited, maybe a little nostalgic. I'll probably feel a lot of things, Sally, but I won't feel sad.

It's easy, I know, when you reflect back on any period of time, especially the mythical "amazing college years," to only remember the great times -- the hysterical jokes, the late-night bonding, the easiness of it all. But Sally, it hasn't been like that, not always, not even the majority of the time, not for me. And I won't pretend, now that I've made it through, that it has.

In the last few episodes of her senior year of college (and in a fit of creative writing brilliance rarely seen on television nowadays), Felicity was given the chance to go back in time, to the beginning of her junior year, to change things, to pick Noel instead of Ben, and to see how it could have been. I don't have that chance; it's just not possible for me. (While I've had my share of lousy roommates, I was never lucky enough to live with a sardonic Wiccan, like Meghan).

But over the last few months, as I've prepared to say goodbye to an experience that has provided me with both awesome happiness and heartbreaking pain -- I've thought a lot about that -- if I could go back, how I would change things, what I would do differently, if I would even choose to come here, to Philadelphia, knowing how things have turned out some 40-plus months later. And, Sally, the thing is, I think I still would.

Look, there's no doubting that, in the end, this place has been somewhat of a disappointment for me, definitely nothing like the supportive, encouraging and tragically fictional University of New York that greeted Felicity all those years ago. When I first stepped onto the campus on that oppressively humid day in August 2000, I was hopeful and enthusiastic. The years here have robbed that of me, leaving me all too often a hard-edged, bitter and impatient shell of the boy I was, jaded from self-aggrandizing professors, inanely unproductive class discussions and extracurricular apathy.

But the thing is, if you look past the collective hours, days, weeks that I've spent here, wishing to be anywhere and everywhere else, it hasn't been all bad. Somewhere along the way, I grew into myself, into someone I not only understand but like and respect. I thought I would find happiness here, Sally; instead, among the pain and solitude, I found myself.

When I signed up to write this column every week, I did it with the hopes of finally casting light on the "unseen" at Penn, those of us who will never make it to the big party, who will never grace the cover of a glossy brochure and whose jeans will always be just a little too long -- those of us who inhabit the "world inside the world." Whether the columns have succeeded or failed miserably, I hope they've always been honest.

I've tried to write openly about things that are all too often hidden, both here at Penn and among people my age: about my virginity, my sensitive body image and weight struggle, my search for myself on a campus that values excluding others and fitting in over speaking your mind and being an individual. But the thing is, sheep in cashmere sweaters are still sheep, albeit warmer ones, and the problem with following the crowd is that it's crowded.

Looking back on it all, Sally, maybe I should've known it wasn't going to work out, at least not how I expected it, from that very first week. After flipping through the rather dull orientation brochure, I stumbled upon an activity that I was positive would kick the next four years off right and introduce me to people with the same open-minded attitude: a late-night game of Sex Jeopardy. So I convinced the two gals living next to me to come along, and the three of us trekked down to the basement of Irvine, psyched and ready to have a great time.

Needless to say, we were the only three people who showed up.

But now, it's all over. None of it matters anymore -- the petty fights, the social politics, the unwritten rules of playing the Penn game -- none of it. I've grown up these last few years, and I like to think that I'm finally able to keep all of the resentment, the frustration and the disappointment exactly where it belongs, in the past, and step off this campus a better, stronger and more confident man.

Like any life-changing period, this place has tested my dedication, my perseverance and my personal strength. I like to think that I've passed, but what do I know -- I'm still waiting on a decent game of Sex Jeopardy.Rory Levine is a senior Communications major from West Nyack, N.Y.

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