Evan Goldin | Even the best-laid plans...

It was never supposed to be like this. Me, I mean. I was never supposed to be like this.

Anyone who speaks with me for more than about six seconds knows that I grew up in California. I went to a great high school, sunlit year-round and full of 1,600 happy - and occasionally stressed - people.

I was one of those students. I had a great, large group of friends. A mash-up of closet geeks (me), football players (not me) and lanky tennis players; we were about as close as humanly possible.

We played Frisbee after school. We partied. And we got into trouble.

Despite constantly feeling awkward in middle school - I've been told this may have actually been normal - in high school, I fit right in. And at that point in my life, I felt like I knew what life would be like down the road.

I'd graduate from high school, with good grades and boards. I'd earn a spot at UC San Diego or UC-Davis - or UCLA if I were lucky. I'd graduate, and maybe be a journalist or politico, something along those lines.

But plans don't always work out, and they sure didn't in my case.

In 2002, I went to visit a friend in Philadelphia, where I first discovered the University of Pennsylvania. It had a popular newspaper and lots of Californians. So, I figured, why not take a shot? At least I could say I applied to an Ivy League school. I never really thought I'd actually get in.

A year later, I was packing my bags for Philly.

It didn't take me long to feel inadequate. It seemed like most people I met were very, very bright or had done amazing things. But I was good at something, too: the newspaper.

So I joined the DP, looking to prove that, while I didn't have the highest SAT scores in the room, I knew what it took to make a newspaper. After two years as an editor and countless 50-plus hour weeks, I attempted the ultimate test of my journalism prowess when I decided to run for executive editor of the DP in 2005.

It was half about my honest passion for the DP and what it could become and half about validation of the years I had spent there.

But again, my plan didn't quite work out. I lost the election, and, devastated, I was given about 30 minutes to decide if I wanted to spend another year of my life at DP, with the consolation prize of running these editorial pages.

I said yes, of course.

It was a terrific job, but I'm still not sure if I made the right choice. I fired someone for the first time in my life (not exactly pleasant, especially when she sent e-mails to sorority listservs calling me a "vagina hater"). I was able to write often, and I became a boss to people almost double my age.

Yet I missed out on another year of normal college life - another year of getting to actually have time to work hard in class and make new friends (outside the DP). I didn't even go out regularly until early this semester, after my time at the DP came to an end. So it's little surprise that, with the exception of two of my housemates, my closest friends are still those guys I went to high school with.

But while I didn't get to run the newspaper, I did get a lot out of the time I spent here. I learned how to talk to strangers (honestly, I used to be scared to call for pizza as a kid). I learned that caring too much about near-useless details can make you lose sight of big-picture goals. And I've learned that, even with the best intentions, you can really piss people off if you don't involve your friends and co-workers in decisions that matter to them.

They say you learn more from losing than winning, and that was true in my case. Trying to understand the reasons I wasn't chosen helped me to improve my flaws for the future, when they'll matter much more.

And I realized that the complete workaholic I've become might not be the kind of person I want to be for the rest of the life. I miss the guy I was in high school. As a result, while my friends are preparing for law school or starting work this summer, I'm heading to Europe to put off - and not embrace - working.

And after that, there's no plan - because, if there's one real lesson that I've learned in the last four years, it's that life doesn't always play out like you plan.

Evan Goldin is a College senior from Palo Alto, Calif. and former editorial page editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is goldin@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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