Our mothers taught us better than to be judgmental, but sometimes a first glance is enough to gag on that noble upbringing.
We try not to do it. Skinny jeans torn at the knee, a blotchy black-tee, spikes and chains looped about his neck. His tattered All-Stars scream delinquency, his greasy tresses conjure images of the homeless. Your typical teenage badass, he strides along oblivious to the stares that follow the clunky rhythm of his messenger bag as it swings over the pavement like a pendulum.
He could be an Australian surfer, transferred on an academic scholarship. He could be the loser ex-boyfriend of your calculus partner, a trainee for the Navy Seals, or your future boss. But to us, he's The Reject. We follow his footsteps until they fade into the gait of another face, another label.
At the bus stop. she pops a morning-after pill with a Diet Coke. The Party Girl, hair rumpled, with a wild night mapped out on her face in mascara. Cigarette smoke and the faint smell of spilt booze swirl about her like a cloud of perfume. She wraps scandal around her like a little black dress, donning sex like she would her favorite pair of pumps.
In the elevator, he tells stories about the time he took 12 Everclear jello-shots and lived to tell the tale. And, dude, how about that one time he woke up, naked and spread-eagle, in the front lawn of the Zeta house after a notorious blackout. Meet The Alcoholic, whose sweat alone is 100 proof, whose fake ID is stashed between sporadic dollar bills and maxed-out credit cards. His DWI court date hangs on the fridge under a Corona magnet. Hangover and morning are synonymous.
You've seen her in the classroom, front-and-center-- a flurry of note-scribbling and hand-raising. The Overachiever, she strolls through academia as casually as pushing glasses up the bridge of her nose. She balances 20 hours as effortlessly as a veteran high-wire performer, juggling physics and student government and Latin club with calculated ease. The creases in her face are all business, whispering tales of sleepless nights and a bright future. Her track record of brilliance runs as long as her IQ.
On the track at the gym, he's lapped you twice before the song pulsing on your iPod has changed, his toned calves and rippling biceps mocking you as they tense in double time a few meters ahead. The Athlete is one whose thirst for excellence is met with consistency and patience, whose hunger for perfection is satiated only by perseverance. He wipes competition from his brow and soaks determination through his pores. Endorphins are his heroin. He greets dawn with cardio and dusk with a barbell. Whey protein and muscle shirts are always on the menu.
In the quad, she sprawls across a bench, a book in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, staring down the clouds at mid-afternoon. The Artist's pursed lips speak of tragedy and beauty, a collision of reverie and reality. She declares herself to be a pessimist, but in reality she is a dreamer, scribbling poetry with Sharpie ink and hair-dye. Her hands deftly craft heartbreak into something lovely and concrete. Throwing a finger at convention, she declares society to be the misfit, not her dreadlocks and daydreams. Her originality is a constant flowing stream, lapping gently at the banks of independence. Creativity is her Muse; love, her compass.
LSU is a medley of these students: The Party Girl, The Alcoholic, The Overachiever, The Athlete, The Artist. The Southern Belle at the library may be a sex kitten, her hickeys disguised under a cardigan and pearls; the grungy slacker in French, a closet genius, toting a 4.0 under his nonchalant visage.
In all shapes and sizes, all hair-styles and walks of life, students elucidate these personas in shades as varying and luminous as autumn leaves. You simplify from the polo shirts and nose-rings, and the general equation remains the same: There are freaks at every threshold, and dreamers at every dorm.
