My name is Joshua Spivack, and I like to party. But my idea of "partying" and my strong sincere desire to waste the night away has evolved and changed.
I was once a freshman here, and I consider myself lucky to have made it through with only one broken hand and one arrest. I still wonder how it's possible I made it through the dorms, and I still miss those days as if I know they were my best.
Naturally, if you're a freshman or sophomore, but especially a junior or senior, rolling your eyes at this, thinking it's exaggerated, unsophisticated discussion about parties and booze (rather, this is sophisticated discussion about party and booze) or if you feel this doesn't relate to you because you worked hard and made sure not to go out and fall into the cliché of parties and booze, than quite frankly, feel free to move onto a work in this periodical more attuned to the sophistication you require. But nevertheless, I argue that this is ASU, and whether we've truly become that "New American University," the simple fact that we are ASU should carry the relevance of this article.
Because three years later, the only thing that has changed here is me. I think that's how it's supposed to be too. We still are the most belligerent collegiate fans of our time, we still have a 24 percent dropout rate, and we're still "Arizona State University — party school."
But, as I've stated already, the very definition of "party school" changes and evolves as students progress through the very system that started this drunken fiesta.
I'm not saying I don't have the desire to go out, or even go crazy. It's just changed, and more than likely, if you're an underclassman (or a super-upperclassman) reading this, things will change, and for the better … I think.
Perhaps the greatest change for me was that I did indeed turn 21 this past October. Suddenly, my life was transformed; I would forever be 21. I could go to places once forbidden and instead of calling people I hardly knew and going to parties that I prayed wouldn't be broken up by midnight. I had a plethora of options — and by plethora, I might as well say colossally mammoth amount of bars in the Tempe/Mill area and Scottsdale. Phoenix isn't known for its sophistication or culture, it's known for its bars. In fact, certain bars on certain nights are the culture at ASU and for some, the culture of Phoenix.
I fear, however, that the point of turning 21 changing things dilutes what I'm realty trying to say, because while American adulthood is indeed something to behold, it is not the reason for change here at ASU.
Truth is, at some point or another, you get tired of trying to find party after party with people you don't know while trying to drink beer out of a keg surrounded by 20 dudes and three girls. This desire to find a less chaotic way to socialize and meet people, to find a less annoying and even stressful way to have a good time, was felt by my friends and I well before any of us turned 21. Unless it's your house or unless it's one of your first times, extremely large parties are always one in the same.
At some point, you either level out or die out, and either way, it results in the same way. Like I said, I still get drunk a healthy amount of times, but the manner in which I do it in is different. The determination to go out as much as possible to, really, almost anything, dies.
Most of us drank before we got here, and while the drive and desire to socialize, drink, party, whatever doesn't go away, the reason to does.
Make a toast to Josh's column by sending an e-mail to:
