A Texan says goodbye

[hoosier]

Editor's note: The following is a Daily Texan -30- column. In the typewritten days of the newspaper industry, "-30-" denoted the end of a story. A -30- column gives graduating staff members an opportunity to reflect and speak their minds.

My senior year in high school, I walked into the Houston Chronicle Photo Office and asked the director of photography for a job with the paper. He smiled and then asked to see my portfolio. I handed him a book filled with photos I had taken for the high school yearbook. He looked through my images, critiquing every one of them. By the time I left his office, my chin was wrinkled from stress and my eyes were on the brink of flooding because of the things he said to me. I made it outside of the building without crying and just let go in my car. Walking into the Chronicle, I had an ego the size of the Titanic. Walking out, I was sunk and at a loss for words.
That day, I learned a valuable lesson: Knowledge is power and experience matters more than anything else in the world. I also learned that I wasn't the shit, no matter how bad I wanted to be.
At the University of Texas, I have spent close to four years working in the dim light of an office along a cinder-block wall of the TSP building, four years looking through the lens of a camera and four years living through the images I have captured.
My four years at UT have been an eye-opening experience that I will never forget. I have found the friends I will keep close to me for the rest of my life. I have built a portfolio of work that has landed me several job offers upon graduation. I have found the love of my life and finally started to understand that nothing will ever be more important than her. I have pledged a fraternity and learned how to be an honorable man and live by morals that have made me a more understanding person.
I have barely passed almost every single class I have taken at UT, and I am proud of my 2.6 GPA. C students rule the world is what I have heard.
Finally, I have learned that nothing is more important than laughing and being happy just to be alive. I wish my dad could be here this Saturday to see me graduate, but I know that for the past 12 years he has been watching me, waiting for me to actually grow up and act my age. He is still waiting, along with the rest of my family.
Now the thing that every Daily Texan Staff member does best ... say goodbye to everyone I have ever met through my years at school.
My family:
Mom: I love you, and you are the main reason I have even made it this far in life. You are the matriarch of our family and through all of our troubles you have never stumbled or fallen. I hope that one day I will be as good of a person as you have been to me no matter what I have done. Thank you for your support - emotionally, financially (especially for college), and being someone to talk to when I suffered through summer school in Austin by myself in 2001.
Steven: You have been a silent figure standing in the background for so long. I have seen you step out from the shadows during high school and become a person that will accomplish a lot. You will definitely suffer as a musician, but I know that you will find happiness in the most unlikely places. You will be my best man at my wedding whenever that day comes. You know all my secrets and faults. I will never be able to let anyone else have that much dirt on me. I love you, baby brother.
The rest of my family: I am sorry for being such a pain in the ass for 22 years now. I don't see an end to the misery anytime soon, but I am working on it. To my four other mothers, otherwise known as my aunts and my grandma: You have helped raise me in such a way that I have turned out caring and strong. Thank you. To my uncles, Bob, Chuck and John: You three have been there to help me with my questions I have had growing up. Thanks. Bob, you have been a shining example of what a man should be. Thank you.
My future "Wife," Coty: In the past year you have set yourself apart from every other person in the world. You have opened my heart, my mind and my soul, and you have showed me that I am capable of loving someone else unconditionally with everything I have every day of the week. I can't compare my relationship with you to anything else I have ever had before, because I have never experienced anything that is as wonderful as you. I am saying this to you now because I want you to know with everyone able to read this, that from the very first day I spent with you, I knew that we would be together and that I would love you forever. We have been through so much in just one year, and, even though we have many more years together, I know that I've seen you at your best and worst moments, and you are still perfect to me.

The men of Sigma Nu:
Collie, Ralph, Jeff, Steve, Ryan, Sherman, Tom, BR, Werner, Rene, TJ, Phil, Barrett, Grant and Justin: When I pledged to Sigma Nu, I learned how to live with honor and pride and be proud of the group of friends I had. The moments we have all had together in the past three years are memories I will tell my kids about after they graduate from college and are married. Living in the house was the worst decision I made, at least after I got a girlfriend, but that is a whole other story. Y'all are people I will always be in touch with, and I will never forget the lessons I have learned from the fraternity. I am glad to say that I am proud to be a member of a fraternity that hasn't ended up on the front page of The Daily Texan for hazing or bad publicity. We truly are better than the rest. I give you all one more "Toast to Honor." Say it all once together for me when I am gone.