“Thank you Chancellor, it is truly an honor to speak to (dramatic pause) the University of Illinois Class of 2009 (applause).”
Since I’ve been at the Daily Illini for 2.5 years I feel as though it’s necessary to write a self-congratulatory farewell column. Now is the perfect time to pen this, since for the last two weeks in print I was “Sunjay” and the chances of a three-peat error are slim.
While there is still another week of publication left this semester, the next Friday edition is the first day of Finals Week. So, in the interest of having people read this story, I thought I’d jump the gun and publish today.
For some of you, my departure from the newspaper is probably the best news The Daily Illini has ever reported (but yet you still read on). This very second, some are just finding out that I write for the newspaper (friends/everyone else). A small population, coincidentally with a similar genetic makeup to mine, is holding back tears. And then there are those gifted crossword-ers who are just making a pit stop on this page en route to the Friday puzzle.
Being a columnist has been more than just ignoring lectures while on a mission to scribble 650 words and Googling my name when alone with my laptop.
And while on that topic of Googling, NASA’s Sujay Kumar is still the number one hit. I’m the first hit … on the second page, but that might because of my association with Chuck Norris. On the bright side, in the last four years I have edged out a 2004 Marine Corps Marathon page featuring Sujay “the real Mr. Dependable” Kumar who held the title of top hit when I was graduating high school.
Being a columnist is about making a name for yourself. And since I haven’t done that, people have done that for me.
I’ll be leaving the DI having being appointed (and this is a mash-up of some of the best ones): “a fear-mongering underachieving Indian and an incredibly liberal hack with more ego than intelligence and a willful ignorance and premeditated malice to advance a political agenda.”
So I guess to a certain extent I am hated, but any good relationship has its ups and downs. You “enemies” know who you are; the comments section just wouldn’t be the same without you. And then there was either a professor in the Statistics department or Chuck Norris who put my column on a transparency and made fun of me in front of her class — the details on that are a bit hazy.
But in the end, this “try-not-to-sound-pretentious” speech is really just ending up a self-indulgent goodbye.
I’ve tried to avoid shout-outs as long as I’ve been a columnist, but since this is labeled as my last column, I thought I’d give in and make you guys happy.
But before doing so, as any awful graduation speech would say, “As we stand on the precipice of change and in this end a new beginning, uhh, begins,” and since it’s difficult to find the right words for a moment like this, I’d like to plagiarize a thank you note I wrote a for a blog about a year ago:
“Anyway, of course I’d like to thank … anyone who takes the time to read what I write. This one’s for my family, my friends, my editors, and the die-hards that still (not applicable to this column).
“If you’ve read this far, the expectations I had for the size of my readership have been exceeded, and for that, I thank you.”
Thanks for reading.
(Shout-outs edited out for confidentiality purposes)
5.1.09
