From the start I had a good feeling about getting into Cornell. But nothing is better than actually receiving that acceptance letter. At that point, I didn't even need to hear from any other schools because there was no way I was going to turn down the Ivy League.

I couldn't resist taking this picture of Armando, my roommate for all four years at college. We went to high school together and played tennis together as well. I had some high school teachers pull me aside and try to discourage me from rooming with him because they thought that he'd be a bad influence on me. We had our moments but all in all, it worked out well. We were perfect roommates for each other. I'll never forget how he used to be getting ready to go to bed as I was getting ready to leave for my first class at 9am. Then I'd come back at 6pm and he'd be waking up so we could go to dinner (or would it be his breakfast?) We laughed a lot. We laughed at ourselves, at everyone else, at the world.

This picture was taken during the moving in day my Freshman year. Cars were parked all over campus, including Libe Slope (in the picture) as around 4,000 students moved in. Cornell had about 12,000 undergrad and 4,000 grad.

Here's my good ol' freshman dorm, the Class of '18 hall. We lived in the basement. Next to me and Armando live Marc and Andy, two football players who we didn't really bother with although Marc was a pretty cool guy. On our other side was Kate and Milena. And two doors down was Stephanie and Joanne and across from them was Lee and Heather. Two doors down on the other side was Rebecca and Lauren. It was great floor of people and I miss hanging around with them all. I'll never forget the prank Armando and I played on Heather when she was watching tv in the common room. There was an adjacent kitchen that Armando and I snuck into with his programmable remote control. Every couple of minutes, we would sneek up and turn the tv off with the remote and Heather kept turning it back on. This went on a few times while Armando and I kept dying of laughter trying not to get caught.

Here's a shot from the bottom of the slope, looking up at McGraw Tower, which is part of Olin Library.

Here's another shot looking up at the trademark of Cornell, McGraw tower.

One of the top five greatest days of my life- May 24, 1998, GRADUATION DAY!! It was hard to believe it was finally over. Nothing beat the feeling walking in precession from the arts quad into the jam-packed football stadium. The best was when we walked past all two walls of professors in their graduation regalia on our left and on our right and they were all clapping for us. Amazing feeling.

There's me on the left, Woody in the middle and Rob on the right. Those two guys were my crutches for all four years when I needed them. I might have been able to do it alone, but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun nor as memorable. We did a lot of work up there and I think the one thing that kept us going through it all was our sense of humor. Too many stories and not enough time. But I'm forever thankful to both of them.

This was written on the back of a Freshman year research paper that I wrote for Linguistics 100: We Are What We Speak. The paper analyzed and compared the words used in rap music on the East Coast as opposed to those on the West Coast. It was definitely a groundbreaking paper on many levels. The prof thought it was amazing. I ended up winning a runner-up award and I was later contacted by the publishing house, Harcourt-Brace, regarding the publication of this paper in a text book teaching college students how to write. This was the first A+ that I got at Cornell. I ended up getting one more Senior year when I took Music 221: The History of Rock and Roll. As proud as I am of my two A+'s, I'm equally proud that the lowest grade I got during all four years was a B-. Proof that hard work pays off.

Here's the invitations that were sent out for graduation.