Graduation

I've never been a valedictorian, nor have I ever had to truly say farewell. I've been involved in a long love/hate relationship with Cincinnati. Tomorrow I will graduate magna cum laude from the University of Cincinnati with a bachelors degree in biomedical engineering at Fifth Third Arena. Four years ago, I was wearing the same black cap and gown at the same arena (it was called the Schumacher Center at the time) as I participated in my high school commencement. Four years from now, I will most likely return to Fifth Third Arena, unless another sponsor buys its naming rights, to receive my medical degree from the University of Cincinnati.

I remember during freshman orientation, I was reading the News Record newspaper at UC, and there was a section where UC students were asked to give advice to incoming freshmen. One student was candid enough to say, "Don't come here." That same day, I remember watching an informational slideshow which concluded with a statement along the lines, "UC is what you make of it." During that transitional period, I constantly asked myself how I thought the next four years would be. I was confident that I'd be heavily involved in studying and doing lab research and that I had a future career in medicine. I'd ask myself if I thought that I'd be in Cincinnati the rest of my life, and would leave the question unanswered because of uncertainty.

So today, as I experience this deja vu, I again am asking myself if I'll be in Cincinnati four years from now. Will I constantly wish that I were in sunny SoCal rather than in my apartment on Eden Avenue? Will the huge workload of medical school crush my soul and burn me out? Will I let the naysayers get to me and kill my ambition? I hope that the answer to all of these questions is no, but again, I can't be certain what the next four years in Cincinnati will bring. I don't know what type of physician I will become, nor do I really know what to expect in medical school, but I am certain of one thing: if I can say that I made a difference, then I will have no regrets about the past nor fears about the future.

Fond Memories of NES

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The Cincinnati Kid

The Cincinnati Kid

Anyone who has lived and grown up in the same city for greater than two decades can understand what it is like to have hometown pride. I’ve lived in a Cincinnati suburb for almost 22 years now, and I doubt that I’ll leave any time soon. Perhaps this is why I feel compelled to praise the city the same way Don Quixote would defend the honor of a prostitute. Cincinnati is named after the Roman dictator Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus. According to legend, the Senate begged Cincinnatus to serve with absolute authority. As a consul and dictator, Cincinnatus was remembered for subduing aggressive tribes which threatened Rome. Upon the resolution of these conflicts, Cincinnatus promptly retired to his farm and refused to assume any more powers as a dictator. He embodied loyalty to Rome and modesty in returning to his fields.
When people ask me why I like Cincinnati so much, I’ll usually say something along the lines of it being a relatively safe and clean city with a great orchestra, several universities and a medical community involved in cutting-edge research, a baseball team with a rich winning tradition, and a football team that people aren’t ashamed to root for. I won’t mention that we were uncertain if Hell would get colder if the Bengals started winning back in the mid nineties, or the countless evenings I have spent with friends wandering aimlessly in Newport on the Levee struck with a painful bout of boredom.
I haven’t traveled extensively, but when I do, I always find myself making a list of ways Cincinnati is better than the place I’m visiting. When I was in the sweltering heat of Dallas, I constantly thought about the enjoyable variety of weather in Cincinnati. Miami, FL might be a vibrant and sunny destination, but it is riddled with corruption and a distinct class divide. Sometimes when I listen to Tupac rap about California, I wish I could remind him that the gas prices in Cincinnati are much more reasonable than they are in Oakland or San Diego, and that you can’t enjoy a black bean burrito from Skyline in San Francisco. But this opportunity has passed.
Occasionally, foreigners will regale me with their experiences from their native lands. When I meet these people, I enjoy hearing their scintillating stories about their encounters with disgruntled tollbooth workers in the exotic countryside that is Michigan. Several of my friends recently returned from study abroad trips from countries such as Australia, Spain, and the UK. I’ve heard stories about the wild exploits in Madrid and the “nonstop partying” in Scotland. I don’t doubt that there are cities abroad which are more exciting than Cincinnati, but I’ve never heard of people from America boarding an overcrowded skiff with little food and water to go to London or Ibiza. I don’t think these cities would want or welcome our “tired, poor, huddled masses, yearning to breath freely.”
So I think it is safe to conclude that Cincinnati is and always will be the greatest city ever. If I ever find myself leaving Ohio for a lucrative and exciting job in sunny LA where I’d be surrounded by many attractive women, it would be reluctantly and I would make sure to return home to my plow immediately following successful completion of my work. I would tell everyone about how great Cincinnati is the same way foreigners have told me about their native land of Duluth.