this past weekend, eric, my boyfriend, convinced me to go with him to ann arbor, michigan. he told me it was so "we could visit the law school" and i could "visit the business school." after he made the tickets, hotel reservations, and rental car arrangements, i learned that it was also, coincidentally, homecoming.

let me start by saying that really, i have no big-ten allegiances. (sorry eric). don't get me wrong: i want the michigan wolverines to win when they play, but not so much because i want them to go to the rose bowl so much as i don't want to deal with eric in a bad mood for 6 months. (which turns out to actually beat dealing with 111,000 people in a bad mood.)

during our short visit, there were plenty of eye-opening situations: private meetings with the assistant dean of admissions at the law school, the guy who founded the business school's entrepreneurial program, a personal tour of the law school, and even a sit-down lunch with one of the school's top professors. but what i was drawn to was the profound school spirit.

granted, the only basis of comparison i have is my alma mater: wash u. without a doubt, i had an amazing college experience: stellar academics, a laundry list of co-curricular activities (they aren't considered "extra"-curricular at wash u), a great group of friends, plenty of drunk stories to tell, and even some scandals to report. by all measures, i am completely satisfied with my undergraduate experience.

but the trip to ann arbor has made me wonder if perhaps my own experience was lacking some essentials to a "successful" college experience. like the safe sex store's lube wrestling contest.

i learned that wash u lacks in some areas: namely -- sports. i think we have a football team (in fact, we do. i lived next door to two of the hottest football players my freshman year whom i begged to no avail to take advantage of me), a tennis team (in fact, we do. i grew up with one of the star players on the men's team), and a girls basketball team (yep. we got that too. they won a national title a couple years while i was there.) yet apparently, division 3 is to division 1 schools like poppy bagels are to heroin junkies.

same stuff; different addiction.

to be honest, i never missed the sports while i was at wash u. i didn't have time to. i was so busy in my own mishegas (yiddish for "bullshit") that i wouldn't have had time to attend a sports event even if i scheduled it in my color-coded planner.

well ... actually, if i had scheduled time for it in my planner, it would have gotten done.

and as far as i was concerned, we had school spirit. afterall, hundreds of sorority girls wore wash u (children's) sweatshirts all the time with their black pants. and really, does it get any more exciting than that?

apparently, it does.

every corner in ann arbor has a michigan paraphernalia store: they have the usual michigan tshirt, sweatshirts, sweatpants, keychains, bottle openers, etc. but they also have michigan arm slings, thongs, condoms, and yarmulkes.

i think i once saw a wash u calculator and a wash u slide rule. maybe an abacus too.

eric also took me to the annual homecoming mud-bowl where some fraternities played tackle football in a huge field of mud. every play was followed by an all-out brawl with punching and shirt ripping.

i think i once went to a wash u quiz bowl that got pretty crazy.

eric also "happened" to secure two pairs of seats to the homecoming football game. the "big house" seats some 110,000 people. and it has a marching band. a 250-person marching band.

the wash u "field house" is good for two things: aephi aerobics and presidential debates.

as i was sitting at the football game, i remembered one summer night back in high school when one of my closest guy friends, cheeks, drove me home the night before he left for college.

"debb, can i tell you a secret?" he asked as we were stopped at the red light on kendall and red road.

"of course," i replied.

"i've never told anyone this. but at my bar-mitzvah, i had only one wish: to attend the university of michigan for college. and tomorrow i'm leaving for my freshman year there," he told me.

"i know," i said. "i'm really excited for you."

which i was.

but until this weekend, i don't think i really understood what it meant to bleed maize and blue.

in truth, i wouldn't trade spi and gabe, ilana and jamie, jisaacs and blaser, brian, brian, or brian, bubbie jaf-jaf and sabrina, deb and alyson for anything. not even the "big house." or a 250-person marching band.

(but the marching band is tempting.)

but it does make me wonder how different life would have been if a good friend hadn't called me during the first month of my senior year, insisted that i visit him at wash u because i "belonged there" just two weeks before the early decision deadline, talked me out of applying early to penn, or it hadn’t been 65 degrees and cloudless back in october 1999.

maybe then i'd be a wolverine. or a 'cane. or a quaker.

one things for sure though. either way, i'd still be a nerd.