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In This Issue

• Stephan Vincenzo: 2 Legendary 2 Die
• Columbia College Graduation Replaced by Job Fair
• Confessions of a Poppy Seed Eater
• Senior Wisdom: The Adventurous One
• Senior Wisdom: The Nostalgic One
• Senior Wisdom: The Old One
• Warning: Social Ruin May Occur
• "39 Steps" to Successful Comedy
• A Letter to the T.A. Currently Fellating Me
• Bored at Butler
• God Ashes on Europe
• YEEAAAAHH
• got meth?
• Letter From the Feditors
• They Watch
• The Staff of the Federalist

Story Where Our Hero, Of Far Away Lands, After Forging His Destiny in the Land of Sunshine And Shadow, Experiencing Terrifying Heights and Vertiginous Lows, Conquering Destiny and Escaping Despondency, Finding Solace in Social Constructs, and Keeping Things Unagitated, Finally Crosses The Seas Into the New World, Where Unicorns and Ponies from The Messiah Roam.

Ah, so it's come to this. Assuming everything goes according to plan, and I survive this last round of papers and test and projects, I will be leaving Morningside Heights with some mental scars, employable skills, and a degree. It's been, let's say, an interesting experience.

I'm finding it very difficult to sum up my experience here, since I'm now about to join the ranks of Columbians with a complicated relationship with their alma mater. For all the good things Columbia has made possible, there were also times where it kicked me in the ass. And I have to admit that some of those times, I needed a good ass-kicking.

So, since this is probably the last time I'll have something printed on newsprint, I want to indulge a bit and write some of my thoughts about this whole... thing, while simultaneously being guarded about it. Because this is going on the Internet. And the Internet will follow you until you're dead. Also, I'm really reticent with the touchy-feely stuff.

First off, I'm not a writer. I wasn't on the staff of my high school newspaper, I'm not an full-time creative type with the idea for the Next Great American Novel stuck in my head. In all my years here, the only nonacademic writing I've published has been for The Fed.

So why did I join The Fed? Because I'd thought it'd be cool. AKA, I wanted to bask in the coolness of cool people. I found their website, I found them funny, and I just liked it. Simple as that, I suppose. And messages of "join us!" were on every page I went to. And you didn't have to be a writer.

It took me until the fifth-ish meeting to find my groove. At the time, I felt that if I really wanted to be a part of The Fed, I had to write something. I had heard of a giant rock outcropping supposedly home to hundreds of rats. So I proposed writing about that. And they said, "okay, write a draft." It helped that the publisher at the time had a really welcoming attitude toward the fresh young blood. Well, everybody was really welcoming. I responded well to their overall "please love us, we'll give you cookies" desperation. Although I don't remember the editor-in-chief coming through with the cookies.

In due time, I actually got to know the people around me, and soon The Fed became my "home". The Fed, directly and indirectly, became the basis of the various friendships I formed here. Parties in East Campus, planning for Fed Bash, coming up with issue ideas, distributing/littering our Good Works underneath doors of your dorm. I became their webmaster, and I got a key to the office.

Every three weeks, there would be layout weekend, where Feddies would come in and out of the office and lay out the upcoming issue. And by lay out, I mean spending ten minutes moving boxes around, waiting for the writers to submit final drafts that were due yesterday, cursing at the computers for having screwed up networking and having the computers talk back to us, reading Fed issues dating back from when we were a real newspaper, coming up with last minute filler material to fill the gaping holes in our layout, drawing Fed Zeppelins, drinking drinks, listening to the Fed CD and tape collection, thumbing through our library of comic books and magazines, properly formatting the hey-I-swear-I-just-sent-my-finalfinal- draft-check-your-email article in the layout program, swapping out page five with page eight, coming up with headlines, banging on the printer, and wearing the fez.

Layout editors never lasted long. New layout editors had to be begged by the outgoing layout editor to take the job.

The paper went through changes. Good changes. We were dragged kicking and screaming to a new layout, and along with that, better quality writing standards. (The Fed has standards? Shocking!). We changed printers-now instead of washed out black and white drawings, we could print drawings that used all 256 shades of gray. Instead of relying on one person to draw anthropomorphic baby fetuses, we had multiple people!

Nowadays, due to the circumstances of my Unique Columbia Experience (TM), I'm the oldest Feddie left. It's been interesting to be simultaneously in and out of step with time. And the differences between when I first started out and today are just made more apparent. The Fed is now run by a bunch of kids with fresher blood than mine. And they have their own ideas and own ways of doing things that I don't necesarily get. But it's their paper. And it's still The Fed. Though I do miss the days of inefficient layout weekends.

Related to this "I'm old" stuff, last time I checked, there's a bunch of photos taped on the computer cabinets in our office. Photos from Fed Bash, general office shenanigans, etc. I know most of the people in those photos, but the current staff? They don't. And if they haven't been already, those photos will be taken down. Because who keeps photos of people they don't know?

So I write this whole piece to say, I accept that my time here at The Fed is ultimately fleeting. And I'm thankful that I got something out of this whole thing.

But The Fed will remain The Fed. My sense of the paper and what it means to me will be different from that of this new bumper crop, and it's different from the Feddies of yesteryear. (And holy crap, it's been 11 years since the start of The Fed's current incarnation). Who knows? Maybe The Fed will become the most prestigious humor paper in North America. Or maybe it'll self-implode, lay dormant for 50 years, and get resurrected by French android international students. Maybe someone down the line will turn this paper back into a conservative alternative to the Spectator. As long as there's a beat-up filing cabinet filled with yellowing back-issues, and people occasionally dive in and read and enjoy and laugh at what's there, I think I'll be okay with that.