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Pen's freshman year at Howard University in Washington D.C. included dorm room cyphers, dance battles, books and a spring break trip to help rebuild New Orleans.
The first year...it's a Platform.
So quick, so Fast- I saw Howard University, Applied to school, got accepted, got my plane ticket, got a kiss from my momma,-- then I woke up, Between two of North West DC's most notorious spots- Hobart St. and Ledroit Park, in a muggy dorm room, in red-brick building erected in 1957. Charles R. Drew Residence Hall. Room 206. All of my life's belongings were collectively in two suitcases, my backpack, and my pockets. My west coast clock refused to alter its schedule, it didn't need to-my scheduled show of East Oakland sideshows and East Bay sunsets had been canceled for a show fresh as Dougie and Slick Rick: the platform.
It's given name is Howard University, some call it the Mecca, I call it the platform- a constant show. People ask me how was my first year, I instantly refer to movies and television shows, in order to establish some form of a comprehendible image:
"bruh, the social cliques and crews are like School Daze, the lunch room is like A different World, and the Football games are lightweight like Drumline."
And of course, the characters: I'm Pendarvis, aka "pen", from East Oakland, I knew Chuck before I went out there, he lived on the opposite side of the East at home- at school he stayed on the other side campus, in turn we created Chuck and Pen... at large- F-it, go hard! (inside joke), but we would soon cover all land the sun's light touched.
After Chuck and I squaded up on that first day- I believe my social network spread like wild fires and club fliers. I met characters of all backgrounds: Shid, Vic, and Q stayed on the second floor with me. Shid is a soon to be famous horn player from Richmond, Va Q is from New Orleans, a wild cat -- runs wit fly-0-4 boyz along with my patnas Emmitt and Calvin- they are all some characters. Then of course Vic- who came from some town all the way on the other side of the States just to find out his neighbor is from the same city: Oakland.
The subplots to the major story were also interesting: I met Jonnie aka Ville from Jackson ville, FL, he explained to me his pursuit of his second PHD, this one in atmospheric science- using cigar smoke as a blackboard, I met Jessica, a girl I went to elementary school with in Oakland, who had since lived on four other continents and now talks with a British accent, I met Dominique from Atlanta who has a step father with the same name as me...but that's a whole other story.
The cliques and crews:
The fly girls who listen to Beyonce, the hip chicks who listen to Kelis, and my beautiful sistas who listen to Lauryn Hill. (Many girls are quick to say they don't fit into the typical Howard Girl title, but just being a girl attending Howard is a title in itself- "One of the Many". It is rumored that the female to male ratio on campus is 10-1! For every ten girls there is one guy- this makes going to class better than going to the club, for some- think of tuition as a years advance to "club Howard". The beneficiaries of this ratio were cliques such as the Frat boys who consciously have wardrobes which only promote certain colors, the fly-boys who have wardrobes that parallel Pharrell's, and the athlete's who have wardrobes that say "HOWARD" on everything.
I ran with the "rappers": B-more Sam who told me about the passing of a younger sibling, Chi-town Glenn who told me about his new born back in Chicago, Messiah from Trinidad/Annapolis/ Brooklyn who was most commonly recognized for his appearances on "Showtime at the Apollo" and is now a proud graduate of the class of '07, Emmitt from New Orleans, Survived the big Easy and did it the hard way- he stayed through Katrina- a claim I didn't completely understand until I took a trip down there for spring break. We worked long days in the 9th ward helping to reconstruct the beauty of the Bayou.
Bashir a graduate student from Cleveland, who taught us youngsters just enough before exiting the cipher in pursuit of business ventures with his childhood friend, Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith. We never stopped rapping. I fit right in.
Why would we stop? The entire campus is a stage, from the benches by the performance art building, to the cafeteria- also known as club café. The yard was center stage- homecoming's "yard-fest", sorority and fraternity crossings, and a slew of famous names randomly gracing the platform.
So this is a college- administration problem, café food, money issues, and nasty DC weather- all of it overshadowed by the allure of the platform- Jay-Z, who blessed the campus with a performance states on his latest album "fame is the most addictive drug in the world", and if this holds true, then the platform for the potential of fame is nothing more than a gateway drug...
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