I’ve changed a lot since the seventh grade. I suppose if you don’t find yourself thinking and acting differently than when you were entering middle school, you’re going to be having some serious problems as a sophomore in college. Though I can see the progress that I have made in such areas as scholastic ability, self-control and public civility, I don’t feel any older.

All through high school I was waiting for that one age when I would finally feel grown up. The ripe old age of sixteen felt pretty mature, but that only lasted until the excitement of driving wore off.

As eighteen approached, I figured being a legal adult would instill that feeling of oldness. When the wonderment of my newly acquired rights lost its splendor, I still felt like the same old guy.

I just assumed that when I entered college, things would be different. Even though I can feel a change in myself, I just don’t feel like the mature, socially responsible adult I imagined everyone at a university must be.

Three major things tell me I have not yet reached that magical milestone of maturity. If I were ever able to overcome these three hallmarks of a man who has not yet come in to his own, I believe I would finally start feeling like an adult.

The first is flatulence. I apologize in advance for outwardly showing how crude and undeveloped my sense of humor is, but I still find farting hilarious.

Here I am, a decade and a half later, and I still find ripping one off pretty amusing.

This is not something that would amuse a mature man, a man who is actually going to be able to get a paying job somewhere. At some point, surely farts will lose their humor.

Secondly, I still sit at the back of a classroom. Just as it was cool when I was riding a school bus to sit way back by the emergency door, I still feel the need to find the seat farthest from the professor in nearly every class. And if there’s a balcony, you can be sure to find me in it.

And in doing so, I have noticed something. The closer you sit to the professor, the more mature you seem to be. Those people who are front and center every day always look so alert and so orderly. They take notes even when the prof starts talking about his daughters.

Meanwhile, I’m in the back of the room trying to wake up, as I rolled out of bed, didn’t shower and threw on whatever I could find laying on my floor. I’m doodling in my notebook while daydreaming and I often find myself looking up and wondering why that person at the front of the room is still talking.

Finally, the last clue as to my immaturity is my lack of time management skills. I just can’t force myself to go to bed when I need to function like a normal human. It wouldn’t matter if I had a class at six the next morning, if everyone else was watching that “Banned from Television” tape at two in the morning, I would as well.

So there I am at noon the next day, still in bed after having hit the snooze the maximum 11 times before my alarm just turned itself off because it was tired of being teased. It’s really quite pathetic.

I am guessing that this is something I’m not suffering with alone. I’m sure a lot of you wonder when drinking beer will become just a part of something else, as opposed to a whole night’s activity. I bet plenty of you cringe when you think about having to wake up at the same time every day and going to a real job with a desk and a telephone.

It’s not that I really want to grow up and mature, it’s just that I am surprised that it hasn’t happened yet. I’m doing plenty of old-person responsible things such as working two jobs and trying not to belch publicly.

In all honesty, that’s my problem. You can only become mature if you actually want to. And I suppose, deep down, I would like to be a normal adult someday, I just don’t think I’m ready for it yet.

For right now, I’m content just flirting with maturity and otherwise enjoying myself. That’s what it basically comes down to for most people: lots of fun or a real life with not so much fun. But in the end, I’d like to think I won’t have do either exclusively. Hopefully, I will be able to hold down a steady job, still have a good time, and maybe in the privacy of my own home laugh at people with gas. I suggest the same for you.

---

David Roepke is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Aurora.