Four years has dwindled down to six days at an almost ludicrous speed.

They say there are no better years than those spent in college, and I’ve slept through most of them. But, the parts I was conscious for, were well worth the $9,000 semi-annual price of admission, which is easy for me to say since my parents were forking over the cash.

I have to admit, when I first came here I was a little worried. Driving from New Jersey, it wasn’t the endless array of corn that got to me. Instead, it was a simple roadside poem a few miles from the state line that read: “Roses are red, my gun is blue. My family is safe, how about you?”

Luckily, my image of Champaign-Urbana being littered with guys in rusted-out pick-up trucks and combat fatigues didn’t hold true – the nut-jobs don’t wear combat fatigues anymore. Instead, they came in the form of professional protesters who couldn’t wait to yell at me for wearing a Chief t-shirt.

I almost hope the Chief goes away so those people have to find real jobs.

To me, the only thing worth protesting is the fact that I only saw five Big Ten wins in football – four of them were during my freshman year.

Why aren’t people storming the Quad over this? Instead, we protest over Iraq, student-insurance, and a three-minute half time show.

Priorities people, priorities. But I digress.

My initial second thoughts were swept aside when I began working at the Daily Illini. I had no experience, no skills and no idea what I was doing.

I was hired right away.

Working at the Daily Illini has offered me some unique opportunities. From interviewing former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, Sen. Barrack Obama and Dr. Patch Adams, to football road trips, being a reporter has been a wonderful experience, but the best was covering the Illini hockey club.

After each weekend’s game, when I went to interview the players, they would try to shove me into the showers. It eventually led me to make a bet with forward Scott Kohler. They win a national championship, I jump into the shower.

I figured I was safe. I was so wrong.

Almost two years later, Illinois won the ACHA National Championship and into the showers I went.

Traditionally, this is when columnists thank readers (all six of them) and other influential people during their college careers. I’ll try to keep it short so the band doesn’t have to cut me off.

I’d like to thank my family first and foremost. Next is Mary Seiler, who drilled my butt to a chair and forced me to write. Then Sarah McCabe, who pushed me into working at the Daily Illini even though she only read what I wrote if it was next to Get Fuzzy or the crossword. I’d also like to thank the editors and staff of the Daily Illini because without them, this column would be nothing but incomplete thoughts and sentences. Not only that, I would have never gotten thrown off the practice field by Ron Zook or see my life flash before my eyes when asking linebacker J Leman how the team could have possibly come out so flat against Michigan State.

Courtney Linehan deserves credit for her marvelous hotel choices over the course of the football season, which ranged from the place in San Francisco with the flooding bathroom to the dump in Bloomington, Ind., that made me wonder where the hooker was killed.

I’d also like to thank Mary Cory for running a media company that allows students to do this and get paid for it – even if it is a sweatshop.

It’s been a thrill and a privilege for this geeky enginerd from New Jersey to call this 15 by 3 inch space my home. Thank you for reading.

Dan Berrigan is a senior in Engineering. He can be reached at [email protected].