In the last few weeks, I have become acutely aware of the latter, forcing myself to realize just where I am. I don’t mean I just woke up from some drunken stupor to realize I am, in fact, in East Lansing. I mean I have found I am on the edge of a new chapter.

Sitting in “Castle Goozenstein,” my friend’s apartment, I slowly am creating an inventory of my skills, accomplishments, interests and goals. This incredible task calls for patience and a certain level of dissonance so I don’t go completely insane — if that already has not occurred.

I must admit I am apprehensive about when my MSU career comes to an end May 7. Although, I feel slightly jaded Steve Wozniak will see me off.

Recently, I was asked to define MSU with three words. I responded with three unintelligible sounds, “Hooze, Skurt and Blast.” These words make no sense unless one possesses advanced knowledge of the multitude of experiences that lead to the creation of the terms.

I assure you there is a vast fabric of meanings that remain wholly ineffable. But let me try to explain MSU as I see it.

MSU is at least part “ivory tower.” We have an amazing international presence and offer languages from Ojibwe to Tagalog and of which few people in America have ever heard. We just beat out the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, for best nuclear physics graduate studies program even as our champion men’s basketball team floundered.

We have great programs in politics, business, teaching, packaging and many others. We are ranked within the top-100 universities in the world, and we have a beautiful, generally safe campus. However in my humble opinion, none of this matters. MSU’s true identity lies somewhere else.

True “Spartanness” manifests itself as a 2 a.m. longboard ride through Wharton Center’s parking lot, a sleeping student in the Main Library, at Sparty’s bar mitzvah, at the MSU drag show, on St. Patrick’s Day, in the spray paint under the Red Cedar River bridges.

I see it in Union study rooms on weekdays after midnight, during Welcome Week when a stumbling freshman asks for directions back to Brody Complex Neighborhood. Perhaps, more than anything, Taco Bell at 4 a.m. provides the lens through which to see MSU.

Our academic rigor makes MSU an acclaimed university, but this doesn’t take the individual into account.

It is when the sun goes down that tells one about MSU. Whether it’s 1 a.m., and you are in the library chugging coffee or at Rick’s American Café chugging beer — if you are asleep, you don’t count — you are participating in the formation of a collective identity; an identity I am sad to leave behind.

With finals approaching, I actually can say I’m not stressed — I care not. We have worked hard these last four years, made friends, achieved goals and, as sad as it is to leave, we have a new chapter in life with new people and new goals to look forward to.

Whether we find jobs or continue school, if the world ends in a year and a half or if it holds off until we are good and buried, we will turn out OK and forever remain Spartans (remember freshman year when “300” played everyday on TV?).

“All is Bros in Blast and Gooze.”

Joey Podrasky is a State News guest columnist and an anthropology and Arabic senior. Reach him at podrask2@msu.edu.