I did something really stupid… I ran the Tuscaloosa Half Marathon. Yes, I signed up for 13.1 miles of self-inflicted pain and misery because I thought it might be “fun.” I trained for the last four months, and what started off as something that was relaxing and easy to manage turned into endless 11-mile days that I couldn’t wait to get over.
My only solace was knowing that my Friday and Saturday nights would be spent with my favorite people. While most of you spent your high school Friday nights with your friends, going to parties or hanging out, I spent mine rehearsing for musicals or eating pasta getting ready for the cross–country meet on Saturday.
The tradition of spending my Friday nights changed drastically when I came to college and for the first time got to experience everything I missed out on in high school. First semester was filled with partying till 3 a.m. and sleeping till 2 p.m. the next day. By second semester, I had perfected the art of napping and making it to class in fewer than 10 minutes.
Although it sounds like I was having the time of my life, the truth was I barely had any friends, and my grades were in the toilet. That was until I stumbled across the guys of room 101.
Their room had all of their mattresses sprawled across the living room floor and two TVs at the helm. This place would become my sanctuary for the next year. I don’t think I’ve spent one weekend not sleeping on their couch and laughing into the late hours of the night watching TV.
Last weekend they introduced me to the show “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” and at first I was skeptical, but five episodes later I was hooked. Growing up as a cop’s kid, shows like “NYPD Blue” or “CSI” held no interest for me. I thought this would be another typical cop show furthering the forever stereotype of the jelly doughnut, but surprisingly the show has the precinct dynamic pretty dead on.
A combination of “The Office” and “Community,” the show’s offbeat humor allows it to not be over the top and contains just the right amount of ridiculousness. What I had previously thought to be a fluke when Andy Samberg won a Golden Globe award for both Best Actor and Best Comedy turned out to be wrong. His comedic genius seen on “Saturday Night Live” has transferred over seamlessly to “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
The show’s viewership opened up with 6.17 million people tuning in and has slowly dwindled, but due to its recent awards and release on Hulu, fans are catching up with the gang of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” This band of misfits may not always get along in the office, but their chemistry on screen will have you laughing so hard you almost pee your pants.
Samberg’s character Jake Peralta doesn’t have much of a family at home but slowly throughout the season comes to realize that the people he works with are his family. In many ways this show reminds me a lot of the guys in room 101.
Much like the cast of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” these guys are my own personal band of misfits, and at the race last Saturday, they were the only people I wanted cheering me on at the finish line. So whether it’s the finish line you reach at the end of the race or the one we will all eventually cross when we graduate, it doesn’t matter how you get there. What matters are the people who got you there.
