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Webster's dictionary defines a cliche as "a trite phrase or expression," but to look at Josh Young '12 is to truly understand the word. Finding an original aspect of Young's life, say friends and teachers, is like finding a needle in a haystack.
"I've been working like a dog at burning the midnight oil to find something unique about myself, but I must just be barking up the wrong tree," Young said.
Young has grown particularly frustrated with his extracurricular activities, which include playing second fiddle in the Brown Orchestra and counting pre-hatched chicken eggs in a professor's embryonic biology lab. "Aside from making me a total cliche of an overcommitted Brown student, these activities are way too much work. I'm seriously as busy as the bees in the bee farm I help tend on Tuesdays and Thursday," he complained.
(When asked to elaborate on his role at the bee farm, Young requested that we turn our attention away from his beeswax and onto our own.)
"Josh is as cliched as a clam is happy," said roommate Evan Bietro '12. "He's as cliched as doornails are dead, or watched pots are unboiling, or gift horses' mouths shouldn't be looked into. He's really cliched."
Young also said that he worries his lack of originality will not earn him the affections of Sandi Meyers '12, whose initials he wears embroidered in the heart of the sleeve of his Brown hoodie.
His ardor may not be requited. "I keep telling myself that there are plenty other fish in the sea, so I shouldn't have felt bad that she made fun of me when I let that huge striped bass get away on the orchestra fishing trip," Young said.
Much as Young might appear to be the typical Brown student, he does have a few skeletons in his closet. "And that's not cliched at all. Show me one other kid who has human bones sitting in his dorm room closet!" challenged Young. "Especially bones from the people he killed years ago and is now trying to keep secret!"
It may not be enough, however, to convince any of his peers of his individuality. "I guess I'll just keep being the low man on the totem pole," Young said with a sigh. "You know, in my group project on Native American history. The other kids in my group don't respect me at all."
