Student+Body+-+St.+Vincent,+Desmond

DESMOND ST. VINCENT

MAJOR Business administration

HOMETOWN Brooklyn Heights, New York

INTERESTS AND ACTIVITIES Basketball, soccer, rugby, old Pontiac GTO's, "Hawaii Five-O," "The Rockford Files," Quentin Tarantino movies, James Ellroy books, Roy Orbison, lounge music, and cocktail hour.

MY IMPRESSIONS A classic tale along the lines of The Ugly Duckling. Or, should I say, the Ugly "Geekling?"

Desmond St. Vincent is The Geek in our little tale of terror and triumph. The geek who blossomed into a lovely...non-geek?

At home in Brooklyn, Desmond flunked out socially. Too tall, too thin, too weird Desmond. And we're not talking about flunking out with the in-crowd. Old Desmond flunked out socially in the United Methodist Youth Club!

Desmond's youth was a series of unanswered questions. The most often asked? "What's a nice White Anglo-Saxon Protestant like you doing in a town like Brooklyn?"

There was no right answer...

How did Desmond fit in? Picture Beaver Cleaver raised with the Goodfellahs. By fifth grade, Desmond's nickname was "Whitebread," but he adapted soon enough.

Desmond figured out that New Yorkers like "characters." They like to consider themselves characters and they like to hang around characters, so Desmond became "a character."

It didn't work in Brooklyn, but at Wintervale, something clicked. Desmond fit in. Suddenly his mock-50's shirts and chinos were hip. His geeky, robotic movements metamorphosed into an "attitude."

In high school, Desmond collected lounge music on vinyl. Now all of his favorites were coming out on CD--a good sign you're moving in with the "In" crowd.

By his freshman year at Wintervale, Desmond was wearing retro-50's clothes, watching retro-1960's movies, and living the retro-1970's lifestyle. He transformed himself into a mystery wrapped in an enigma and swathed in polyester.

And suddenly, voila! He was cool...

Desmond went to every dance and had a date almost every time--except when he wanted to "cruise."

But it's interesting that during the first two semesters, he was never with the same girl twice. Perhaps those early years of alienation had eroded his ability to really mesh with others. After all, his life was a facade--or, rather, an elaborate conceit, a work-of-art which was always in progress.

So Desmond changed girlfriends like he changed fashion--with regularity, and for no apparent reason. Then something else changed.

Desmond joined a frat, and made some instant friends-for-life. Even more interesting, he met a hot little platinum blond, and they were going steady--all by the end of his freshman year.

Few can accomplish so much with so little, but Desmond did it, all by himself.

From caterpillar to butterfly in three semesters.

Hey, you gotta love this guy....