Heather Havrilesky, can you and I be friends? I never miss your column and I live in Russia! I've never even heard of any of these shows. Heather Forever!

I'm 31 and I consider myself an extrovert. I'm a performer; I live in a foreign country; I've traveled extensively and I've always felt like I could talk to anyone. Wait a minute...that's just not true!

Reading your letter, dear Freshman, just reminded me about how much I have changed since my college days. I've created a new mythology about myself and who I am since that time. I take it for granted now, and I have very nearly forgotten about the struggle to meet people, and more importantly, find people that I actually like. Frankly, this is the most important and most difficult skill you can develop in your lifetime. People are the gateway to new opportunities and personal growth, whether they treat you badly or well. After years of painstaking practice, you will learn how to avoid "bad" people and attract "good". It takes patience and much heartbreak, but scars heal--sometimes so quickly and completely that they're nearly invisible.

I had the opportunity to attend both a small, liberal Arts college on the East Coast my Freshman year and then a huge Big 10 University an hour away from my hometown for the rest of my academic career. Both schools had their pluses and minuses. In a small liberal college, you are often surrounded by students with similar values and views, but, on the other hand, you lose the anonymity of a huge University where it's possible to truly recreate yourself without attracting too much attention.

Personally, I preferred the large University (albeit not academically), even though I absolutely hated it the first year. I hated it so much that I fled to an absurd foreign country my junior year on study abroad. This year changed my life forever in the best way possible. When I came back to my university, I finally began to meet people and make friends: friends I still have to this day.

Talk to as many people as you can (an easy and fairly painless place to do this is in the dorm); observe people interacting around you. Sometimes you have to decide who you don't like before you find people you like.

People say this all the freakin time, but it's true. Most of the people there are just as scared as you are. The other thing is that most people cannot be mean to a genuinely nice person. If you smile, make eye contact, and seem sincerely interested in someone, it's flattering to them. If you act frightened an uncomfortable, you make them feel the same way.

Geez, hope this doesn't sound like a lecture...you'll experience enough of those in the next four years.

Good Luck!

p.s. One last suggestion: I wholeheartedly endorse the studying of a foreign language in college. The classes are small; you meet people easily; and most importantly everyone is making a complete ass of themselves in front of everyone else without shame when they try to say "Excuse me. How do I get to the Library?" in Swahili.

For the love of chunk! Where's Phillip Seymour Hoffman? Love him. love him.

I'm so tired of Reagan getting credit for ending the cold war. The Soviet System would have collapsed regardless of who was in office--it was a lumbering dinosaur destined for severe economic disaster. Even crazier is how Americans perceive Gorbachev some sort architect of democracy. Believe me, that guy didn't want to lose his job as General Secretary of the Communist Party. But now that Gorby poses for Louis Vuitton ads and makes a couple hundred thousand for a speaking engagement, he realized that life's not so bad after all.