During my freshman year in college I applied for a position as a Senator on the school's Student Government Association. I did this largely because I didn't have any friends and because I had a jacket which was kind of formal that I really wanted to wear but couldn’t because I never had an excuse to wear dress clothes.

I didn't have to run for the office because several members had quit and left vacancies. These vacancies had created a lot of worry among the student body that without the full compliment of members, several people would be unable to put SGA on their resume.  Given the urgency of the matter, I was able to secure a post as a Senator with a single interview which consisted mostly of the interviewer telling me that my Resident Assistant, himself a Senator, told them I "totally rocked", which was weird.

I didn't know what to expect because my only experience with student government was playing a minor role in my friend Colin’s campaign for President of my high school.  Colin’s platform was mostly that he was more popular than whoever ran against him.  His central campaign strategy was to request that I and my soccer teammates join him on stage during the debate to take off our shirts and cheer for him as he "chugged" a large glass of milk.  This, we all agreed, was an awesome idea because it fit perfectly with his slogan "Colin - he does a STUDENT body good!" which we shouted in unison to a silent audience that had no idea what we were talking about.

Being part of SGA meant that one of my jobs was to receive an email from a guy named Greg who was the Senior Senator from my building which I was supposed to cut and paste in into an another email and then send it to all of my constituents.  To this message I was suppose to add a brief letter about current events, which was usually something about how the Chinese Marketing Majors Association was going to have a dance that was open to all students, even if they weren't Chinese, or a marketing major.

I also performed “constituent service” two hours a week in the SGA office where people could tell me about things that were bothering them.  In my year on the job I never had anyone stop by to complain but I did get lots of email, including one from a guy who thought the STD test at the health center was “more painful than it should be.”

The highlights of SGA were the weekly meetings where a student named Rob served as "parliamentarian", which meant he enforced Robert's Rules of Order.  Basically, his job was to force everyone to repeat whatever we just finished saying with a few silly words in front of it so that it was “binding”.  Rob usually got involved when someone said something such as “point of order, Shane is an idiot” to which Rob would say “you’re not allowed to do that. A point of order is only when you’re trying to enforce Robert’s Rules”, and then you say “point of order, Rob is an idiot” which made everyone laugh.

The president of SGA during my term was a guy named Raffi, who had been elected on a platform of promising to be drunk in public more than anyone else.  Six weeks into my term a big scandal involving the president threatened the stability of the entire SGA.  Raffi had been drunk in public and had, allegedly, said something to a female Senator which included the word “fat”.  This woman was friends with the conservative members of the organization who saw this as their chance to undermine Raffi.

At the next meeting, a guy named Rich made a motion to commence impeachment proceedings against Raffi.  The motion was seconded by a guy named Matt who had enormous hands, and then someone voted to suspend the rules temporarily so that we could just talk about what was going on instead of pretending anyone knew anything about Robert’s Rules.  Someone seconded the motion but Rob asked for time to make a “parliamentary inquiry” because he couldn’t look up the rules about impeachment fast enough to keep up with all of the yelling.

Raffi, not wanting to appear weak, continued as if nothing had happened, which meant asking for a whiney report from the commuter students’ representative about how they didn’t feel connected to the school, and then a report about the Black United Body dance which was apparently so-so, and ultimately, a report by me, about my constituent’s concerns about the STD test, which made everyone laugh.

Partisan bickering might have caused the 1999-2000 session of SGA to accomplish zero of its goals but since it didn't really have any goals, and since chips and sodas left over from catered lunches were occasionally available during our meetings, I still consider the hundred or so hours I spent on the effort, basically, worthwhile.