From a Loner's Viewpoint: Taras Tkatchenko  

by Taras Tkatchenko

"Does this root beer have alcohol in it?" Taras Tkatchenko asks his generous roommate, eyeing the brownish bottle proposed to him critically. 

"No."

"It's a beer. It must have some," Taras darkly utters. "By definition." The roommate sighs patiently, rolls up his eyes and takes the bottle back.  

Truly, some patience is required when dealing with a stubbornly rational person such as Taras. Dressed in either blue and tan ("for springtime and when I'm merry") or grey and black ("for melancholic moments or when I run out of laundry"), Taras Tkatchenko, 20, is the only Philosophy student at Adelphi from Russia. With facial expression fit for a sarcastic doomsayer and birthmark proudly worn as a sign of difference, Taras is also the only student around with sufficient gall and personality split just enough to write a profile on himself. "It's so much fun to describe your own character," Taras says with his usual self-amused smile. 

"Incredible. You can get the best quotes there are, because if you make them up, they will still come from the person interviewed, with no misquoting possible. Journalism at its best. Besides, it's a kind of therapy, too, except that you don't have to pay fifty bucks per hour." He proceeded to give away, as he had put it, varied information concerning his reasons for coming to the United States in general and their scaled-down representation, Adelphi University, with masses of students and cloaked in administrative mystery. 

Initially from Siberia, and other places in Russia he preferred not to name, to save everyone the exhausting task of having to pretend knowledgeable, Taras spent a year after high school in a private language college in Cyprus, all because of his father's idea of education abroad. "I'm tempted to call it a private institution, because the pressure on my mental health has been considerable," suddenly becoming gloomy, Taras muttered. 

"Imagine some torrid version of never-ending 'Baywatch' acted by a hundred study-hating, tan-covered, feet-shuffling youngsters with no idea of hygiene or respect. Thankfully, I've been lucky enough to have a very nice teacher, we even became friends." 

According to Taras himself, he generally gets along with professors better than with their pupils, for he allegedly goes "where experience lies." Having finished with the Cyprus school, he first planned to enter a university somewhere in the UK, but supposedly greater opportunities for subsequent career and minimal enrollment requirements led him to the country with a somewhat longer abbreviation, (USA). Of the several universities where he was accepted, only Adelphi seemed small and green enough to fit the Russian student's tastes. Having arrived, he was also amazed to find the abundance of wild life on campus. "In my hometown in Siberia, we have so much smoke and pollution that whatever few birds are still around are so poisoned they are probably kept alive by willpower alone. For all purposes, including turning, they can be considered undead." There seemed to be a note of bitterness in his voice at that moment.  

Having learned English somewhat better upon arrival, Taras proceeded to study his surroundings. "In some ways, Adelphi is a very interesting place," he remarked. "Back in Russia, I've never encountered so many people with clumsily expressed and inconsistent views, possibly because in my country you are supposed to keep your opinions to yourself, especially unusual ones. In Adelphi, on the other hand, you actually have to speak up, unless you want to see C's crawling on those assignment papers. And mind you, I did see some intelligent students around here." Obviously dismissing low and mediocre grades as disgraceful, Taras only shrugged when asked about his own few grades that were below average. "I've made some mistakes. 

Besides, who said that disgrace shouldn't be a part of life? Or pain, for that matter," he noted seriously.  "If I may get philosophical here for a moment, (I can imagine the average student reader cringe) pain and happiness, in my opinion, should both be present for life to be interesting. And since you have so much unbridled joy over here in the States, my role is to bring in some anguish, mental mostly. Confusion is my middle name." He grinned. "If we were living in a fantasy world, I'd call myself the Prophet of Suffering or something like that." Chuckle.

Such views finally disclose the reason behind Taras' choosing Philosophy as his major. He became interested in the field hoping to receive some answers to the B&B (big and bugging) questions, such as what is the meaning of life, but upon taking a closer look at the discipline, became completely and absolutely disillusioned. None of the revered thinkers with their grandiose metaphysics impressed him and none of their opinions seemed convincing, so Taras ultimately took up a different approach. "I now consider philosophy a kind of arena where ghosts fight each other with immaterial blades. No one is going to win, but it's entertaining - eternal fun, you could say." Taras himself is mostly engaged in trying to dispel nonsensical opinions, both in himself and others. He, judging by his own words, has no tolerance for religion, nationalism or chauvinism of any sort, so he gets to argue a lot, which he finds quite enjoyable. "Unless the opponent wins. But then it just means humanity is not ready to be enlightened, of course."

Taras lives on campus, in Earle Hall, and never participates in any extracurricular activities. He's a loner, doing some reading, writing, gaming or Internet-browsing when bored, regularly avoiding whatever clubs and fraternities there are at Adelphi. As a concluding remark, Taras disclosed what his secret motto was. "safety in numbers - the fewer, the safer. It doesn't mean I don't need anyone, by the way. But it does mean that self-respect and independence are worth more than others' approval."