After seeing “Lost in Translation” for the first time this past August, I was immediately… After seeing “Lost in Translation” for the first time this past August, I was immediately struck — or shaken and freaked out — by what I had just watched. The reason wasn’t because it was a bad film — on the contrary, I hold firm that it is the best film of 2003 — or because it was scandalous. No, what touched a nerve was how close I felt to the characters and situations on screen, more so than with any other movie I had ever seen.

OK, so I’m not an aging actor in Japan. Nor am I a recently married female philosophy major. What I related to was the feeling of being lost and adrift in a world that didn’t make much sense.

Feel free to snicker — I realize how trite that must sound.

But despite its corniness, it’s true. For the longest time, I felt out of place; not really belonging anywhere or with anyone. When I graduated from high school five years ago this June, I thought the path I was on led me to Colorado for college, then to Los Angeles to work in the movies.

Naturally, like with those years in high school, nothing worked out as it was supposed to.

I went to Colorado and felt like I didn’t belong. So I returned home to go to Pitt — this after an entire year of my high school friends listening to me drone on and on about how I wanted to leave Pittsburgh for the sunny West Coast. It was par for the course that I be so flighty in my decision-making to drag all my stuff and my family to Colorado in a car too small for the road trip only to make them turn right back around because I felt weird about staying out there. And the movies — well, that didn’t work out.

Returning to Pittsburgh wasn’t the quick fix like I hoped. For the first couple years, I was again adrift; lost in the gray, concrete eyesore that I considered Oakland to be.

For the balance of my college career, I wandered from home to the 54C to class, back to the 54C, then home. For about a year and a handful of months, a regular stop was included at the Carmike Cinemas Carmike 10 in the South Hills where I was a popcorn pusher, ticket tearer and auditorium authority — OK, usher.

And though working at the Carmike was the beginning of good times, it still wasn’t the key. I still aimlessly meandered through a life that was unclear. What did my future hold? Why did I feel so disconnected to so many people and things around me? How did I get to where I was? Why?

Oh yeah, it was hard-core existentialism.

It carried on through most of my time at Pitt. And even though I shacked up with The Pitt News at the beginning of my third year — ushering in one of the best periods of my life, despite the stratospheric heights and bottomless, pit-like valleys those years brought along — I still felt out of place. Sure, I was making great, lifelong friendships, but what did it matter? I didn’t really belong.

I progressively eased off on this angst as last summer came rolling in. It was the beginning of my last year of college, and I wanted to have some fun. Plus, I wasted so much time being angsty that I was starting to get more than a little annoyed with myself — and the people around me were getting agitated with me and my self-important crises, I’m sure.

But bottling it up only compounded the problem. I wasn’t talking to anyone about it because, I felt, there wasn’t anyone who could understand. Oh, sure, my friends could totally understand the feeling of “what am I going to do after school’s done,” but what about that intangible feeling of being lost, that thing I’ve mentioned nearly half a dozen times in this column and have yet to describe? (It’s not because I don’t want to; it’s because I can’t.)

So here came this new Bill Murray movie, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter. I saw the preview; the movie looked amazing, and I was on the lookout for the critics’ screening. When I saw the film, I got the amazing movie I figured I would, but I also found a piece of work that spoke to me — not to the lowest common denominator of an audience, not to people like me, but me. I couldn’t believe it. If you know Chad Eberle and you care enough, go ask him. He’ll confirm that I was absolutely speechless walking out of the Manor that Aug. 25.

For the first time, I discovered that other people feel the way I do about this life business. There are other people that feel, or have felt, as lost as I do. And it wasn’t just the characters on screen, but it was the person responsible for writing and directing the movie, as well.

It was one of those watershed moments that mark turning points in one’s life.

After seeing the movie, thinking about it and digesting it, I realized that I wasn’t really alone in this existential crisis I felt myself in. It was something that other people are going through, and will continue to go through. I wasn’t the only person who walked down the street and felt a disconnect between other people and pop culture.

Boy, did that help things.

I was able to free myself from those self-imposed chains of “Woe is me” and actually begin to enjoy what little time at college I had left, the people around me who have made my years in college so unbelievable and, most importantly, how amazing my time at Pitt has beenHell, I can even tolerate Oakland now. For anyone who knows me, that’s major.

I can’t imagine, at this point in my life, ever having gone to the University of Colorado. I’m too scared to think of the person who would have come out of that experience, because it would in no way resemble the person writing this column on April 18, 2004.

With that in mind, I’m going to indulge in something I told myself I would not do — I’m going to make a thank you speech. OK, it’s just a list, but I feel it’s an important thing to do as my time at Pitt, The Pitt News and as a troublemakin’ young adult comes to an end — and I’m probably not going to be winning an Academy Award anytime soon.

So, in alphabetical order, I wish to thank: Ashley, Bernice, Bethany, Bob, Brandon, Brent, Brian, Caleb, Chad, Chris, Christian N., Christian S., Christine C., Christine H., Clare, Clinton, Dave, Dhar, Eric, Heather, Jeff, Joe, Katie, Kerry, Laura, Leslie, Meghan, Melissa, Me-Me, Neel, Sarah, Vincent — and, of course, Bill, Scarlett, Sophia and the Academy.

All of you are why I’m where I am right now. It’s you that have helped form those memories, the good and the bad, that will never burn from memory. It’s because of you that I’m the happiest I’ve been since, well … it’s been a long time. It’s because of you that this year has been amazing, wonderful, beautiful, crazy and awesome. And it’s because of you that I’m leaving Pitt in a way I thought I never would — found.

Thank you and goodnight.

Dante A. Ciampaglia was the off-again, on-again A’E Editor at The Pitt News. He’s good enough, he’s smart enough and, gosh darn it, people tolerate him. E-mail this sad sack at [email protected].