November 16th, 2007

Hey Day

I keep forgetting about it, because I’m not actually going to be there, but today is my graduation day. Huzzah! I may have said it before, perhaps when I completed my thesis, when I submitted my thesis, and/or when I defended my thesis, but this time, absolutely for sure, I am a Mistress of the Arts…as of slightly after 2pm, I suppose.

Raise your heavy eyes
RR

August 22nd, 2007

September 6, 2005

My stressed state persisted all weekend, through an awesome bye-Becky party on Friday night, having Jaime in town until Saturday, going to see Merchant of Venice in the park, volunteering, picnicking on P.’s roof and then dinner with J. last night. I thought booking up my weekend would distract me and calm me down, but it only brought on this weird, MPD-ish multitasking stress, in which my brain pursued two channels of panic simultaneously. Ie. “I have nothing witty to say! Nothing! And I can’t fit this leaf of lettuce in my mouth. I shall bite part of it off the fork. It won’t come off the fork, but my teeth are already dug into this end. I can’t spit out bitten lettuce. Ok, now lettuce is dangling from mouth. I am covered with greenery and I’ve never even read ‘To the Lighthouse.’ I have no time to finish Mrs. Dalloway, either, and I can’t read it on campus because then people will see the cover and realize that I have reached my advanced age and never read ANY VIRGINIA WOOLF at all, and yet I presume to take a class on her work and they will laugh me out of the program. I cannot go on. This dinner must end. I have to go home and read The Mrs. Dalloway Reader. Possibly while under the bed.”

But I did not do that. I survived and showed up for orientation this morning. It went *fine*! Actually, some parts of it were pretty good. Like, on the subway to campus, I was reading Nancy Franklin’s TV column in the New Yorker, and she mentioned, just a throwaway remark when she was really talking about something else, Showtime’s “asymptotic” relationship with HBO and I actually stopped reading and looked away and had think about it before I laughed. And then I thought some more and laughed some more (this is all quietly, in my head, mind you. No one looked at me funny) and wondered why people don’t talk that way in real life. And then I got to where I was meeting my big sibling, who was to escort me to orientation, which was in no way his job but he is nice and I am incompetent when scared. Anyway, we were walking and he asked if we could cross the street because it was too sunny and he’s super-fair and easily burnt. He remarked, “I don’t get the point of sun, myself. I mean, I get the photosynthetic point of the sun, but…” And I felt a little inkling that I might be in the right place.

Orientation was a bit daunting but nice. The chair of the department said we were all awesome and deserved to be there, even though we might doubt ourselves and wonder if we were smart enough, which was good of her to say, because I certainly wonder that. And she reminded us to be social and not get isolated and constantly worry about grades, and I was like, Oh, yeah, grades! Because, in my extreme anxiety about being too stupid to live and not having read anything worthwhile and generally f*ing up this wonderful opportunity, I’d kinda not thought about what form said f*ing up would take. Like, no one’s going to put me in the stockade or anything, they’ll just give me a C. It all seemed kinda ludicrious, when I thought about it like that.

Wow, I’m babbly. It was quite a day, I guess, though I should also admit that not all that much happened. I should’ve known better than to think that orientation meetings and a reception were worth all that stress.

Every few years, radical life change. No problem, right?

The cabaret was quiet
RR

Nostalgia for Now

Here I sit at the library info desk, watching bright-faced new students of every age and stripe try to find the student card office. I sit behind a sign with directions on it, but they still like to ask me personally. When I point at the sign they announce: “I’ve never been in this building before. I’m a *new student*,” as if no one had every gotten an acceptance letter before. This is technically quite annoying, but I try to remember that they are *excited*, that for most students this is not a quick administrative errand but the kick-off to a major life change, symbolically their passport to independence, academic or personal or whatever, and certainly very exciting. I felt that way when I came to get *my card, 26 or so months ago. The actual picture on the card is of a very grim Rebecca (my friend John once commented on the pic: “You look like you just got out of juvie!”) but in fact I was as exuberant as any of the 18-year-olds who float past me today. I can’t explain that picture. It was a great day.

And now I’m at the other end of the experience, three days away from letting my university job, gym membership, library privileges and life lapse. I’ll be moving on to other exciting things, natch, but now I’m hanging around winding down at my old job while the whole rest of the university community kicks into high gear. I can’t go hang out at my new office in an attempt to wind *up* to the new stuff, because I don’t have the free time (I said almost this exact sentence to someone I don’t know well, who looked at me *extremely* oddly at this point) and because that’d be a weird thing to do. I’m just going to have to go in semi-blind Monday morning, newborn yet again.

In the midst of all this woebegone schoolgirlishness, I tried to go shopping for some grownup office clothes. I didn’t *need* to, since I have plenty of grownup office clothes from the last time we did this. I just like clothes, and thought also it might help with morale.

But you know what’s in style for ladies this fall?

Pinafores.

I have enough trouble feeling age-of-majority without dressing like an elderly waif. I’m going to try again, but I’m not feeling too optimistic about my wardrobing options for fall. Throwbacks to 2005, here I come.

And speaking of 2005…remember the last time I freaked out in August? Next post from my old diary!

Seein’ her reflection in the knife
RR