“Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take off their shirts in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.”
-Dave Barry
Having grown up in places where “football” meant something very different from it does here, as well as having parents that never really followed sports, meant I was unprepared for American Football when I came to the western United States for university. Jane, my first roommate in the dorms, convinced me to by a student all season ticket so that I could go to the games with her, but I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect.
“It’s the stupidest concept,” I whined, “a bunch of guys get into lines and run into each other on purpose! What’s the point?”
Nevertheless Jane painted my face, made me buy the appropriately colored tee shirt, and on game day we hiked to the university stadium. Half an hour later I was screaming just as loudly as anyone else.
I’ll never be converted to the NFL (although I’ve developed a taste for Superbowl parties…or maybe just the snacks…) because I think that people who get paid obscene amounts of money to get a ball from Point A to Point B, the methods vary, have a severely warped sense of reality. But I have grown to love collegiate sports for the rivalries, the solidarity, and the love of the game.
The only problem I have with my university’s football games is that my favorite coat is the color of our fiercest rivals. So I do the logical thing. Freeze. I’m officially one of the faithful.
“I have never let schooling interfere with my education.”
-Mark Twain
Realizing that I’m about to brand myself a hopeless nerd, I have to admit I am horribly jealous that J. gets to go back to school this fall. This is really the first autumn in nearly twenty years that I’m not going to be in school (I don’t count last year’s because I was still whirling from the dizzying feeling of freedom) and it’s a little odd to realize how sad I am over the thought.
I really loved school, especially university where I got to immerse myself in a topic for months at the time and come out feeling like I really did know something about the subject. I got to study things I genuinely loved and had an interest in, so major projects and papers were seldom a chore (unless I procrastinated horribly).
And believe it or not, I’m wretched over the idea of not buying armloads of books this fall! Maybe those of you who currently attend my Alma Mater are stretching your eyes incredulously over such a lapse in financial judgement, but unlike lots of my friends I seldom had to eat Ramen for a month in order to pay for my books. The majority of my classes relied on novels, primary sources, history books, anthologies of writings from every conceivable century, essays, etc. and I absolutely refused to sell most of them back to the campus bookstore (except for one semester when I was well and truly starving and had to sell back a book on classical Greek civilization from the earliest city-states through the Persian Wars. I nearly cried, and when I saw how little I was going to get back for it – compared to what I’d originally paid – I nearly abandoned the plan…but I needed food).
I was talking to MyFavorite a while back and when he asked me what it’s like working full time instead of being in school, I told him all of the above. We also discussed the oddness of being in charge of one’s own continuing education. Lots of people seem to finish school and never tax their brain again, I live in fear of mine starting to atrophy! I swear the process has already started! It takes effort to get home from work, cook, clean, manage bills, make future plans, and still pull out a book instead of turn on the TV. Instead of someone else teaching me, I’m entirely responsible for what goes into my head from here on out.
Frost wasn't entirely correct, it's more like "Two million roads diverging-" at times.
In that same vein, it’s not just the stimulation I miss about school, it’s also the framework university sort of set up for life. Each semester had a distinct beginning, middle, and end so you always felt as if you were actively moving through life instead of just being pushed along by the current. Now, instead of this handy, cyclical way to make a year pass, post-graduate life by comparison seems like one long line stretching off into the distance.
That seems depressing…I don’t mean it to be, but it’s the best metaphor I can find. What I mean to say is that instead of having an Outside Force set up my life’s structure and passage of time, I’m now the only person who can do that. If there are to be any interesting breaks, sideshows, or detours in that long line, I’m the person who must take the prerogative of creating/finding/following them. And while the adventure of doing so is almost always fantastic, sometimes I do miss having that Outside Force doing it for me because I feel (looking back) that being ignorant of that Force meant I could simply live life and enjoy the ride. It’s no simple thing to be almost entirely in charge of your own destiny!
This appeared above the door for my Classical Literature final freshman year. Priceless.
I can always tell when finals week hits this campus: the odor of doom and futility gets a little more pungent, the faces get more harried, and it is impossible to navigate one’s way through the library as it is swarmed with knuckle-gnawing freshman. However, from the glorious vantage point of one who does not have to suffer through exams, papers, and finals projects, I’ve discovered that the nom de usage of this time of the term I and other used as students (“Hell Week”) isn’t really appropriate. If we were to be accurate, I think it would be Freak Week.
Cruel perhaps, but still apt. For example, Hennessy and I were walking down a corridor yesterday on an assignment, when we came suddenly upon a man carrying a pot of rice down the hallway. No explanation, just clutching it and looking worried. The theatre and dance people are scrambling around with drag queen worthy layers of makeup on their faces and their arms full of costumes (when they aren’t actually wearing them). Also, basic hygiene has become optional for many: I have seen (and smelled) a number of the unwashed masses as they scramble past and sleep in hallways.
This comes from nothing resembling a high horse. My alarm clock broke the day of my first final of freshman year, luckily I woke up anyway and made record time sprinting from my dorm to my test. Then once I misread a French exam schedule and showed up on the wrong day. And of course I had the computer crash right in the middle of a stellar ten page paper on medieval philosophy. I also had my share of forgone showers and undone makeup (and temporary eating disorders stemming from actually forgetting to eat for days on end, and the inability to let go of my pens following an exam from severe cramp, and…)
All in all, Hell Week/Freak Week/Whatever You Want To Call It looks much better from the outside!
Having grown up in places where “football” meant something very different from it does here, as well as having parents that never really followed sports, meant I was unprepared for American Football when I came to the western United States for university. Jane, my first roommate in the dorms, convinced me to by a student all season ticket so that I could go to the games with her, but I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect.
Small Dog Syndrome 