I am ready to graduate. I have loved Kenyon, and I will miss it, but somewhere, deep down, I am ready for the next adventure.
Now that it is spring in rural Ohio, and the birds chirp every morning and the dogwoods have burst into bloom, it is a bit harder to remember that I don't actually want to come back next year. That if, in August, I once again were enrolling in classes that would lock me in the library for entire days and I would once again be eating tacos every Tuesday and some sort of chicken dish every night for dinner, I would throw myself off a small cliff. But right now? Oh man right now I would stay here forever.
In an effort to write in this ol' weblog more and in an attempt to commemorate my fast fading college days, I am going to try over the next two weeks to pay homage to the things I love about this pretentious place.
1. Allstu. Kenyon provides us with an All-student (happily abbreviated to 'allstu') e-mail forum that is used for everything from sharing procrastination techniques and finding lost possessions to epic debates that inevitably blow up into the most offensive diatribes anyone has ever read. My relationship with allstu is Love/Hate; sophomore year I tried to start a conversation about gun control after Virginia Tech and it disintegrated into a snarky outcry about immigration reform. But still, for better or for worse, the allstu is a virtual town meeting, a place where we can make our opinions known about issues at Kenyon or out in that so-called "real world."
It's also pretty darn convenient - if next year when I'm walking home from a party late at night and almost step on a skunk, and proceed to throw my keys/cellphone/wallet at it to scare it away and then run away myself, who will send a helpful email the next morning that they found it on their way to Peirce for breakfast?
2. The fact that I would be walking home from wherever when I run into the skunk because everywhere I would ever need to go is less than a mile from my doorstep. Also the fact that there are skunks everywhere and they always come charging out of the woods at me when I'm talking on the phone outside of my apartment.
3. Being a college student. There's something magical that comes with being a college student. You're automatically excused from pretty much anything requiring responsibility. It's ok to never have any money and yet still not be looking for a job. It's ok to wear brightly colored leggings as pants with a flannel t-shirt and sunglasses from the 80's, and to intentionally look like you haven't showered in a few days. It's acceptable to stay up all night working on something you've known about all semester, and to stay awake by drinking essentially poison.
And man is it hip to be a college student. Somehow we know about things weeks before they happen, we see TV shows and movies the day before they air, we know that something's out before it was even in.
Soon it will be irresponsible if I don't have a job. Unprofessional to dress like a homeless person. And just plain stupid to stay up all night doing anything. And at Thanksgiving when everyone's talking about some Youtube video that was mentioned at the end of the evening news or that a co-worker forwarded to them I won't be able to roll my eyes and say, "C'mon, guys, that was sooo last week, the parody of it is waay funnier."
I probably won't even have seen it yet.
