(Un?)Happy Anniversary

Today is my official one-year anniversary as a former student and graduate from Sarah Lawrence College. 365 days have passed since I crossed the stage of Westlands stone deck. They have passed so quickly, and yet, when I look back, a lot has happened. I've taken on jobs, I've left jobs, and had them leave me. True, I have yet to find the holy grail of full-time employment, but there has been a fair amount work of various kind. Even today, I went to work at the mall, but only for a three hour shift, giving me time to enjoy the summer weather which has made it warm enough to actually swim in the pool.

Yesterday was the 2010 commencement, and I don't know what it says about me that I watched it live online. I watched Julianna Margulies' speech and listened as Dean Green read out the names of each undergraduate, as he does so well, making each one sound like the main event. I even recognized a few people, though I have to admit most were strangers to me. You'd think that on a campus of 1400 or so everyone would be recognizable, but a cap and gown might as well be a mustache and glasses as far as my memory goes.

How should one celebrate this kind of anniversary? Balloons and streamers seems wrong, and there's no one to exchange gifts with. I'm thinking just a little nostalgic thinking before bed, and perhaps some tea out of my Sarah Lawrence mug which is in fact the size of a bowl. That sounds about right. Of course, a viewing of '10 Things I Hate About You' wouldn't go amiss either.

I suppose it's the kind of thing that gets forgotten as you get older, unlike birthdays and weddings, it's really only the first few that stick out. Eventually the exact date will give way to 'late May', which will become 'sometime in May', and then perhaps I'll just know it's around the time everyone else graduated, after spring and before summer. But I think I've got enough obsessive fact-grabbing tendencies that it will be several decades before I reach this point.

As it is, I still miss the campus, but as more and more friends leave it, I have come to terms with the fact that as a place it can never truly be what it once was. And I guess that's okay. But that doesn't mean I can't miss it, at least once every 52 weeks or so.

So raise your glasses and toast to one full year in the so-called real world. Woo.

The Flip Side: Advice to the Class of 2010

I figure, I just gave a few choice tidbits of nostalgic advice to those looking forward to four blissful (ha!) collegiate years. How about doing the same for those about to say goodbye to those same four years? After all, you are the guys I'm closer to, I even know a few of you. So here we go, the best I can offer you (keeping in mind that this is coming from a one-year old graduate still searching for their place in the aforementioned real world):

1. Savor the stress. This is your final conference session. And you have a week less than everyone else. It's enough to make you pull your hair out. Believe it or not, I miss that. Because it's crazy, but it's kind of awesome. It's a special kind of stress that will soon be replaced by the stresses of the real world. And those stresses can't be cured by locking yourself up in a study room and living on Pub grub.

2. After conference is done, it's time for a job search (unless you are one of those inexplicably lucky people to already have plans). When you're sending those resumes, crafting the cover letters and eventually taking interviews, learn how to sell your Sarah Lawrence degree. Some people will know what it means to be an SLC grad, but others won't know how you've spent the past four years, and won't know how impressed they should be. Let them know that you know how to project-plan, can work independently and make tight deadlines. You can dig deep for research and you know how to present your projects to upper management for approval.

3. Go to Mayfair. Sure, your time is nearly up. But don't just live in the future, take advantage of what's going on right now. This weekend it's Mayfair, and it's too easy to just let it pass and ignore the cotton candy while you make a final push to complete your work and wrap everything up. Don't. I told the incoming first years to take advantage of on-campus events, and that goes quadruple for you guys. Your last midnight breakfast, last brunch, last theater show, last dance party, these are milestones that should be exploited for all possible nostalgia and self-pity. Take pictures of your dorm room, the campus, everything you see everyday and might not even notice anymore. Then the nostalgia can continue for decades.

And take pictures at the faculty show. Secretly, of course, and for your own personal use (no Facebook posting!), but just do it.

Sorry you only get three pieces of advice. Honestly, I don't feel qualified to offer much else. Just hang in there, I guess. And I'm still jealous of the few days you have left there. (Let me have my jealousy, it keeps me going.)

2010: Where's My Flying Car?

Happy New Year, everyone! I still can't believe that it's 2010. I just have no context for this particular year. What does it mean to be starting this year? What's going to happen? I have no idea.

It is, yet again, based on school for me. In high school, everything was about graduating in 2005, and then, far away, was 2009. I always thought about those years. Then, maybe I would consider certain age milestones, but that was much more theoretical and didn't involve anything I could really imagine. Now I find myself with no graduations left, no simple milestone markers to reach for. There will be my first day in an office, hopefully doing something I love for the long-term, but there's no hard and fast date I can count down to for that. Which makes morale a little harder to keep up, when nothing seems certain (except those pesky death and taxes). It's not as if I know that I only have a month or six weeks until something comes up. Could be tomorrow, could be next year. God, I hope not.

Anyway, 2010. What does it hold? Mostly, I'm just hoping to get through the year and make it to 2011 with all the things I thought I would have at the end of 2009, like a job and a place of my own. I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen, and I'm going to try my best to make it all good.

As far as resolutions go, that's about it. Maybe try to post a little more regularly here, and with a little more optimism!

Congratulations...Now Leave

In fifth grade, my teacher told us that we had to think of being a student as a job, just like being a lawyer or a doctor.  I took that advice to heart.  It seems as though all I've ever worked for is to go to the college of my choice, and study the way I want to study.  I worked hard in high school, and was accepted to my first choice: Sarah Lawrence.  I moved all the necessities of life (i.e. all my DVDs) up to New York and spent the next four years writing, reading, and being a very contented college student.  I even spent a semester abroad in Prague and got in touch with my Czech side.  

And then, the dreaded day came, when my work was done.  I had turned in my last conference paper, attended my last class.  It was time to graduate, and Sarah Lawrence shutting it's gates on me.  It seemed rather harsh that after four years of personalized and thoughtful education, I should be forced to vacate my beloved dorm room and leave campus mere hours after commencement.  

Other than the stress of making four years' worth of accumulated stuff fit into boxes to be stuffed into an SUV, there was the sudden realization that I did not know where I was headed.  I knew generally the things I was hoping to be paid to do, but I had never had a particular career path in mind.  I loved words and popular culture, but mostly I loved being in school.  My perfect job would most likely consist of doing the things I did at Sarah Lawrence, but instead of paying $50,000 a year for the privilege, earning a livable salary and some benefits.  

For me, life after graduation is a great expanse of everything and nothing at the same time.  It is full of decisions to be made, but only one choice to be had.  Find a job, make some money, make your way through the 'real world' with your head down and your mouth shut.  Send out your resume and cover letter, with the same insincere 'Sincerely,' at the bottom and the hope of finding something halfway interesting that isn't unpaid.  I've waded through the mucky expanse for nearly a month now, and am only just getting used to the fact that I am no longer what I once was, what I have been since I was six: a student.