From a Senior of 2014

Every other year of college, I have written a post to the seniors. The seniors who have been my friends and are graduating and moving on. It's really hard to write a post to your peers, the people you've grown up with through college, because I feel like we did it together. There's nothing I can really say that would be new or interesting or relevant. So, as the person who is graduating and moving on, instead of writing to the seniors, I am writing to the non-seniors. 

College is crazy. You grow and change so much over the course of the four years, year by year, term by term. I remember when I started this blog as a freshman and all of the new things seemed so novel and every transition was such a big deal. That's not to say I'm totally jaded; I still try to appreciate every single opportunity, first moment, and last moment. I'm just not the same person I was in the fall of 2010. I'm sure none of you are who you were when you got here either. 

I've been thinking a lot about friendship, and how my friendships this year have felt particularly close and important and true. Intense, even. You are the people I want to share all of my news with, and I sometimes have to remind myself to tell my family first because I'm so excited to tell you. We have our hangouts, our rituals, our adventures, and our projects. We value many of the same things with great importance. Saying my good-byes over the past week and in the coming week is so heartbreaking. You are important. You mean the world to me. I am going to miss being a student with you, but I am so excited to visit and see all of the ways you are training to take over the world. The world you rule is the one I want to live in. 

I don't really know what else to say. I suppose my only sage words of wisdom are these: know your limits, take care of yourself, protect your time, and try to give that time only to things that truly matter to you. And maybe try to get some sleep. The rest, you already know. 

And, since I would be remiss if I didn't make this one shoutout, I have a friend who has been my friend since we were both freshmen. We really did go through all of college together, and my experience at school has been irrefutably impacted by her. So, here's your special mention for being there for everything. Couldn't get through this kind of post without saying that. 

I have some closing thoughts about friendship, and maybe I'm just a little too attuned to all the TFiOS hype, but there is a quotation that feel appropriate here. And while in context this was about love and death, I've been thinking about these ideas in terms of major life transitions when nothing will ever truly be the same again and maintaining or shifting the dynamics of my friendships to accommodate the new context of our lives. 

"I am not a mathematician, but I know this. There is an infinite set between 0 and 1... Some infinities are bigger than other infinities...I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful." (259-260)

Thanks for the love, everyone. I look forward to where the future takes us. 

Today is awesome because of Nicole, Aaron, Sam, Joseph, Katy, Hannah, Brandee, Sam, Maddie, Elliott, Eloia, Linnea, Maggie, Eddie, Matthew, Jason, Tatyana, all my lighting babies (and ducklings), the community of Hobart House, StuCo, and this university that brought together such amazing people who have changed my life for the better. 

Will this be the last time?

Will this be the last time I…?

It’s the perpetual question this week. And it scares me because I know that at some point in the next seven days the answer will be yes.

The last time I stand in this spot. 
The last time I spend with these people in this way. 
The last time these things I’ve called home will so purely be mine.

Saying goodbye is one of the hardest things we ever have to do.

Why is everything do magical at night? The pretty things seem more pretty and the in pretty things fade into the darkness. Architectural lights give the lot world a grey cast that makes you recognize how everything can be so…ephemeral.

And nature at night. It just fixes things. And I sit at the end of senior year on the same stargazing rock I sat upon three years ago around this time when I was no longer a freshman and not quite a sophomore, just past the no swimming sign. Where I went for journaling and other bad writing and failed meditation though the years of college. To being here now. At the end. Confused by everything I am feeling and planning and pondering.

I feel like there’s something symbolic about walking across a bridge with a streetlamp’s reflection in still water to my left and the moon’s light reflected on the rippling lake to my right, and just beyond that the twinkling skyline of the city that has stolen my heart. I don’t quite know what it is yet.

Somehow the lake water lapping settles my racing mind. Nothing will ever be the same. That’s okay. It has to be okay. I will be okay. But for now I just listen and find peace.

I’m tired now. It’s time.

Thoughts on the Second Half of Spring Quarter

About halfway through the quarter, I posted my awesome list of awesome things. Other awesome things that have happened since then:

• Going to the local Comic Con with my friends where I saw Eve Myles, Natalia Tena, Kristian Nairn, The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Yaya Han, Ashley Eckstein, Stan Lee, Espionage Cosmetics, got a bunch of free books, and found vendors I recognized from previous years. It was a super fun weekend!
• Spring shows: Graffiti Dancers, Henry IV, Theatre Stands with Autism, Sweeney Todd, Peter Pan, and Wrestlepocalypse. 
• In May, I got a random midnight text from a friend that got me out of bed and to a party of theater techies. It was a night of wonderful humans existing together that made me feel loved and included. A night that looked like it was going to end anticlimactically turned into a wonderful 12-4AM with lovely friends. Totally awesome. 
• At the cast party for one of the shows, I got a lot of external validation from a lot of people I didn't think noticed my work. I was told that I made that show better and that I was the clear choice to mentor younger designers. It was super cool and kind of hilarious. 
• Wrestlepocalypse/Dillo weekend. Pocs is such a family in the weirdest way, and I got to have a lot of fun with my last design of college. Two of the founders of the institution came to the show and loved it. One of them is a lighting designer who said I did a great job, which was extra cool because it came from a stranger. All of my lighting babies from the entire year saw the show and noticed my lights, which was super cool. I got to text with/be with the upperclassmen who mentored me on my first ever college show during my last ever college show, and that was the coolest bookend ever. 
• Dillo was super fun. I saw nearly everybody who I wanted to see, the weather was perfect, and I simply loved being outside in the sun for six hours. I heard OK Go play their set and was near a bunch of great friends throughout, especially a friend who is obsessed with this band. Dillo is a day frozen in time where the only past you think of is past Dillos and you ignore the future. It was blissful. 
• Seeing The Fault in Our Stars movie with Hannah and Katy. The movie was perfect and they were the perfect people to see it with. It had to be them. 

This past week, however, has been a huge week for recognition as a senior. I won a lot of awards, which I had hoped for but wasn't expecting. I got the Community Builder Award from Hillel (presented by my good friend Amelia; I spent a lot of hours with her leading up to that and still had no idea she was presenting for me), Senior Thesis of Distinction in Sociology, Hobart House Best Hugger and adorable senior sendoff package (it was little things with clever tags, like play-doh "to mold your future" and glow sticks "to light the way"), Certificate of Participation and Completion for my internship program from last year, and Departmental Honors in Sociology. It was a lot, and all very happy. 

I've had a lot of thoughts lately about graduating and friendship that will be a separate post, and I realize that I have been busier living my life than writing about it on this blog. Now that school is ending, I will be documenting some more of these concluding thoughts here. 

Today is awesome because of the weather and getting things done and seeing friends. 

The Awesome List of Awesome Things

This is my Awesome List of Awesome Things that have happened in 2014 thus far.

• Winter shows: Dolphin, Play About the Baby, Gallows Humor, Next to Normal, Cloud 9, Querido, SASA, Cat's Cradle, Animal Style, The Transition of Doodle Pequeno, A Wrinkle in Time
• Watching Doctor Who and Starkid with S&A
• Nights spent talking with S, J, & A. Spontaneous hangouts.
• Dance Marathon
• Yonderland
• The Wrong Mans
• Dolphin Opening night: show, gala, after party
• Dolphin Company Bow at closing
• Hearing the first reading of S's play
• Alumna friend visiting and the birth of the StuCo Expat Commune
• Walking with friends on streets and by the lake
• Thurday Cookies
• Teaching a lighting workshop in my favorite venue with my favorite people
• Building a fort and just existing in it for many hours
• TSWA workshops
• Finishing my thesis
• Getting a perfect score on my theory midterm
• My birthday
• Having friends who text me every day and ask how I am and check on me when I'm sick
• Hanging with friends in the light booth during SASA tech, talking about life and being sassy
• Thursday lunches with Team Alpha (and everyone else who has joined over these last few months)
• Pocs
• Plex with N
• Rediscovering Tumblr
• Realizing how comfortable I am in my dorm room
• Incandescent light bulbs
• Running jokes: TI makes choices, clear sneak enter, here hold this
• Pigpen Concert
• Chatting with the band after the show behind the venue
• S making photos and poster signing happen in that chill time behind the venue
• Talking about my hometown with the band who were heading there and telling them where to eat
• Executing my design for my piece in the dance show at the beginning of spring
• When Skittles told me I was the welcoming upperclassman during Dolphin 2012 and working on first and last shows together is meaningful to her. It is to me, too. Probably going to cry about this. 
• Fake petitioning theater boards as a senior
• Getting a job
• Teaching drama for brilliant sixth graders

That's all I've got for now. Anticipated greatness comes from my upcoming con and five tech weeks and commencement. Will post another one of these as more awesome things happen. Or just blog about them individually. Just kind of going with the flow over here. 

Today is awesome because my sixth grade student made an analogy about putting jungle animals in a zoo by comparing it to putting a human in a forest clearing with a bed, a lamp, and a minifridge. And the lake looked like glitter when I went out there this morning. 

On Growing Up and Becoming "An Adult"

It's my last quarter of college. What?!?! I literally started this blog in the first quarter, and while I have left a lot out from my senior year, I have so many wonderful memories that are going to make it into an Awesome List of Awesome Things post in the near future. I just keep adding to the list, so I haven't decided when I'm going to publish that. But that's not what this post is about. Now that student life is starting to turn over into the capable hands of those who will be at this university next year, I've been thinking a lot about what comes next. What happens after college. 

College was the end goal through my entire education to this point. First it was a matter of getting here, then going through the system to get where I am now. I will graduate. I even have a job secured for after I graduate. But all I have ever known is how to be a student. This post-bacc life is a completely new role for me, and, through the media I consume, I think it's also a confusing time for my contemporaries. There are so many pressures on people in their early twenties to both enjoy these years of youth and also behave like "adults." But what does it mean to be an adult? There's an entire YouTube channel dedicated to answering the question "How to Adult?" There really seems to be no answer. 

In my musings, I have concluded that I am living in a society with a very strong youth culture. This has been characteristic for decades: think of the twentysomething hippies of the '60s, the disco dancing and bell bottom wearing youth of the '70s, and the strong trends before and after those iconic decades. I am part of the generation shaped by the internet, Harry Potter, 9/11, rising technologies, and unlimited access to media. My youth culture is centered around fandoms, nerdiness, loving things, and sharing that love IRL and online. I am connected to my contemporaries via phone, text, e-mail, facebook, blog, tumblr, YouTube. My generation are bloggers, vloggers, writers, musicians, artists...and everything can be self-produced and distributed online. It's a great time to be young. But how can I maintain the identity I formed within this culture as I age?

As a sociologist, I'm going to theorize. Looking at the way my parents still use language from their youths, the way hippies never really stop being hippies, the way my elders still have a strong emphasis on family and country (relics of the first half of the twentieth century youth cultures), and the fact that there are people decades older than me who still engage in fan culture, I predict that the platforms my generation use will grow and change with us. I don't foresee an end to self-producing music, vlogging, blogging, tumbling, and connecting via facebook. I don't think an Exploding TARDIS poster is necessarily going to be lauded as valuable and mature wall art, but it will not be outlandish for it to hang in my apartment. At least I hope not; I really like that poster. 

I have formed an identity through the culture of my youth. I don't want to give that up to become a "proper adult."I don't think I have to, and that's pretty cool. Sure, I'll have to start being responsible for myself in new, adult ways, but I'm realizing that the perceived pressures to have everything figured out and behave in the ways people two or three times my age are modeling as "adulthood" are not necessary or even real. I may not carry my TARDIS mug into work on the first day, but I will certainly continue to use it. (All my examples are TARDISes. I have 11 of them. It's the most relevant fandom item.)

I guess there's no real conclusion here. I can still be me and an adult. Just the employed, independent version of me who goes to the grocery store and tests the waters before publicly carrying her button collection (There. It's not a TARDIS. Well, not exclusively.). And I think that the things that define my generation are going to grow with us and be replaced by new things for the next generation of youth. There is going to be a youth culture after mine. I have no earthly idea what that will look like, but I know that it will be identity-forming for those who live it. 

Today is awesome because I'm back to blogging, I have a JOB, and I'm starting to ease the cognitive dissonance of identity that comes with graduation. 

(shhh. I know it's 19 days into BEDA. I'm obviously not participating this year. I have a con and five tech weeks coming up.)

The List of Things I Hate

I find that when I'm driving, I think/say "I hate that" a lot. Here's the list of things I hate. 

I always hate:

• Squirrels
• Geese
• Hairdryers
• Parking Garages
• Traffic Lights
• People being stupid

This next list is more specific. I definitely hate them, but it's a milder loathing that the above list due to the conditionality of the situations. 

• Commercials on the radio
• Commercials on TV
• Traffic lights turning green when no cars are there
• Funeral motorcade
• People being stupid while driving
• When people use "that" instead of "who"
• When people have strong opinions about things that don't affect them
• When people force choices on other people
• When people negatively judge others for legitimate, personal choices that differ from their own
• Mustard
• Raw tomatoes
• Hulu Plus. What is actually the point? You pay the same as Netflix and they still show you commercials. 
• When people say, "breathe from your diaphragm." The diaphragm is a muscle. It controls your lungs. It does not store air. ANATOMY!
• Traffic circles. Especially traffic circles with traffic lights. 
• People who chew loudly, especially smacking their lips but also clicking their teeth. 
• Airports
• People in airports
• Babies on airplanes
• People who travel with animals
• Being sick/injured

I think that might be it for now. Today is awesome because the list is up to date. 

On Pain, Injury, and Being Sick

I've been thinking a lot about how I feel I have been socialized to communicate about pain, injury, and illness. In the last month, I sprained my ankle, am currently dealing with the strangest virus I've ever had, watched the Olympics, and did Dance Marathon. These are all events that include pain, injury, and illness, and I perceive a glorification of those who push through and do things despite the danger.

I hid my sprained ankle from everybody for an entire week. I could hardly walk the day after it happened, but I moseyed about and pretended like nothing was wrong. If I didn't admit that I was in pain, I didn't have to deal with an injury being real, and I wouldn't have to take action about it. This was concurrent with the Olympics, when the announcers would detail all the injuries that sidelined the athletes leading up to the competition of their lives. I think that type of discussion of injury, that makes it something to push through or get past in order to do the thing that is important, is damaging when it allows us to give ourselves permission to ignore a potentially harmful incident. My ankle is fine and I can walk normally again, but that was not a good week for me, and I know I handled it badly. I just wanted to keep going and get on with my life.

And now I've got this weird virus. I've stayed in bed for the last few days, and it's been a strange ebb and flow of symptoms that are completely abnormal for me. I never really know how to answer when people ask me how I am, because the real answer is much more complicated that I really want to get into. So I just say I'm fine, usually with a shrug. I'm not fine. I just went through the worst night in recent memory. I have a completely blocked eustachian tube right now, and the pressure in my ear was so painful that I could not sleep. I called my mother in tears at 1AM because I was so at a loss for how to deal with the problem, and she stayed on the phone with me for an hour as I inhaled steam and took decongestants. I ended up sleeping for about an hour after we got off the phone, but then the pain woke me up again, and I spent another two hours doing the same things to get myself able to sleep again. Four hours later, I can face the day, but my ear is still completely clogged. So, if you ask me how I am today, I'm not fine, but I will probably tell you I am.

I'm still trying to figure out why, when we are dealing with illness or injury or pain or anything complicated, we push through and don't really talk about it. Why is it so shameful to take a sick day? Why do I feel weak when I can't force myself to go about my life despite being sick? Why do I keep fighting after being kicked in the face? The go-to thing is to slap a band aid on it, grab an ice pack, put some windex on it (that's a joke) and move on. But sometimes we need to stop. Sometimes it's bad enough to sideline you for a little while. Sometimes, all you can do is take the decongestants, eat a popsicle, and write your finals anyway. And that means skipping the things you want to do in order to do the things you have to do. Because the have to's are not a choice. The want to's leave you with the power of egress, and even though it might make you sad, that's the appropriate choice.

I'm rambling now. I will be posting a winter quarter wrap up and a Dance Marathon blog soon. I've been crazy busy and now I have to actually finish my finals.

Today is awesome because I didn't wake up with a throat so sore that all I could think about was eating a popsicle.