Contrary to popular belief (if it ever was one to begin with), graduation day doesn't indicate a clean release from your school. It's a marker in the middle of a long fading-out that begins months earlier when you start thinking about job-hunting, and ends months or even years later (indeed, for some people it never quite ends at all).
I'm in the middle of typing up grade reports for ECS, the last bit of TAing I'll do as an undergraduate. When that's done, I still need to migrate my website, switch over my email, update my address, track down all the websites I have control over and hand them off, do a committee writeup, and on and on and on... it's the longest goodbye. I'm trying to rid myself of all Olin obligations (but not connections!) as quickly as humanly possible so that I can let go of it, and it can let go of me, and whatever I do for Olin in the future is out of choice and not obligation. So... transition documents, yay! I also have another personal project up my sleeve that won't be finished for another week or two after graduation day. More on this later, most likely.
My mother says that I am loyal to a fault. That it takes me a while to decide to become part of a group or to make someone a close friend, but once I have loyalty to something I will march into the jaws of hell for it, go out of my way to do anything for it. It's always been hard for me to detach, even when circumstances change; my loyalties have high inertia. But circumstances are changing, and I am letting go. Letting go. Letting go.
Easy to type, but hard to do.
I'm in the middle of typing up grade reports for ECS, the last bit of TAing I'll do as an undergraduate. When that's done, I still need to migrate my website, switch over my email, update my address, track down all the websites I have control over and hand them off, do a committee writeup, and on and on and on... it's the longest goodbye. I'm trying to rid myself of all Olin obligations (but not connections!) as quickly as humanly possible so that I can let go of it, and it can let go of me, and whatever I do for Olin in the future is out of choice and not obligation. So... transition documents, yay! I also have another personal project up my sleeve that won't be finished for another week or two after graduation day. More on this later, most likely.
My mother says that I am loyal to a fault. That it takes me a while to decide to become part of a group or to make someone a close friend, but once I have loyalty to something I will march into the jaws of hell for it, go out of my way to do anything for it. It's always been hard for me to detach, even when circumstances change; my loyalties have high inertia. But circumstances are changing, and I am letting go. Letting go. Letting go.
Easy to type, but hard to do.
2 comments:
Mel,
I feel like I was in a similar boat this time last year. I didn't feel "emotional" about graduating from Olin because I knew that it would still be a part of my life and that I would still be involved with what's going on here. Although, I have been wondering if tomorrow when I'm sitting in the audience watching you guys cross the stage instead of the other way around if I might finally feel a bit more closure.
What good topic
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