Formula for Foes of the Far East

Graduating and the Great Beyond...

I think I still have a few loyal readers of this blog. Thanks guys, for caring enough to check back periodically and see me give proof that higher education does not a perfect writer make. We've laughed, we've cried - OK, maybe I was the only one doing those things, but you got to read about me doing them, and the fact that you did counts for something.

College is over now. Today I went to my big, school-wide graduation ceremony first and then made my family follow me from Trask Colliseaum over to Kenan Auditorium where my Film Studies departmental graduation was held. It was a exactly what I was expecting - but, curiously, it was totally different from anything I'd experienced before. I'm not talking about a new experience in the same way as your first frozen chocolate banana or the first time you wrapped your face in plaster of paris to make a life-cast of your head for special effects modeling purposes (what, you guys never did that???). It's more like making a memory - where you know exactly what it's going to feel like when you play it back in your head later, but you know while you're in the middle of it that it really feels very little like that memory upon which you'll rely. I'm probably not making much sense. I guess I felt something impress upon me but the effects of that impression are yet to be seen. In much the same way, the effect of college on the whole is yet to be seen, but I suppose it will make itself apparent in the coming years.

In any case, I'm now a former student of the University of North Carolina Wilmington and to sum the whole thing up, it was a really good time. I dealt with zoo creatures, learned how to be a student for the first time, made friends, lost friends, fell in love, was hurt by love, hung out with the wrong people on occasion but hung out with the right ones far more often. I tried new things and relied on old, sturdy foundations. I ate far too much ramen, hauled tons of dirty clothes around to the wash, flirted with strangers, felt independent, and above all, learned. I learned a whole, whole lot - twice as much outside of the classroom as in, but still a heck of a lot more in them than I did in the 13 years prior.

Sound familiar? It should. Maybe you didn't go to college, or maybe you did, but your ate nutritious food or didn't have to deal with your roommates terrarium full of creatures. Those are just details. My college story has no dramatic twist, heroic score, or blockbuster appeal - but it does have a spectacular ending. It's an ending where I've come to realize that we're all connected in a lot of ways. We all have the same experiences, more or less, and that's not at all a bad thing. I came here expecting the most unique four years in the history of undergraduate careers, and I'm leaving with the knowledge that it doesn't often end up the way we imagined it would. I'm thankful for that. At the risk of sounding cheesier that the dairy drawer of my fridge (which is very cheesy, indeed) this has been a beautifully typical coming of age story, and it's just as much yours as it is mine.

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Now for the next big thing.

I'll probably post on here one more time with the address of a new site where some of my stuff can be found. I may or may not start up a new blog. To anyone who eventually reads this post, thanks for stopping in. I'll leave all the old posts up and available in the archives menu on the right as long as blogger will allow. To anyone who cares, it has been good for me to write, and I appreciate the comments and your reading my banter. God bless you all.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. (grammatically correct sentence consisting of only one word. Look it up. I learned it in college)