I’ve never done this before, so I thought I might try it. I can’t see myself doing it very often, as even with the convenience of the keypad on my phone, it’s still a little awkward typing on these things. Still it’s a great way to practice, and it would make daily blogging a little easier. Trouble is, I’m typically underground in the subway when I get random urges to write. Well, that’s all for now.
Ascension
Walking up on that stage May 16th to get that (cheap) piece of paper was a little something like riding a roller coaster, as I’d done only a week before at Six Flags Great Adventure in celebration of Senior Week. I fidgeted in my seat, twiddling my thumbs in anticipation as they called the Masters and Doctorate candidates ahead of us. Then, finally, after what felt like hours, my row was called to receive our degrees. So began my ascension.
Just standing up, I felt butterflies thrumming against my belly. It surprised me, actually, as I remember feeling profoundly apathetic in the wake of my high school graduation. Now I understand why. High school is child’s play. Everyone should be able to do that. College, on the other hand, however long it takes, remains a highly regarded achievement. It’s still taking me a while to fully feel the impact of that, but it’s there lying in wait, like those butterflies that remain long after the ride is over.
As each graduate shook the president’s hand and collected her degree, I grew closer and closer to the stage, the very pinnacle of my college career. When I finally took my own degree and descended down the ramp off the stage, I felt a surge of joy and displacement that is comparable to the adrenaline induced dazedness one might feel after a roller coaster ride. Did I really just do that? What just happened? What’s to come? My mind raced through all the memories I made there at college, good and bad, an amusement park all its own.
I left the graduation as I’d left the theme park, happy, but exhausted. I can now say with pride that I am officially a graduate of Bryn Mawr College! I certainly enjoyed my time there, for the most part, but that’s enough of roller coasters for now. Now I move on toward the ride back home. And what a ride its been thus far!
If someone had told me at the beginning of this year that within a week of graduation, I would have a guaranteed job offer of any kind, I would have been very skeptical and cleared my mind of such possibilities immediately, despite knowing there was a chance in the internship I’d had only the summer before. That possibility has proven fruitful, and I am now under a six week contract with the small web design firm in Brooklyn that I’d interned with. I started today, and there is potential that this opportunity may continue beyond that date.
I am so humbled and happy to have had this opportunity waiting for me. Now, I’m going to give it the best I’ve got. Hello “real” world. I’m ready. Are you?
The Withering
One cloudy day after the other, flowers do not bloom, closed up for so long, ravaged by wind and rain. Even once clouds pass, flowers fail to blossom, Apollo’s fiery gaze as capable of destruction as of creation, so many fallen petals a testament to a slow death. What was once vibrant reduced at once to crinkled, pale tombstones, adornments for Gaia’s solemn brow.