salience
December 14, 2004
Reconciliation is the theme of this upcoming university navidad recess. I'm halfway through finals, returning to the Big Alpha this sabado after my last one. A bunch of us were talking about how things are different during finals this year. It is always a rush, but for some reason, this year it's an enjoyable rush. Always this itching to return home, but not even looking around to see what we're leaving.
It's an uncomfortable place to be, ending my final fall semester at BC. We're nostalgic already and we have four months of Jesuit articulated life left. But most of us have been together since the beginning, picking up quirks and evolving the face of who we are here along the way. Some of the inside jokes are from before we really even knew each other, but if you had asked us back then, we would have told you differently. But now, by now, we've been through so much together. We've been through the changes, no matter how difficult or eerie (take, por ejemplo, the evolution of shell's laugh to it's current state), together.
And I don't know if it's just a BC thing, if kids at other schools live with the same folks semester after semester, but there's a separation from the idea of home that you reconcile with. Your home address isn't your home, just a memory of where you've been and where you return to, to remember memories. Where you watch others create new ones. Here is where your life is, with these people.
I'm looking forward to the break, sure. There's seeing my gato, the familia in its decided state, old friends. Driving to San Antonio, the first Christmas without grandma's house. Indeed, the first without grandma. The forcedly lean BCMB bowl trip (against UNC) with our 40 person ensemble. I'm gearing up to reak havoc on the job search scene (it's going to be intense ya'll, you'll be hearing the echoes of me pounding down the workforce doors wherever you are, rest assured).
But this time, I'm looking around as I head to my finals. The not sleeping, the not really knowing what day it is, the dreaming about financial models and formulas, the reciting calculus and statistics as I walk, it's what I came here to do. Going home will remind me of why I'm here, who I am here: who this place has influenced me to become, and just how much I've been able to grow here.
Would I be able to say I know the people I know here, those whom I rely on most, if I had matriculated elsewhere?? What about the crazy finance professors who chose to share their talents at one of the top twenty finance programs in the country?? Would I have found equivalent mentors?? Would I have had the same rotc experiences?? Would I have grown as a musician, been forced out of my highschool, all state bubble by being granted a music scholarship, and then named concert mistress at another school?? Would I have been able to teach music as much somewhere else as I do here?? In as many groups as I do here?? Would I have been granted the opportunity to lead 189 of my closest friends in front of 50,000 people if I had decided to be someone else?? Would I have been able to run my own business??
The questions are endless, but...
Would I want to be that someone else??
And the answer to that is, well no, absolutely not.
It's an uncomfortable place to be, ending my final fall semester at BC. We're nostalgic already and we have four months of Jesuit articulated life left. But most of us have been together since the beginning, picking up quirks and evolving the face of who we are here along the way. Some of the inside jokes are from before we really even knew each other, but if you had asked us back then, we would have told you differently. But now, by now, we've been through so much together. We've been through the changes, no matter how difficult or eerie (take, por ejemplo, the evolution of shell's laugh to it's current state), together.
And I don't know if it's just a BC thing, if kids at other schools live with the same folks semester after semester, but there's a separation from the idea of home that you reconcile with. Your home address isn't your home, just a memory of where you've been and where you return to, to remember memories. Where you watch others create new ones. Here is where your life is, with these people.
I'm looking forward to the break, sure. There's seeing my gato, the familia in its decided state, old friends. Driving to San Antonio, the first Christmas without grandma's house. Indeed, the first without grandma. The forcedly lean BCMB bowl trip (against UNC) with our 40 person ensemble. I'm gearing up to reak havoc on the job search scene (it's going to be intense ya'll, you'll be hearing the echoes of me pounding down the workforce doors wherever you are, rest assured).
But this time, I'm looking around as I head to my finals. The not sleeping, the not really knowing what day it is, the dreaming about financial models and formulas, the reciting calculus and statistics as I walk, it's what I came here to do. Going home will remind me of why I'm here, who I am here: who this place has influenced me to become, and just how much I've been able to grow here.
Would I be able to say I know the people I know here, those whom I rely on most, if I had matriculated elsewhere?? What about the crazy finance professors who chose to share their talents at one of the top twenty finance programs in the country?? Would I have found equivalent mentors?? Would I have had the same rotc experiences?? Would I have grown as a musician, been forced out of my highschool, all state bubble by being granted a music scholarship, and then named concert mistress at another school?? Would I have been able to teach music as much somewhere else as I do here?? In as many groups as I do here?? Would I have been granted the opportunity to lead 189 of my closest friends in front of 50,000 people if I had decided to be someone else?? Would I have been able to run my own business??
The questions are endless, but...
Would I want to be that someone else??
And the answer to that is, well no, absolutely not.
lasaliente, 17:13
