Well the school year is officially over. Excuse me my brain is taking a moment to wrap itself around that. (And incorporate it as a part of itself? It sounds like my brain is a grossly gelatinous sludge monster which is viciously consuming everything around it. I wonder if that’s really that far from the truth. [“grossly gelatinous?”])
My last exam was last Friday, and the last week has been a whirlwind of crazy, wacky, uncomfortable “not-being-at-UNC-anymore-ness”. It feels like an eternity since I said goodbye to friends that were going away for the summer, which is weird. To be fair, that’s probably because it’s been a fairly eventful week.
Friday and Saturday were devoted to spending time with family and friends that I hadn’t seen in a while. Sunday morning, however, we went to the Commencement ceremony at UNC for a close family friend-pseudo-family member, which basically caused a humongous chain reaction of internal freak-outs, culminating in my repeated singing of James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind” for 3 consecutive hours after we left Kenan Stadium. This is that story.
It will become evident, if it has not already, that this particular literary cliché is not used correctly here; I will not be properly arranging this narrative into the form of a story. Probably. I beg your forgiveness. Especially if I end up actually doing that, for I might have just wasted your time. I’ll let you be the judge. Of whatever this is.
I hope I used *that* literary cliché correctly…
I’m also pretty sure I just ran circles around myself logically, although all I accomplished in doing so was strangling myself with the various figurative threads of thought and tripping over my untied shoelaces.
BACK TO THE STORY! ( AKA: VAGUELY NARRATIVE EXPLANATION OF AN EVENT!)
So I get to UNC early that morning, dressed in my best Carolina gear. I lead the way into the stadium, as I am deservedly recognized as the most familiar with the campus out of my entire family of people who have not attended UNC.
1st Freak-out: My future
Once we’re in our seats, I begin to look through the program for the ceremony, which unsurprisingly, sets me off – anytime people discuss majors or I see the word “adviser” my eyes dilate and I begin to fidget like a dope-fiend. Well here’s huge lists of people and the majors they somehow decided on. If they can do it so can I, right? My mind races as I begin to think about life and careers and the English language and journalism and the entertainment industry and South American culture and their traditions of religion and music. Then I see the graduate students lists.
I spend an eternity poring over their thesis titles. Getting a doctorate of philosophy begins to sound very appealing. But in what? Crap. They probably don’t let you waffle around for a while. I thank Jesus for the American Undergraduate system. Then my family starts brainstorming funny titles for theses. I participate but I am deadly serious. My little brother is not amused by my interest in the aesthetic approach to truth-making. I think he expected a joke. I continue to agonize, anxiously brainstorming career ideas and potential graduate schools. I wonder if I’d be willing to teach. Probably not.
2nd Freak-out: My future at UNC
The ceremony starts, and suddenly the graduating class starts filing in. Thousands of Carolina blue-clad students begin to pour out of the top of the stadium, filling in an entire four huge sections of bleachers. I realize that in three years, that will be me walking down those bleachers. That will be me waving to my parents, and then holding up the upside-down first “M” for the “I <3 U MOM” signs. That will be me cheering at every opportunity as the class president gives us the sports highlights from the last four years. That will be me tossing a beach ball into the air and throwing blow-up dolls onto my fellow students. That will be me turning my tassel and stealing my mom’s Mother’s Day thunder.
3rd Freak-out: UNC
Already off my guard, unstable and sensitive as I am at the moment, I am blown away by the school spirit emanating from the graduates. I’m caught up in the majesty of everything around me, as the foggy sky slowly fades to reveal a brilliant Carolina blue heaven, perfectly timed with the reveling of the students at the very end of their undergraduate journey. I am so choked up that I have a difficult time singing my normal harmonies as the Clef Hangers sing “Carolina in My Mind”. I squeak a little bit and end up going back to the melody, but I compensate by making it a very strong and pronounced version of the melody line. Then the band begins to play the alma mater and I immediately wrap my arms around my 15 year-old brother and my dad. I’m inspired by the great mass of swaying bodies that is the graduating students, and I sing as loudly as possible. I love Carolina.
We had to sit and wait in the bleachers and then slowly work our way to the car for a long time afterward, but I didn’t care. I was enthusiastically singing, humming, and falsettoing all the Carolina songs I could find in my brain. It only mattered a little bit to me that our service at Red Robin was definitely sub-par; the euphoria only really began to fade after we got home much later that afternoon. Then I put some music on, crawled into a really awkward position on the couch, and fell asleep for several hours. Did I mention that I was running on less than four hours of sleep when I went to Commencement? That might have been important.
Oh yeah, the commencement speaker's speech was really good too. He talked about biodiversity. Good stuff.
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