Deep, deep sighs...

Last paper ever, finished. I might've thought that after four years of writing those damn things, I would've gotten better at it. Hasn't happened. My final paper was just as scatterbrained and incohesive as the first Lit Hum paper I ever wrote. And with both papers, I spent way too much time fiddling with the font to make it look like I wrote more than I did. Maturity, right?

Truth is, it's kind of bittersweet. I get the distinct feeling that when you're a bona fide grown-up, you don't get to spend much time thinking about Buddhist ethics or the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics or classical genre study. I really had a whole damn lot of stuff to say in college, and I doubt that more than five percent of it got past the anxieties and fears cluttering my brain and into the academic sphere. Good thing I wasn't a communications major. I'm not really sure what I expected from college, but it sure as hell wasn't this: classes with fifty students, some of whom were old enough to be the professor's father; professors who seemed too busy with their own grandiose ideas to be bothered listening to mine; schoolmates... well, who knows about the schoolmates. All I know is that they weren't talking shop with me.

I told Anne — she's the only person I know who won't be a college grad in less than two weeks — to enjoy her papers while she still can. But even that seems a bit sketchy. I think there's something to be said for being able to write Thurman a seven-page single-spaced e-mail in less than a day, while being stuck without a paper topic for weeks and weeks. The eight-page double-spaced paper took four days and innumerable solitaire breaks. I can't help but wonder if all that extra time wasn't devoted to "polishing" the paper with a veneer of professionalism that de-emphasized the actual ideas I was talking about... not to mention the fact that I was talking.

I'd like to say that if I had to do it all over again, I'd do things differently. I'd get to know my professors, show up at their office hours, engage them. I'd speak up in class, I'd join more clubs, I'd talk to the CGND and all the synecdoche I can extrapolate from her. (Those of you who know what I'm talking about know what I'm talking about.) I'd like to say that I'd do all that, but I suppose the real reason the last paper ever is bittersweet is that I know I wouldn't. One time, Harrigan asked me if I thought I'd be happier somewhere else, and I told her I just didn't think it was part of my constitution. We'll see what the future brings, and let's say I have high hopes and high expectations, but not for happiness.