Wednesday I wandered around the campus where I was a graduate student. It has been six years since I graduated. I only spent five years of my life there. So I have been away longer than I was a student there. It was inevitable, but still seems strange. Am I really that old?
As I walked into the campus, I was remembering. I passed so many landmarks, and thought about how they were so important in my life. We used to drive up that road to go shopping. I went running along that path -- there is a garden hidden at the end. And there is the table where friends and I would eat lunch on a nice day. They've replanted the tree that had died. Tim and I used to laugh about that tree. -- Wasn't it nice when I used to belong? I missed that.
I met with a few people, said hello, talked a little shop, worked for a while in the library, and then left, walking back to catch the bus.
As I walked out of the campus, I was remembering. I remembered how I failed my first qualifying exam. How I hated having to find an advisor. Afraid I would never do dissertation-quality research. The pains of teaching assistantships and grading students with a high sense of entitlement. Never able to rest. Never being good enough or finished enough. The angst and insecurity, among myself and my peers. -- Wasn't it nice that I no longer belonged? Can't miss that.
1 comment:
oddly, I get nostalgic for college/grad school when I visit any college campus. I sort of daydream about what the experience would be like and how it would differ than the one I had. But I agree, I do not want to go back to the student angst. And the student poverty.
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