Last First Week of Classes in the Last Best Semester at Macalester

There is something I really enjoy about combing last and first in a sentence when talking about my current state of mind. I feel like it accurately sums up the rather confusing nature of being at the end of my academic career and the beginning of "the rest of my life."

The last first week of classes didn't leave me much time for introspection or reflection. Its a worrying feeling when you realize that you spent the first weekend of the semester spending just as much time at Dunn Bros doing homework then you did during the last weekend of the previous semester. The only thing that made this better was knowing three of my five closest friends were sitting right next to me doing the exact same thing.

Yet, even with all of my day to day homework, my capstone, and the job search, I do still want to make sure that I am aware of surrealism that surrounds every thing I do now.

This semester began with me running through the Dublin International Airport last Saturday; an odd culmination of a return trip to Scotland.  This direct jump (tinged with the fear about being stranded ala December 2010) from Edinburgh to Macalester is simultaneously eerily similar to last year yet so distinctively different that I'm struggling to understand exactly how I feel. I keep coming back to the word "healthy" in my mind. Maybe its because leaving people and a place the second time is easier then the first, maybe its the difference between visiting and living somewhere. Potentially it was absence of the January suck, the three weeks of darkness, cold, and utmost apathy that have routinely brought me down. Probably it was in the details of the experience itself--who I spent time with, what I did, and how everything played out. Or maybe its me, maybe I am just healthier now, growing up has strengthened me.

I do know rather then spend this past week thinking about my four years at Macalester, the approaching finish line, or the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in between me and freedom, I just spent this week waiting. Waiting for the crash, the fall from feeling fine. I just waited and feared for that moment with then emotions of leaving what I left behind in Scotland combined with the knowledge that every day here is one last day with my girls, that moment when these emotions become too strong and I become the shaking mess that everyone around me lived with last spring.

But, it hasn't hit me yet. Maybe it won't. Maybe I'm ready, for all of this. I am hopeful that I will continue to feel fine, that this fear of desperate sadness will remain simply irrationally meta. Because if there is anything I know to be true of the next phase of my life--leaving isn't losing.  And missing someone just shows me how much I loved them.

Firsts in Montana

I'll admit it. Major blog fail on my part here. I swear I have like three posts just sitting in limbo waiting for me to edit them.  Someday I will edit them and send them out into the interwebs but they just aren't ready yet.  Rather than focus on fixing those however, I am going to forge ahead and pretend like it hasn't been since May 17th that I've written a blog.

So here I am.  Its been a month since I arrived in Glacier National Park after a 27 hour bus ride and 4 hours of being forgotten in Kalispell. Honestly it feels like I've never been anywhere else but here. Its reached that point where the real world feels like a dream and I can't imagine doing anything but this.

I'm sitting here now, trying to think of how to describe all of this for you and I'm faltering. Maybe if I start with basics the rest will follow. I work five days a week here; breakfast, lunch, dinner or some combination of those. Breakfast is by far the worst since I can never go to sleep early enough to make up for a 6:00 am start. Especially since there is always something more fun than sleep going on here. Dinner is supposedly the hardest shift because its the busiest but I often find its my favorite. The restaurant is under construction at the moment which means we work in a makeshift dining room combined with the bar.  Guests are angry and management is a mess, but my co-workers are awesome and that usually makes up for all the problems. It feels like waitressing bootcamp here, I have never waited on so many tables at the same time. My second night working dinner I was in the bar; there was no one until 6:30 and then I had about six tables at once. I freaked out. After that though, I learned to watch my co-workers. I'm the youngest of the servers here, these women and men around me have more skills and more experience then I can possibly imagine. They are badass servers and I'm trying to learn as much as I can in the short time I'm here.

Weekends here are spent hiking. Period. This past week is the first that I've spent not out on the trails and I feel like I let the park down.  Since my arrival here a month ago I've climbed two mountains and hiked over fifty miles. I have seen big horn sheep wander right past us as we ate lunch on our climb up Mount Alton, watched as mountain goats scale rocky cliffs (and meander right past the our dorm as we hang out on the deck), sunbathed while a bear and three cubs cross below us on the road, and stopped as a moose chewed on some scrub brush right off the corner of the trail. I love that this is what I do on my days off. I can wake up homesick and hungover, ready to call my parents and head back to Minnesota, but then head outside to join my friends in a day long climb to the summit of a mountain where the vistas look like movie posters, and all I can do is swear that I will never leave here.

The nightlife here is... well, nothing like I've ever experienced before. We party all the time. Monday, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Sundays. Each day is someone's "weekend." About a week into my arrival here, our employee rec room, known as "the pub" opened.  Since then we've had dance parties, movie nights, themed parties, birthday parties, 'oh hey we got kicked off the porch so lets go to the pub and keep drinking' parties... the nightlife here is unstoppable. After coming down with a brutal cold last week, I've finally mustered up the ability to put myself to bed on nights that I need to. Other people here are still going strong, up late and drinking every night, but most of us have a hit our respective walls and have been forced to take care of our bodies more. Working an eight hour shift on two hours of sleep is not something I want to do again.

The rest of our spare time when we aren't working, hiking, or in the pub is spent hanging out on the porch. On days like today when the weather is disgusting I feel at a loss for what to do. From the porch we see everyone heading up or heading to their day at work. Conversation is easy to make here and no one is unwelcome.  My favorite days have been days where I thought I would go back to my room to write an email or watch a movie and instead I've spent four hours sitting in the sun on the porch just chilling with people.

The people here are incredible. I say this because I have never met anyone like them. Its hard to describe the type of personality that is drawn to seasonal work but it is a personality. The first few days I worried that I wouldn't fit but then slowly realized that fitting in isn't really what happens. We are all we have here. Guests don't understand the way we experience the park or the work that we do. We have no phone service and internet is limited.  Very few of us would be friends outside of Many Glacier, but we are friends because of Many Glacier.

Being here has made me rethink my future plans. Before heading out here, I was dead set on grad school.  And I still am.  Except that, if I don't get into the schools I'm looking at applying to in the coming year, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to the Florida Keys for the winter and beginning my next few years as a seasonal worker. These are jobs for a rambling soul, for people not ready to grow up, for people who are connected to many places at once.

That's all I can explain for now. I'll try to keep writing. Here I've had the best and the worst of days, highs and lows and inbetweens. What I know for sure is that after this, I won't be the same.

My First Macalester Graduation

The Class of 2011 has graduated. I am now a senior. I am a senior? It's incredible to imagine that in a year, these people will be my friends and me.

Graduation at Macalester is a splendid affair.  Students are led in by a pipe band blaring Scotland the Brave, which amuses me on so many levels.  It also sticks in my head for the rest of the day.  Even as I type this I begin to humm...

After the friends, recognizable faces, and those unknown to me trail in, then come the professors decked out in their robes and, best of all, their hats.  Who knew that when one graduated with a PH-D in Math they would receive such a renaissance reminiscent, floppy, head adornment.  We searched for our favorite professors as they walked dignified into the gymnasium.  I looked for Christina Esposito, the linguistics adviser I haven't seen since sophomore year.  My cohorts found their theater profs, particularly Beth Cleary, who showed up with a fantastic yellow boa to accent her robes.

BriRo (President of Macalester College, Brian Rosenberg) deepened my love for him by giving a commencement speech on his attempts at blogging in the Huffington Post. Highlights of the speech included his imaginary response to a critic, "You sir, are an idiot. LOL."  The point of all this surrounded the idea that we shouldn't leave the skills we learn at Mac behind.  Take the importance of sources, of fact checking, of critical analysis into the world, even the world of Twitter and Facebook.  "Tweet Responsibly"

At a Macalester commencement, two great things are allowed.  You choose who you sit next to and you choose whether you want to wear the cap, the gown, or any combination thereof. Outfits ranged from classic cap and gowns, to jean jackets and red pants, to Julia Brown, who wore the most perfect pink dress, white wrap, and pillbox hat. As a result, two questions will surround our discussions next year. 1) Can we fill an entire row with friends and 2) What will we wear??

To Matt Kazinka and Emily- Your speech was beautiful, sweet, and wonderfully reminiscent. I can only hope that the speakers from my class will do as fantastic a job as you.

To the Official Commencement Speaker- I think you are a recent mother.  As a result, your speech focused a lot of the joys of being a mother.  You are speaking in front of a group aged 22. They really cannot relate. I am so glad that you have found the birth of your children that life changing, however I wish you might have chosen a more applicable topic. 

To Tue- Perhaps that cartwheel was too much. Knocking into the microphone at graduation while memorable, maybe not the best move.

To the woman who read off names- You sound like an Olympic announcer.  It made the presentation of diplomas much more exciting. Please read next year as well.

Commencements are exciting. They are sad. They are moving. They are long. They have bagpipes and speeches and cartwheels and funny hats and awesome hats. Commencements have joy.

Graduates of 2011, I will miss you more then you know. You were the first faces I saw on campus when I arrived. You were my OL, you were my mentor, you moved me with your performances, your actions, and your writing, you inspired me, and you were my friend. You were the best first graduation ceremony a girl could hope for.

For most of you, I never got a chance to say good bye.  Goodbye friends. Good luck. I will miss you.