I really thought Uni was going to be like Love Story. Maybe not the whole death thing, but definitely the college jock and poor girl thing, and definitely the cinched-waist camel coat thing. Couldn't have illustrated this post with anything else, really.
It's my last week of university this week. I just got hit with that realisation, just now. I mean, I've got exams, and I think I'm going to do honours next year - I'm having separation anxiety, I'm not ready to give it up! - but this is the end of my degree. This is the end of carrying around cases of video equipment and the monoliths of obscure french structuralists theorists, this is the end of those awkward icebreaker introductions in tutorials, this is the end of my studies in media and communication and english, this is the end of undergraduate history. I'm aware, quite powerfully aware actually, that next year everything is going to be different. Not as different as I'm worried about - they're telling us that we have to give up our lives to do honours, but I think that me and them and fisher library and my need to go to cafes can work out some visitation rights - but it's going to be different. Honours is supposed to be harder. It's supposed to be more grown up. Gone are attendance marks and essay outlines. Now is the summer of our discontent.
I was talking with one of my oldest friends the other day about our first day at university. We both remember it so clearly. We got up extra early to catch the bus so we wouldn't get lost, we got off one stop early because we weren't sure, we told a stranger on campus that it was our first day, we spent an hour before either of us had class mapping out our entire day, walking each other from building to building. We were so green, young and fresh like spring grass, so excited and eager and with canvas tote bags full of new things. First year moved seamlessly into second, more raucous and messy. Going to class with wet hair. Third year was grown up and sophisticated. I met friends for coffee and cigarettes. I studied at night in the library. Fourth year has been a bit of a shambles. It feels like I've hardly spent any time at uni this year - which I know isn't true - I feel like I haven't learnt anything. I feel like I'm not ready yet. I feel as shy and confused as I did on that first day, sitting alone at the back in lectures, not sure if you could bring a water bottle into your tute.
I went looking through my archives - with some trepidation - searching for a post that I thought I had done about finishing up school. It turns out that I didn't write one. It feels so weird, almost like going back in time, to click the buttons and bring up those posts from 2008. Some of them are so silly, the words of a 17 year old who thought she knew so much. But then I found this. And reading it again gave me a lump in my throat. I really can't believe that was more than four years ago, that more than four years ago I was so sure that I would go to sydney university, and I was so excited, and that I could hardly hold it in. I'm not sure if I even thought about the end at the beginning, I rarely do. I focus so hard on the short term that I often forget about the long term completely. Well, I'm at the end now, and I'm thinking about the beginning. I'm thinking about my friends from school, and how to move on, and how to stay the same, and how to lose nothing and gain everything. I know that something has to go. But I'm not ready. Not quite yet.
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