Touch and Go
I've always been something of a packrat. I would like to beleive that this desire to collect things around me was inspired by some MacGyver-esque ability to make something ingenious and useful out of even the most ordinary of objects. Were I to be honest with myself, however, I think I would recognize that this compulsion is really just my way of never wanting to let things go.
One of the most interesting social developments of graduate school, for me, so far, has been the strange friendship dynamics found in the classroom. Over the course of a semester one learns the nuances of the classmates nearby. During the 15 minute breaks, or on the walks back to the car, one finds themselves having fascinating discussions with people. After the final exam these months of acquiatanceship often end with nothing more than a "good luck!"
One fellow student became a father the first month of class. We joked about children, and I joked that I was watching him carefully to see how fatherhood and studenthood intermixed. Another student, unemployed, was finishing her last class and was going to take a cross-country trip to celebrate before starting the dreaded job search. In one class a young, asian man befriended me but spoke with such a thick and quick accent that I could only hear half of what he said to me. His conversations mostly dealt with scrambled attempts to sneak peeks at my homeworks before turning them in.
Without question these are people who are destined to be short-term acquaintences and, trust me, sometimes that is a mercy. But I always get a little meloncholy at the end of each semester when I see these personalities that I have come to observe throughout the year move on in ways that will be invisible to me. And, of course, that is the best thing possible -- to end on a high note. Trust me on that too, as I've in the past refused to end some friendships that were long overdue in the hopes of wringing out one last good memory.
Over many months Linda and I have been slowly decluttering our house. We must be making some progress as we are on a first-name basis with the folks at goodwill. It was a surprising parallel, then, to learn from graduate school how to remove some emotional clutter. When I wanted to pass along my business card to some of the folks, something stopped me from doing so. Call it selfish but I enjoyed the last classes with many of these people more because I had already made up my mind to not see them again.
It was freeing to simply touch and go.
One of the most interesting social developments of graduate school, for me, so far, has been the strange friendship dynamics found in the classroom. Over the course of a semester one learns the nuances of the classmates nearby. During the 15 minute breaks, or on the walks back to the car, one finds themselves having fascinating discussions with people. After the final exam these months of acquiatanceship often end with nothing more than a "good luck!"
One fellow student became a father the first month of class. We joked about children, and I joked that I was watching him carefully to see how fatherhood and studenthood intermixed. Another student, unemployed, was finishing her last class and was going to take a cross-country trip to celebrate before starting the dreaded job search. In one class a young, asian man befriended me but spoke with such a thick and quick accent that I could only hear half of what he said to me. His conversations mostly dealt with scrambled attempts to sneak peeks at my homeworks before turning them in.
Without question these are people who are destined to be short-term acquaintences and, trust me, sometimes that is a mercy. But I always get a little meloncholy at the end of each semester when I see these personalities that I have come to observe throughout the year move on in ways that will be invisible to me. And, of course, that is the best thing possible -- to end on a high note. Trust me on that too, as I've in the past refused to end some friendships that were long overdue in the hopes of wringing out one last good memory.
Over many months Linda and I have been slowly decluttering our house. We must be making some progress as we are on a first-name basis with the folks at goodwill. It was a surprising parallel, then, to learn from graduate school how to remove some emotional clutter. When I wanted to pass along my business card to some of the folks, something stopped me from doing so. Call it selfish but I enjoyed the last classes with many of these people more because I had already made up my mind to not see them again.
It was freeing to simply touch and go.
posted by Ed at 11:29 PM
1 Comments:
Very much so... there were few times I was sad I hadn't made a better contact with someone. For the most part though, I think I had the same exact exprience for grad school.
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