finally

finally

May 6, 2009, 1:57 pm
Filed under: People, Uncategorized | Tags: end of the year

 

The outside of my apartment.

So technically, it’s been finals week since Monday, but my first and only exam begins at 3:30 today. I feel like I’ve studied to the point that my brain can’t really hold any new information. At this point anything I try to put in through studying seems to bounce back out. This is why I’ve pretty much stopped studying at this point and am blogging. If I were going to do badly on this exam (Linguistics), I’d know it; my friend Sarah, who’s in the class with me, figured out that even if we (at this point we have the same grade) get a B- on the final, we’ll still have an A- for the class. So I feel okay about it.

 

My roommate Marcella and I in our apartment.

I’m actually really sad about school ending. This year was very new for me; I was living with one of my best friends, I have an awesome boyfriend who goes here (at least he did first semester), I joined an a cappella group and met a ton of new people, and I genuinely enjoyed all of my classes. I’ll be more sad about moving out of my apartment than anything else. Suffice it to say I had the most fun this year at school than I ever have before. I even have grown to love Linguistics, something I never even considered studying. If I had more time at UConn I might have considered minoring in it; but unfortunately, I won’t be able to.

My only complaint is with Residence Life. They have been completely unhelpful in sorting out housing matters for me and my future roommates next year. Because of their shortcomings we are going to have a random roommate and my friend who was meant to live with us first semester has nowhere to stay. It’s frustrating, but I’m guessing lots of students have experienced the same problems with them.

Today I’m particularly sad, because it’s a lovely day and campus looks particularly nice right now. All the trees are green and budding and there are only some puffy clouds in the sky. It’s sunny and warm and so beautiful I could almost cry, I don’t want to pack up my things and say goodbye to my friends and be four hours away from Jan, I don’t want to sit around every day at home looking for something to do. I wish I could take a class up here or just lengthen the semester so my friends could stay here too. So many of my close friends are graduating; I can’t really imagine how they feel right now. I don’t know what I’d do out in the great expanse of the future. Driving through Newport this past weekend I felt like I haven’t really accomplished much, partially because I know the people there are richer than I’ll ever be, and also because it reminded me of my favorite book, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. The book opens in Newport, with a crowd around a mansion’s concrete wall, desperate to see the spectacle within. I want to be inspired by something like Kurt, my favorite author, was inspired by the tall gates and marble homes of Newport. I want to see everything.

One of the mansions in Newport.

 

This summer, as cruel as I make it sound, may actually be one of the best. I’m going to Block Island for two weeks as per usual, staying in the house my family has been renting for years. Right after my 22nd birthday my family and I are going to Provence, in the south of France, for two weeks, to stay in an old farmhouse on 40 acres of lavender farms. It’s the type of thing most people only dream about, and I do too, I just don’t want to know how I’ll feel after I get back and the whole of August stretches before me unkindly and I have nothing to fill it with.

I want to make art this summer and run and do all the things I think about but never go through with. This means I’ll have to motivate myself somehow. If Jan gets his job in Newport then I’ll be up there fairly often, I’m hoping, with plenty of time to just wander. I plan on doing the entire cliff walk, a 3 mile hike around the cliffs on the edge of town. I want to sneak into mansions and find the haunted rooms and do cartwheels on their finely manicured lawns. I’ll get there, I’m sure, it might just take a while.

For now, though, I’m just sad to leave this place. I’m sure I’ll feel the same warmth and safety of being back on campus in September, but I am still adjusting to letting go of the time I’ve had here recently and saying goodbye to good friends and places. It was a very good year.

Robin

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