whims

Summer ends

Well, it's true - it's August 22 (Happy Birthday Adam) and I have one more week of work at MQUP (McGill Queen's University Press) and 2 weeks-1day until school starts again. Who can believe it? I guess I can; this summer has been the longest ever.

So, I arrived in December, started school, shivered myself to sleep each night, did my homework, wandered lost around cold Montreal, tried to make friends but generally felt quite lonely, missed home, missed Peru, celebrated Easter with Pascale's family, started French, lost a roommate, found two more, had a few people visit, volunteered, danced, got addicted to Grey's Anatomy, figured out how to cook/shop/clean for myself, went to the gym and spent a grande majority of my time in my office, plugged into my computer. Three months of this passed and when April rolled around, my classes ended and the studying began. I remember walking into my POLI exam, it was light out, fresh, but not cold, and I realized where I was, the gravity of my change hit me. People with similar last names as me gathered in the big gym, a good 300 of us stuck in the same room. An under-paid or perhaps simply PMSing TA read us our rules, over and over again, broken record from big-impersonal university hell. I finished my exam as the exam time ended, by which point most of my fellow students had already escaped the stagnant air, a surpise to me as I had sat at the front of my column of 20. I looked around, recognized not one face, and walked out just as I had walked into my first lecture: alone. It was a walk I had made many times - from the gym to the metro - but rarely with sun shining in my face and even more rarely with the feeling of accomplishment and belonging the hit me softly in the stomach at that moment. I looked at my McGill ID card and finally felt I had earned it. I had never had to celebrate such a moment alone before in my life and doing it took some deep sigh and tosses of the hair, reminding myself that it didn't matter, but I did celebrate. I celelbrated doing it-getting here, pushing myself through those lonely classes, study nights, and walks home from the gym. I celebrated finally writing an exam for a course pertaining to my field of study. I celebrated making one step forward toward a clear goal: graduation. It was also a moment of realism: I had never expected to have to celebrate by myself, to pat my own self on the back and have no one else's within reach. I celebrated the jouney then, the process, having somewhere left to go. I knew I would continue to better my MOntreal experience, and I was happy to at least have done as much as I had.

This summer certainly did that. I made new friends, tried new things, filled my days with full time work and my evenings with tennis, chats, friends, and concerts. I can probably count on my fingers the amount of suppers I made at home and can safely say one of my biggest challenges was keeping enough food inthe fridge to make myself lunch. I traveled: NYC, NE, VT (and gonig again this weekend) I laughed, I fought, I dealt with feeling lesser than my older friends, reminding myself that I'm doing pretty good for 21. Lost 2 more roommates, found one more. Bought clothes. Biked everywhere. Made "art" - crafts, but whatever, it's a step. Danced. Started a French course in an attempt in to make up for lost time..tabernacle, it's not an easy one and my dilligence could use some sharpening. It's been a completley different life for me. It's sunny and warm (even though a jacket was required until July at night). I'm working. I have time to just whatever. I have friends. I know the streets. Montreal's a new city in the summer: festivals and people, life, smiles. I'm curious how this next semesmter will be, but I can only see good things. I'm ready to get my mind back in the game, ready to explore intellectually and remind myself and my friends that my first passion is school and learning. I'm excited to have someone to turn to when I need a study break and I'm excited to keep working and be less of a spoiled mooching brat :) It's all optimism at this point, but I'll ride it out, won't question it, because I know come mid-October I'll just be wishing for a few more hours of sleep and an afternoon of not-enough-to-do. But until then.....

posted by Marielly @ 1:24 PM