The epigraph to my Kingsley project is a quote from Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (potentially the defining text of my undergraduate career, since I've read it every semester since my enrollment at Kenyon College, and it was the first text I was assigned to read for a college class): "Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation." I wonder if the same is true of when one's occupation of student is temporarily suspended.
Usually, upon completing final exams I return to my dorm room to flop into the center of my mattress and order a pizza with my room mate before driving home to spend a week watching cable television and eating my weight in pasta. Here, though, I feel lost, rather than relieved upon the submission of finals. I'm drafting this post from my second residence in Chicago--the second booth from the right at Argo Tea--because I don't know what else to do on a Sunday afternoon. I'm filling my days with applications and DVDs because a.) it's exceptionally cold here and b.) all semester I have defined myself by that which I needed to complete. Now that my project is, indeed, complete, what am I to do?
I know I should leap from my seat and, despite the cold, skip down the sidewalk to all of the Chicago places I have not yet seen, but I can't seem to do it. Does this mean I am officially past the point of tourism and have potentially entered the label of residence? Am I just tired? Or, am I completely lost without my master status of student/scholar?
This whole experience has been like one massive game of dress-up, except, instead of donning a princess dress or a witch's hat, I've been dressing up as an adult. Responsibility, solo living, pencil skirts, 7 a.m. wake up calls, and basically no undergraduate partying--what have I been doing with myself? And, how can I return to a cinder block dorm room and Papa Johns pizza, PBR, potato triangles in the dining hall, and all-nighters? I'm very excited to return to my friends, professors and routines, but I think it might take me a while to re-adjust. Based on my current confusion, however, I'll be happy to have a few dozen chapters to read and papers to write.
Until then, I have a presentation of Wednesday to stress out about, and then, it's official. ACM Newberry Semester: owned. And over.
