Notes from the Desk Graduation is like death

Author: Ilhan Kim

I lied. I never went to go visit my jailbird buddy John Chetuck over Christmas as I promised in my last Notes. But I've been doing other good things like cooking dinner for my friends, representing Brainerd Commons for the Iron Chef competition, running a grassroots campaign to bring the Korean language to Middlebury, building a ten-person igloo in front of 82 Adirondack House, dyeing my hair copper and gold in succession, and making sure that professors and deans look stunning in the paper.

Not visiting John and what I've been doing otherwise don't really correlate, but they give you a sum sense of how I've been keeping busy my last semester at Middlebury. Now, you can say that I've been spreading myself thin (considering I haven't gotten to seen Connor, my seven-year-old Community Friend, since December), but I like to think positively. So let's jus≠t say that I'm trying to squeeze in everything I always wanted to do at Middlebury my first three years into the two months that I have left. It's ambitious, but definitely do-able.

Frankly, I'm on edge. I feel old now when I look at the mirror (I'm 22) and I feel like I'm being pushed off a treacherous cliff come the end of May. I hate clichÈs, but yes, it really does seem like just yesterday when I was jumping around in my dad's underwear, screaming, "I want Mommy!" And now I have to decide whether I should become a corporate minion in New York or London or live at home and start up my own T-shirt company. Then I don't have to look at MOJO all day long and I can scrap the whole job search process altogether. Ha! I already have one! No, my parents won't buy it.

Graduation is like death. No more breakfast beers, minute-long keg stands or anything else you wouldn't tell your kids about even when they're old enough to know. It sneaks up on you like a thief in the night and robs you of your innocence and childish ways. But the worst part of it all is that you see it coming and it floods your mind with unnecessary fear and anxiety. It's made me want to speed-dial my psychiatrist and look for silly, mindless activities to cope with this unfriendly exit approaching me on May 27. It's scary, but like all matters in life, there is always hope.

I find hope in knowing that I've lived it up here since day one and I intend to ride out the dwindling days in equal fashion. You can find me cooking up a healthy batch of honey-ginger tea for the ill or an unhealthy batch of Annie's Mac & Cheese for the famished at the Gamut Room on Tuesday nights at 11 o'clock or spinning Korean and Jewish music in the WRMC studio in upper Proctor with Sam Temes on Thursday mornings at 9:30 am. ≠ You can also find me, on occasion, in my igloo meditating while enjoying some tasty beverages. But even that, too, will come to end when spring comes and the snow melts. So? I accept. And I move on.