If college thus far has taught me anything, it is that the passage of time is a pretty strange thing. Thirty minutes on the elliptical drags out to seemingly endless sweat-laden proportions while a 30-minute nap between classes barely gives me time to rest my eyes before my alarm is screaming at me to wake before my participation grade is shot to hell.
I moan in impatient agony at the 90 seconds it takes to sufficiently microwave my Lean Pocket of choice and shift restlessly during the three-minute commercial breaks during "The O.C.," but marvel at how short a couple hours can feel when the lights flicker on to signal the close of bars (and to reveal that my dance partner might not have been the stud I believed him to be in the always flattering dim-to-no lighting).
Is it any surprise then that, nearing the end of my third year of college, I am left stunned and wondering where the time went. Evidence that there is some mistake, that I am not really on the cusp of my last year in college, surrounds me daily.
My closet is still littered with clothes from my high school days (many of which are sparkly Abercrombie shirts emblazoned with sexual double entendres ... oh come on, you had them too) that I mistakenly and wishfully keep, though it would certainly take the jaws of life to get me into them now.
The hard drive of my laptop is jam-packed with pictures from first year -- the kinds of pictures everyone takes those first novel months here. The ones that seemed so insignificant when you took them, but which stir you to nostalgia now -- there's the one of you and your roommate looking heat-stricken but happy a couple days after moving in.
There's the picture of your first year posse gathered in that one dorm room, the room you all always seemed to end up in on Friday nights (because Thursdays weren't even on your radar yet), taking sly shots of fought-over vodka and flashing tipsy smiles.
And then there's the snapshot of you and your former significant other. The one that still causes you to cry occasionally but that you will never bring yourself to delete because looking at it makes you remember the good stuff. It is the kind of picture that reminds you that the start of college was both two seconds and a million years ago.
I keep telling myself that I can't really be this close to the end of my time at the University. Part of this feeling comes from the fact that, at this point, I cannot imagine myself being anything but a college student with the freedom to go out on Wednesday and lope into my first class at 1 p.m. after a restful night's sleep (from 3 a.m. to noon, of course).
But the bigger part of this is that I can't picture myself being a real-life, self-sufficient, official adult like my older brother, who watches cable news shows and knows how to cook something more intricate than a Pop Tart. My hair and my lunch breaks are too long and my skirts are too short to ever be accepted into Adult Land with responsible people like my brother.
The other, real adults would know immediately that I was a fraud once they found out that my favorite meal in the world is SpaghettiOs (preferably the ones shaped like Ninja Turtles or sharks) and that I still count on my mom to find my shoes if I can't remember where I took them off. Hey, flip flops are easy to lose. Lay off.
As I recall, even Peter Pan had to grow up someday (or, at least he did in "Hook," when he grew up into Robin Williams). So, with this in mind, I took an internship at a very grown-up magazine in New York City, a place that I have always both feared and avoided like the plague, this summer. It will be a summer of meetings, power suits and responsibility, as opposed to the summer of lounging, tanning and umbrella drinks that I anticipated when I initially took an internship in Key West. I'm more than a month from being in the Big Apple, and I am already feeling the crush of adulthood, as I had to send in a résumé and references in order to secure my apartment and was required to sign an actual confidentiality agreement for my new employers (what do they think I'm going to do? Write a tell-all memoir about who takes two creams in their coffee and who likes it black?) But I am trying to cope with my daunting new situation. Trying to be more adult. Trying to grow up. I just hope the company cafeteria serves Ninja Turtle SpaghettiOs.
Good luck to all the graduating fourth years. You've given us third years a lot to live up to next year. We'll do our best.
Everyone else, see you next fall. We'll make it a year to remember.
Thanks for reading.
Erin's column runs bi-weekly on Mondays. She can be reached at gaetz@cavalierdaily.com.
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