Student Life

I've been thinking about being a student lately.

Not for me specifically--although I am technically still a student, having this ridiculous thesis still haging over my head, I spend a far larger portion of my time working my 8-5 adult job. More on the theoretical level.

I loved being a student. One of the main reasons I do the job I do is because I want to remain in an academic environment. I love the learning, the curiosity, the limitless ambitions. I love the crazy hours. I love the sharing and germinating of ideas, the brainstorming, the creative process, the comparing, the analyzing. I love the hammering out the best way to express your thoughts.

Since I work with students (I am a "Student Services Advisor," in the vague lingo of my university) I spend a fair portion of my time comparing my life as it is right now to what it was just a few short years ago. It really wasn't that long ago that I was in undergrad, in the same place they were, with all the drama, dreams, and drinking that they routinely engage in.

I remember a friend's mother reproaching us for complaining that we were sleepy and overworked in college: We had class for a couple hours a day, dance practice for another couple hours, and called it a full day? Try working straight for eight hours, she said. We'd see.

Well, I'm seeing. Life after college isn't all it's cracked up to be, but nevertheless, I think this period of my life is pretty good to me. I like the challenge of finding the perfect solution for each student who comes in to see me, not only the one that seems the most obvious, but the one that will benefit him or her in the long run. For every blithering idiot who comes in, there are two geniuses, and five or six normal students. I make a real, personal connection with about one in ten. No day is ever the same. When I cheekily say I work for world peace, I really mean it.

Yet, there are so many times I'd rather be lazing on a Union chair on the Terrace. I miss Danville, but I don't really want to go back. Even more, I miss Madison, and if given the chance, I'd move back there.