Lotzothoughtz

Anything I can say in regards to Virginia’s Day of Mourning for the VT wounded and dead is woefully inadequate.  Today I went to work, wore a pin, wore maroon, and observed the silence by myself at 12 noon.

I and my Radford friends and fellow Alumni are fully behind and supportive of our friends and family at Tech.

Here is a link to an RU page showing how Radford supported and remembered those at Tech today.

When you graduate from college you are left with a lot of crap. From plastic drawers on wheels, blankets, pillows, cold medicines from when you were sick, paper bowls, forks, peanut butter, obscure ticket stubs and well….you get the idea. Why would I have all of this stuff? Pretty much because when you are in college you set up a parallel “household” away from your permanent residence. You tend to buy duplicates of stuff you have at your permanent home because its easier to buy than travel with all that stuff. During breaks and summers and such at school you typically pack everything in boxes ’til your return trip to school or for those who really live far away you rent a space in the college town to keep all your stuff in until your return. However when you graduate you are left with a ton of odds and ends, some of which you really can’t use anymore.

So here I am with boxes and bags of stuff leftover from my good old days. And I’m having trouble letting go of most of it, half of the stuff has some sort of memory attached to it or its something that is still useful and you kinda feel bad about getting rid of something that is in good working order. I have to get rid of most of this though, I really hate having so much stuff…..especially in an apartment, just not good. I’m probably going to have to do what I’ve done before, just throw stuff away that while I may like it I haven’t used or thought about in a month or more.

This makes me kinda miss the dorm a little, just a little.

[sigh]

I wonder what I’m gonna do with all this stuff.

[throws hands up]

Everything is weird when you graduate from college. First off the only constant in your life (education) for past 16 years or more is gone. That is strange enough, you’ve been trained and drilled on how to be a student and now you’re not a student any longer. What are you? Just another guy with a degree.

In addition to that you are faced with changes in your social world, which is a huge support for people. So you are entering into a big unknown world with your friend group eroding around you. Everything is seemingly new and strange and different.

But in that destruction there is promise of a new world, a new life; a new you? You’ve trudged through academia and survived and now your reward (in theory at least) is a nice job with benefits and enough money so that you can start off comfortably. In looking for a job you are finally asserting with a definitive voice that you are now an individual ready and will to diverge yourself from your family’s house (again, in an ideal world). You are ready now to be your own house, your world now belongs only to you and no one holds you accountable for the time being.

This is freedom, the future is yours to decide and embrace or destroy as you will.