Saturday, May 29, 2010
Starts with Goodbye
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
----Theodor Seuss Geisel
I’m graduating from college today.
Even though I’ve had more than a year to get used to the idea, it doesn’t seem real. According to conversations I’ve had with other seniors, I’m not alone in this feeling.
On Wednesday afternoon I was playing around on my computer when the thought crossed my mind that I should start reading for my literature class. I decided to give myself ten more minutes, and then I would start the assignment.
And then it hit me. I had no more reading. No more exams or papers. My undergraduate education was complete. I didn’t know whether to celebrate or cry, so I did a little of both. Whenever the nostalgia hits, I remind myself that it’s OK to be sad about graduating. I had so many great experiences here that it’s natural to be more than a little tearful that my college journey is over.
College was a lot harder than anyone ever told me. In indescribable ways, this has been one of the most difficult experiences of my life.
It was also one of the best. I thought the view of Oneonta from the top of the hill alone would make college worthwhile, and it turned out that the new perspectives I acquired were far more valuable.
All week I kept thinking about everything I had done over the past four years. I interned for a production company, wrote articles for the Hartwick website, and designed web pages for the nursing department’s new accelerated program. I ate lunch in Central Park, trekked through a rainforest in Madagascar, and saw the presidential inauguration in person in Washington, D.C. I have more memories than I could write about in a lifetime.
Commencement is supposed to be the beginning of the next stage of life. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for what’s coming next. In all honesty, I never imagined this day would arrive so soon. If I had the chance, I’d gladly do everything all over again.
Many more names belong on the following list, but here are the highlights of what I learned at Hartwick:
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to (Thanks Dr. Navarette).
Perfect is the enemy of good (Thanks Dr. Schramm).
You can’t fix stupid. You can, however, cure ignorant.
Everyone has something to teach you.
Just because you want people to want what you want, doesn’t mean that they will.
You can’t fix people, and you can’t change people who don’t want to change.
Life is hard; so is love.
They’re both worth it.
Stories are everywhere (Thanks Chris Lott).
It’s OK to choose another path (Thanks Dr. Bloom).
Procrastination is the enemy of productivity—but everyone does it.
Any students who claim immunity to homesickness are lying.
Friends become family, and vice versa.
The most valuable lessons are not taught in the classroom.
Always back up your work! (TRC)
Have the courage of your convictions (Thanks Dr. Cody).
Spell check has no brain (Thanks Professor Suarez Hayes).
The ending of a story must be both inevitable and surprising (Thanks Professor DeLanoy).
Graduation is only the beginning.
I’m still working on that last one. Like so many other aspects of life, it’s a work-in-progress.
I learned what no one mentions in the brochures. College taught me about homesickness, failure, initiative, understanding, and so much more. In a hundred small ways over the past four years, I learned how smart my parents were and how much my college family meant to me. I learned that leaps of faith are terrifying and sometimes you fall, but most of the time when you do there is someone there to catch you.
In a few hours I will cross a stage with 306 other students and become a graduate. With sniffles and smiles, we will celebrate the conclusion of our college careers and the beginning—the commencement—of everything that comes next. Wish me luck.
Thank you for reading.
Farewell for now,
Alicia
Monday, May 10, 2010
Good Day To Be Me
“If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.”
----Vincent van Gogh
“It’s one of the Olsen twins!” a voice shouted from the back of the bus. Sure enough, the painfully thin Mary-Kate exited a cab just outside our window. Though she couldn’t hear us, I wondered if celebrities ever became used to people exclaiming wherever they went.
One week ago I was on a bus in New York City. Unlike previous excursions, I had made no concrete plans. I simply wanted to take in the city as it was and perhaps meander my way to Central Park at some point.
I was dropped off near Bryant Park around 10 a.m. I crisscrossed the streets, trying not to look like a tourist. After forty minutes or so of wandering and people watching, I decided to find some air conditioning. I looked up to see a sign for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Several blocks later I walked out of the heat and into the cool lobby. I paid my admission and picked up a neat little device the size of a slender walkie-talkie that promised to tell me all I ever needed to know about a particular work. I am so used to viewing the world through words that I thought it would be an enlightening experience to spend the day studying different ways of conveying ideas and emotions.
Now, I’m not an expert by any means, but I know Picasso from Pollack and Vermeer from Velázquez. I didn’t have any experience with modern art and my reactions ranged from “Wow, that’s amazing” to “That’s art?” Beyond the anticipated paintings, sculptures, and photographs, I learned that art is a woman in white staring at her spectators. Art is functional furniture. Art is a film of an artist painting and running the footage backwards. Who decides what art is? On a more informal note, I wonder if one must have one of those combination scarf/ponchos to be an “Official Art Scholar.” I see a number of them during my visit.
In each gallery, I notice the guards standing sentry-like in the corners, nearly sculptures themselves. As one guard comes to life to chide a visitor for using his camera flash, I wonder if a deep commanding voice is a prerequisite for this kind of work. I imagine myself in a similar position and suspect the patrons would laugh at my high voice and keep snapping photos.
It takes me a minute to figure out how to work my little tour guide device. I felt like a secret agent. There’s something futuristic about wandering around listening to distant voices talk about the art and what the artist meant and so on. Could the artists who produced these works have imagined their creations dissected in this way—one explanation in a sea of opinions? Nevertheless, I’m far too busy punching in random numbers on the keypad to ponder the greater possibilities of this train of thought.
The most unusual part of visiting a museum is the jolt of the unexpected. Seeing my first name spray painted on the slats of a green metal bench next to a white-haired woman older than my grandmother in a park taken seven years before I was born. Finding a Georgia O’Keefe near the elevator. Discovering Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory was akin to a celebrity sighting and I felt like one of those rude Hollywood partygoers who march up to minor stars and demand “Are you someone?”
And then I see it.
As much of a dolt as this will make me sound, I had no idea The Starry Night, my absolute most favorite work of art in the world, was here. In retrospect this is a good thing, because if I had known I would have spent the majority of my four-plus hours at the museum agape in front of it.
It’s pretty ridiculous, the level of adoration I have for this painting. It was the first print I ever purchased. I bought a copy at a poster sale my freshman year. I used to probe it for inspiration as I wrote papers on everything from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf.
I wonder if The Starry Night is always assigned its own museum person—like a personal bodyguard. The gentleman standing guard looks like a formidable fellow, but he is polite as he asks visitors to step back a bit. I don’t envy him the task. The cluster of people surrounding it never disperses entirely. I picture the morning’s exchange in a break room somewhere: “So, Jones, where’d they put you today?” “I got The Starry Night. Again.” “Man, somebody has it in for you.”
As I ponder these silly thoughts, I skim the Picassos in a nearby gallery before returning to The Starry Night. I am briefly distracted by the Matisses, but soon find myself a respectable distance from the beloved painting. Even the special exhibitions on the first floor, photographs of Coco Chanel and Truman Capote cannot claim my attention for long.
Some time later I find myself in the sculpture garden on the first floor. I have saved this place for last. It’s an oasis in the center of museum mayhem, all fountains and shade, trees and birdsong (all right, and the occasional siren—this is New York City, after all). As I listen to the murmur of people around me, I think about how refreshing it is to realize how many ways people have of understanding the world. Art, like writing, is a path to communicating ideas, emotions, and experiences. Sometimes one afternoon outside the classroom can be as enlightening as an entire week spent inside it.
Farewell for now,
Alicia
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Little Did I Know
“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”
----Thomas H. Huxley
On Saturday afternoon I attended the “Real Housewives of the 19th Century” event in the Yager Museum. The Museum Education class offered the program. It was one of those times where I went someplace on a whim and ended up learning far more than I had planned.
Outside of the museum doors were several greeters stationed near the food. The refreshment table had finger sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, corn chowder, petits fours and other taste treats from the era. I had never tried a petit four; I was pleased to discover that it was as delectable as I had always hoped.
Inside, I picked up a scavenger hunt sheet from a student at the front table. My task was to visit different tables throughout the room and learn about 19th century customs. If I filled in the answers found at each display, I could enter a prize drawing.
My first stop was the calling card table. Before the telephone was invented, people would visit one another’s homes and leave calling cards to let the occupants know they had stopped by. Until that day, I thought of calling cards as short notes, but I found out that visitors were not supposed to write on the cards at all.
Based on the size of the card, a person could tell if the visitor was a man or woman, as well as the visitor’s marital status. Even a corner of the card folded down could mean everything from “Sorry I missed you” to “Congratulations!” Apparently it was poor etiquette to ignore someone’s card. Even though most of the social responsibilities were handled by women, their decisions could influence their husbands’ work as well. If two wives didn’t get along, it would be difficult for their husbands to do business with one another. It was clear that I had underestimated the importance of domestic life in that time period.
I moved on to the quilting table. Each quilt square had a different meaning. After I made a cardboard quilt square of my own, I studied an exhibit on African-American women and their place in the domestic sphere. I was amazed at the number of household furnishings that were made by hand at that time.
I played a different game at the dining table. Using construction paper utensils, I tried to replicate the place setting at a dinner party. Guests during that time period used more than one fork, and I kept mixing them up. Fortunately, some of the Museum Education students were there to set me straight. I was surprised to learn how often families held dinner parties in those days.
At the flower table, I found out that immigrant women and children used to make paper flowers for the upper classes to use as brooches and decorations. I also noticed a table about Native American women and their beadwork. One of the most interesting parts of the entire experience was seeing the ways an individual culture created rituals of daily life. It was a fine way to spend part of an otherwise dreary day. I am glad I was able to attend.
Farewell for now,
Alicia
P.S. For anyone who hasn’t seen “Once on This Island” yet, make reservations right now!
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