This Saturday was “100 Nights until graduation”, and here I sit, two days later, with nothing but chafed nipples by which to remember it (I will not be elaborating on this). I suppose I will also remember it by the millions of selfies on Facebook and, of course, my literal memory. Technically, Saturday actually marked 98 nights until graduation, but apparently the moon didn’t feel the need to align with socially appropriate drinking days.
I have a lot of feelings about 100 Nights, especially because it seems like this seminal event which should be a big wake-up call, one that reminds me to do things like pay the utmost attention in all my classes (I mean an uncomfortable amount of attention. Like the engaging in an hour and fifteen minute long staring contest with your professor type of attention). It should remind me that there are only 100 nights left before I have to find a job, before I venture out into the “real world” (read: my job at a summer camp) with nothing but a degree from Vassar on my back. That’s it. Just the degree. I won’t be able to afford a shirt.
Luckily for me, my friends have been very successful in procuring employment, which has led me to believe that working at the aforementioned summer camp is totally fine for a post-grad job, and I can just live in their basement when I find out that apartments won’t just let you trade them your original spoken-word poetry in exchange for rent and utilities.
100 Nights, while it didn’t in any way remind me about any of these practical things, did show me how much I have grown since freshman year. For example, I have lost my VCard a total of zero times this semester. This is a remarkable change from the days when I would leave the back window of Cushing open because at some point during the day I would lose my VCard and inevitably be locked out; however, if I left the back window open, I could clamber on through that way, which doubled as a forearm workout and practice in how not to flash people while falling headfirst through a window.
I am also now considerably better at rejecting unwanted advances. My sophomore year, I once told a man that I couldn’t dance with him because I was getting my head X-Rayed in the morning. At the wise old age of 21, I have learned not to make any bizarre medical excuses. Instead, should I want to avoid a dance partner, I just dive to the ground and pretend to swim away. This usually makes them leave and involves a lot less thinking. I’ve always been more of a “do-er.”
Similarly, I have learned that it is wise to hold in any weirdly developed crushes—like, say there is a guy who eats his pizza with a knife and a fork. Some people may find this grounds for murder, but this writer might find that oddly adorable and will therefore fall in love with said man over the course of one slice of Bacio’s.
I have learned by now that the correct thing you do when you fall in love with someone based on a weird quirk and not based on actual reasons (for example, personality) is to suppress those feelings and not to shout out your affections at them as you sprint away in the opposite direction.
My personal growth has even extended as far as my classes. For example, I recently learned that if you do the reading, you don’t have to go to class wearing clothes the same color as the paint on the wall in the hopes the teacher will assume you are a wandering chameleon and therefore can’t answer questions.
I think it’s safe to say that I have reached maturity. I eat at least one vegetable per week, only half of my pants have holes in the crotch and I often use words such as “problematic.” Thanks, 100 Nights, for the time of reflection and also for a great chance to make faces at people I don’t like behind their backs. Maturity, thine name is Lily.