KJ

I somehow went over two weeks without posting anything here. Probably a combination of being busy at work, the injuries to my arms (which are slowly getting better, although I still have to wear the left wrist splint), and all the time I've spent revisiting the Ace Attorney series, about which more another time. I finish up work around 4pm most days, and then I want to take a break from my computer for awhile, and by the time I feel ready to come back, it's time for dinner, socializing online or otherwise, or my brain is just not feeling inspired. None of this is helping me finish my wipbigbang draft either. A few other things to catch up on...

My parents had their 50th wedding anniversary the weekend before last. A few years ago, they requested a potluck event at their church, but by the time we would have needed to confirm everything, we couldn't say with certainty whether an in-person event would be feasible. So we did it over Zoom, with the hopes of doing something in person next year. We had a nice time, with a good turnout but not so many people that Zoom got unwieldy; I made a slideshow which was well received, and people said nice things. And my parents were very happy with it, which is the most important thing. My family is also planning its first in-person get-together since my aunt's memorial service in December 2019 for July 4th weekend (we are all vaccinated and no one has small children), so I'm looking forward to that.

One event that I fear I will not be going to is my college reunion. Typically our reunions are the last weekend in May, two weeks after graduation (which is on Mother's Day). But the whole college schedule got pushed forward by two weeks this year, which necessitated moving reunion to the first weekend in August. We got less than two months notice that an in-person event was even happening for sure (not enough time to buy flights that aren't ridiculously expensive under normal circumstances, and plane tickets are sky-high right now), and then right before registration opened, they informed us that we won't be able to stay in the dorms because they won't have time to then get them ready for the arrival of students. I could probably roll with a pricey plane ticket or losing out on the dorm experience, but I'm not sure I'm up for dealing with both of those things. In-person registration closes on Friday, so I need to make a decision soon. We're having a class officers meeting on Thursday; maybe that will help clarify things for me. It's a tough decision, voluntarily skipping out on reunion -- I've never missed one before. But it doesn't even feel like it really counts, especially since I know a lot of other people won't be there. Maybe I can convince at least some of my friends to gather at another time, sometime more affordable to travel.

Yesterday was Bryn Mawr May Day, a celebration of the end of classes held on the last Sunday of the spring term, the turning point between the end of classes and the beginning of finals. Graduation is two weeks later; reunion, two weeks after that. This year, as you might expect, all in-person festivities were cancelled, including the various alum events around the country, but a number of activities were moved online, organized through a private Facebook group. I attended a couple of them (most notably the online Step Sing), and I took advantage of the fit of nostalgia to scan most of my college photos. I won't post them publicly here -- too many faces of people who can't consent -- but I'll think of something to do with them.

My thoughts have also turned, as they so often do when I think about Bryn Mawr lately, to the Class of 2020. And not just my Mawrter siblings, but the seniors at every school and campus from which students graduate. I'm disappointed enough to lose my 25th reunion; I can't even imagine what a blow it would have been to lose my graduation, my last May Day, senior week, three whole months of my senior year. To leave campus for Spring Break and not know that it was goodbye, to the school and to my entire community. It would have been utterly devastating. So if any of you are reading this, know that my heart aches for you, and all the losses I'm sure you're grieving right now. It's hard to believe this today, but I promise you that graduation is not an ending but a beginning, a step that brings you into the wider world of the Bryn Mawr community. You're a Bryn Mawr student for four or so years; you're a Mawrter for life, and nothing will take that away. The relationships you've forged on campus will continue to be among the most important you'll ever have, and if you stay connected to the alum network, you'll discover some amazing new ones, too.

As a member of the Class of 1995, I look forward to seeing you in five years and welcoming you into our Reunion cohort. Your 25th will be our 50th, and as far away as I'm sure 2045 feels right now (I know how impossibly distant 2020 felt when I was a senior), it'll be here before you know it. Maybe we'll look back on 2020, and we'll laugh together and we'll cry together, and we'll remember what it was like to be Mawrters together, here in this weird moment out of time.

(Although these thoughts come from my own, personal, Bryn Mawr context, I have to imagine they apply to almost anyone graduating from college this year. Your alum network is out there, too, ready to welcome you in. I hope you find whatever support you need.)

I have booked my plane tickets for my epic May travels! My 25th college reunion is the last weekend in May, and Wiscon is the weekend before. It seemed silly to go home in between, so I'll be gone for a week and a half. Flying into Madison on Thursday, 5/21 and out of Philadelphia on Sunday, 5/31. I'm sure I'll see some of you at each event -- and perhaps both??

Now, the question of how I get from Madison to Philadelphia is an open one. I have tentative plans to visit folks during the week between events. Train, bus, rent a car? I'll have to figure out and price my options. If anyone has advice, I'm happy to hear it!

auronlu asked me to post something about Bryn Mawr College, which is our shared alma mater (and as it happens our time there overlapped by a couple of years, though we didn't know each other then).

For those of you who might not be familiar, Bryn Mawr is a small, private liberal arts college in the Philadelphia suburbs. As one of the Seven Sisters, it's traditionally a women's college, although the college will now admit anyone who doesn't identify as male. That's a recent change to policy, and I think it's a good one. (The purpose of women's colleges in a world that is increasingly recognizing the problems with a binary concept of gender is an interesting question, but it's outside the scope of this entry.) There's a lot I could say about Bryn Mawr, most of it positive -- I credit my four years there with making me the person who I am today, and it was the first place I ever found a really solid group of friends, many of whom are still with me today. I was super-active in the Alumnae Association for awhile, was on the board of the local club and then the national organization for a couple of years. Then I burned out, and took a break that lasted almost 10 years. Until this year, at my 20-year reunion, where my friend A and I volunteered to be class presidents. So now that I'm back on the horse, I went to the annual volunteers training weekend for the first time in over a decade. That was the first weekend of October; it was a cold and rainy visit, but it was also energizing, and gave us lots of ideas about how to connect our classmates to each other and to the college. And of course I always appreciate the opportunity to renew my own connection. I've been to every one of my class reunions, and also a decade reunion for graduates of the 1990s in 2014, but reunion is always in the summer after the students are gone. This is the first time in ages that I've been on campus while classes are in session, so it was a real blast from the past to see the college alive with students and faculty. Not to mention that it was fall, with the leaves turning color and the greens turning to mud, which was yet another excellent source of nostalgia. I wouldn't relive my college years if you paid me -- I enjoy being an adult with money and free time, thank you -- but going back to Bryn Mawr always feels like coming home.

I would feel remiss if I didn't talk about Lantern Night, which was yesterday (and I suspect is part of the reason that auronlu asked about this). One thing that makes Bryn Mawr a special place is its cycle of traditions, and the most sacred of those traditions to me is Lantern Night. Every student at BMC receives a lantern as a symbol of the light of knowledge and belonging to the community. The lanterns are made of black metal worked into the shape of a stylized owl (representative both of knowledge and of the goddess Athena, our patron goddess for perhaps obvious reasons), and the glass panes are forged in the class color. The class of 2019 is a green class, as was the class of 1995, so I am particularly nostalgic when I look at these pictures and think back 24 years, to when I was 18, clad in a black robe, standing in line with my classmates and waiting for the moment that we would be officially welcomed into the community of Mawrters. And I also remember being a sophomore, frantically running up and down the line of lanterns, making sure they all had tea invitations firmly attached and candles safely lit, praying that the Class of '96 would have just as meaningful experience as I did. And I remember being a junior, then a senior, standing in an arch of the Cloisters, using my lantern to keep time as I sang in Greek, realizing that I would never be a part of this moment again, relishing the bittersweet cycle of time.

If any members of the class of '19 happen to be reading this, welcome to the family! I hope you had a wonderful Lantern Night, and that being a part of the College is as good an experience for you as it was for me.

I suppose it would be more accurate to say "hitting the air", since most of my travel will be by plane, but that doesn't have the same ring to it. ;) Anyway, it took a bit of wrangling to get all these ducks in their row, but on Thursday morning (early, so so early), I'll be leaving for a week-and-a-half three-city epic trip:

1. Thursday: Fly SFO to Boston, at 6:45 in the morning. :\ Why, god, why? (Answer: because it was this or the red-eye, and I'll get more sleep this way. But still. Guh.)


2. Friday: Road trip to Bryn Mawr with A!


3. Friday-Sunday: 1990s decade reunion at BMC. This is the first time I've ever gone to Reunion in an "off-year", and I'm looking forward to what I hope will be a less structured visit -- there's a few events for the '90s cluster, but it should mostly be just hanging out and chatting and relaxing at the Mawr. Anyone reading this planning to be there?


4. Sunday: Road trip back to Boston.


5. Monday-Thursday: Hanging in Boston. This is where I expect to have the most free time. If anyone is in the area and wants to hook up for coffee or whatever, let me know!


6. Friday: Fly Boston to Chicago (once again stupidly early in the morning).


7. Saturday: lassarina's wedding!! :D I am very excited to finally meet her face to face (although I have no expectations of quality time, given that it is a wedding). I hope to get some time to hang with seventhe and meet other folks, too.


8. Sunday: Meet up with Tumblr people, details pending. I should probably get on that.


9. Monday: Fly home in the early afternoon (one reasonable flight time, yes!).

Sounds suitably epic, right? :) I can't believe it's only a couple of days away.

jerkface asked: "If you could choose one fictional setting in which to live, where would it be and why? What would you do once you got there?"

There are several tempting answers to this question. Narnia comes to mind. So does the Wizarding World, post-Voldemort, and the city of Amber, and the United Federation of Planets. But the one that occurred to me right away was Blackstock College, the school that provided the setting for Pamela Dean's Tam Lin.

Tam Lin is one of my favorite books, and while there are many reasons for this, one of the most important is how much the feel of Blackstock, as described, reminds me of Bryn Mawr. And there is a small part of me that wishes I could just live at Bryn Mawr forever. So I think I would feel right at home as a member of the Blackstock community, either as a student or as a member of staff.

As for what I would do when I arrived, I think the answer to that is quite clear: be a librarian. Right? I mean, how awesome would that be?

30 Days of... Project! Complete list of questions / Ask a question on LJ or on DW.

So today I was browsing my librarian blogs, and I came across this article from the Philly Inquirer about the only male Haverford student currently living on the Bryn Mawr campus.

The article paints a picture of the lone man among a sea of women (not counting transgender students, which is a whole different story) and talks about what a change this is for the campus, but for me the real story is that there's only one, and that he's the first Haverford man to room at BMC for ten years. Because in my day -- cue olde tyme music and the waving of canes -- there were plenty of men living at BMC, enough to require two co-ed dorms. I even lived in a co-ed dorm my sophomore year (Radnor). The numbers dropped while I was there, from probably a couple of dozen men to only five or six, but men were still a presence on campus. But in hindsight, maybe that was the beginning of the end of the exchange, at least for awhile.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, really. I enjoyed my one year of co-ed living, but I didn't feel like I was missing out when I lived in women-only dorms the other three years. It's just weird, though, knowing that this place, preserved in amber in my mind, has moved beyond the place I remember. So far, whenever I've gone back, it's still been Bryn Mawr, the place I know and love. I wonder how much would have to change for that not to feel true anymore. Probably a lot -- even just looking at pictures on the net makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

The next chapter of DSHnD is up. Enjoy, if you are so inclined. ;)

And now, off to work, where I will spend the entire day in a new employee orienatation. Yes, during my fourth week. I gather they save these up until there are enough new employees to bother. So I'll probably have figured out a fair bit of it, although at least I'll finally learn what the benefits are.

This entry will have meaning only to the other Mawrters on my friends list.

So at the school where I work, the students in the medical programs are required to wear scrubs to class. Students in different programs wear different colors: medical assistants wear a medium blue, pharmacists wear hunter green, dental assistances wear purple, etc. The programs we have here are medical assisting, massage therapy (their scrubs are navy), pharmacy tech, and health information technology (maroon).

Yesterday, it hit me: light blue, dark blue, green, red.

Perhaps coming to work here was my destiny...

Last weekend was my last as a member of the executive board for the BMC alumnae association. I spent almost three years on the board (a partial term, because the position was created in the middle of the meeting cycle). For almost three years, I went to Philadelphia at least four times a year to spend a weekend with some really fun, really amazing women. I enjoyed it a great deal, and I know I'm going to miss it.

But I've been volunteering for BMC in one capacity or another (club webmistress, club events chair, this national position) since 1998, so it's time to take a break. I haven't gotten out entirely, I'm still the webmistress for my class, but the amount of work I have to do for that is pretty minimal, at least until things get going for our next reunion, which is not until 2010.

At dinner on Saturday, I made a little farewell speech where I said that I was quitting for awhile. KP made Godfather jokes, everyone laughed, but there's truth to it. We'll see how long I manage to stay away...