It looks like freedom but it feels like death (its something inbetween I guess)

There is an insane energy in this place during graduation. I don't think I picked up on it when I was here for the '06 event, because I hadn't experienced the...well, the ritual...but now that I've gone through it, its something you can almost taste in the air.

No wonder this campus is so haunted.

I'm not going to post any deep reflections, or anything like that---I've already sent out my touchy-feely songs to the people who had an event today.

Maybe that was part of what was strange about it---the whole thing felt so much like our Graduation, a year ago, but it wasn't us. We weren't changing. We were there to support. Emily hit the nail on the head, when she said that in some ways, this time was more fun---we weren't stressed, overwrought, burned out...we were just enjoying it for what it was.

There wasn't the sense of inevitable loss--since we were back, and seeing people, it seemed so self-evident that we would see people again. My experiences have held that up---even outside of working here.

I guess that's the other thing to write about here: there was a bit of a transition for me today, though certainly not anything near the magnitude of the graduates. I stopped being an instructor at a college, and went back to being a Freelance Director. As silly as that sounds, I realize now that I've been self-identifying with the job to a pretty intense degree---I've been in a lot of situations where I'm stuck in with much older people, and I've had that to fall back on. I've felt the need to (at least briefly) re-format my public appearance: I felt the need to appear as a "Faculty member," and so I tended to use that not only as a crutch, but as a bit of a mask (ooooohhh...he's using a Greek Theatre metaphor....asshole). No, but seriously---walking off campus today, I really felt like something lifted off me--a lot of pressure gone suddenly, and I was allowed to be...well, a recent college graduate again. The thing is, I know all of this was totally self-imposed pressure/self imagined...whatever...but I hadn't realized that it was actually tieing me up.

So! Dave comes into town tomorrow! "Of Mice and Men" tech week starts!

Lets see how this goes----