- art market paper
- independent study paper
- Logic Final: learn Godel’s Incomplete Theorem, do proofs faster/better
- have a ridiculous time with friends
- pack
- graduate
- go home
Author / Halley
Summer, not quite.
There is no doubt that summer is officially here. I’ve finally given in and decided to move my sweaters to the suitcases, because I’m simply don’t have enough hangers for the newly added summer wardrobe and the closet is starting to look a bit claustrophobic. This could also be the start of…packing. Packing up my life here at Duke for the very last time. It’s going to a sad exercise.
But I’m not quite done yet. Before I can throw my hands up in celebration for the completion of this semester, and college, there are just several more papers and one last final to be done. And then…and then it’s graduation, saying goodbyes, and going home. I don’t think I ever imagined college graduation very much. I kind of stopped anticipating the future because I got too busy figuring out the present. I remember all through out high school I impatiently waited and dreamed of college; in fact, my whole life I’ve looked forward and fantasized about college. Once I got here, the dreaming, the fantasizing just all stopped. Staying on top of the present was enough to occupy all of my thoughts, tomorrow will come, and usually sooner than I expected.
After this summer I won’t be coming back. Somehow, I imagined four years to last a bit longer than this.
Why do I have to pick?!
The main reason I’m a double major is because I didn’t want to pick. If I like A and B and I can’t choose I just get both (this is a terrible mentality when I’m shopping…but that’s beside the point). Except apparently Duke only awards ONE diploma, regardless of how many majors I have completed. Which means:
- I have to choose between graduating with B.S. or B.A. (apparently I’m receiving the B.A. as of right now)
- I have to choose between wearing a gold or white hood (I bought the gold)
- I have to choose between sitting with my friends (who are all econ majors) and being at a much more personal and smaller ceremony.
To make matters worse…I’m probably graduating with distinction in economics (which is my second major now) but I’m receiving a B.A. for philosophy. How the hell is this suppose to work?!
I don’t understand why Duke can’t just give me a B.A. AND and B.S. and allow me to attend both the econ and philosophy diploma ceremony. I hate having to choose 😡
I thought
I was so sure of everything, and now it seems like I’m sure of nothing. It’s like every time I learn something new, I also realize just how little I do know. Every time I thought I could be sure about something, I only realize how much more uncertainty there is in life. But these uncertainties no longer bother me. I finally believe that it’s okay to be uncertain, to not know. I will wait patiently and find out, because I know one day I will.
Someone once told me that the beauty of youth comes from the endless possibilities there are, but the pain of uncertainty is just the other side of that same coin.
april heat
The heat makes my head spin, the sunlight is blinding, the sudden greenness is almost overwhelming, and the entire world seems engulfed in pollen. These are the last days of Duke, the last days of a stage. I still remember the first time I saw the campus, it wasn’t all that different: unbelievably green, lush flowers blooming, beautiful gothic architecture, and the stifling heat waves. Of course, I’m different. I remember the excitement, the anticipation and the curiosity I held as I roamed the campus, getting lost and then finding my ways again. Strictly speaking, I should still feel excitement, anticipation and curiosity, and I do to some degree. But there’s also a good dose of apprehension, though tempered by optimism, about the future that I did not have before.
This anxiety, I’m sure, is just a temporary thing. The present will always have more hold upon me than past or future.
Although I still remember it used to snow in Cleveland in April.
Chiaroscuro 