Unfulfilled goals, ambivalence part of graduation
Consequences cause difficult decisions
EDITOR’S NOTE: This column
was first printed in the April 1980
Graduation Supplement. It is
being reprinted because of its
author’s excellent insight into the
hearts of many graduating sen
iors.
By Peg Sheldrick
Staff Reporter
This really is more about conse
quences than decisions, but conse
quences arc part of what makes de
cisions difficult, and so arc related.
First, let me say that I always
have been a “good” student. 1
never worked particularly hard at
it, or at least never felt like I did,
but I always was a good student.
I always figured one of these
years they’d find out I wasn’t as
smart as they seemed to think 1
was. But they never did. The good
student image persisted.
<= It carried me along from kindcr
■gj garten through elementary school,
2 to junior high and high school, and
£ even into college. Through four
> years I held on, giving me a safe,
*, 5 familiar role to play.
J 2 I still was playing the second
A | semester of my senior year - 365
§ days ago - when the end of that
5 particular stretch of road came into
f sight.
< That I immediately should pass
into graduate school and further
scale the heights of academia was
manifestly clear to some members
of my family. But for me, for the
first lime in a long time, the an
swers weren’t so clear.
I put off inquiring about grad
schools ’til it was too late. I took
my GRE on the last possible date
and looked at my scores only once
when they came back. Little by
little the knowledge grew inside
me that I would not be going to
graduate school.
1 fell guilty about family and
friends’ unfulfilled expectations
even before the last ceremony.
I remember my graduation in
snatches; mostly 1 remember the
unspoken tensions of that day. The
woman in the robe that strode to the
stage, head bowed to hold the mortar
board in place, seemed then, and
seems now, like another person,
the quintessential paper chaser,
keenly aware of being all dressed
up but having no place to go alter
stepping off the garlanded platform.
That figure in the robe has fol
lowed me through the year since,
and even now lingers in a card
board frame on my desk.
The face in the picture smiles
but the muscles arc flexed just a bit
too tight, the eyes squint too far
closed, arm is tightly clasped around
a friend who will be leaving too
soon and a moment that will not
last.
Al ter the day of that picture, the
woman in the robe would reappear
every now and then, silently sum
ming up what I had left behind.
She chased me through the sum
mer, to Minneapolis, to Winnipeg,
Canada. I found her waiting in my
parents’ home when I came for a
visit. She lingered in odd corners of
my old apartment when 1 returned
from traveling. At night in the
shadow of her black robe, I would
search my ceiling though wet eyes
for the answers I still lacked.
Gradually, I found that I could
put her from my thoughts by focus
ing on work and people directly in
front of me. If I didn ’t look too far
ahead or back, she left me for a
while. And I found the “real world’’
was the same place I always had
been, that activity and inactivity
arc only as empty as you allow
them to be.
I found myself shying away from
commiuncnls, taking work as a tem
porary' secretary one month, a ware
house worker another.
After long thought, I re-entered
classes -- as an extension student,
studying at night things I never
tried to learn the four years of days
before. 1 found my way back to the
See DECISIONS on 7
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Real Life
Continued from Page 3
In “I’ll Take One In Every Color:
The Value of An Occasional Splurge,’
Klcinman notes the psychological
benefits of sporadic splurges, saying
that a first-run movie or dinner out
shouldn’t break the new graduate’s
bankbook — but should provide a
desperately needed mental break. Hems
such as posters and books also make
Klcinman’s splurge list.
Klcinman lists how to deal w ith
life, stress and what to do when life
isn’t going well. She also explains
that “your first year won’t last 365
days. It may take eight months and
fourteen minutes, or fourteen months
and eight days. You’ll know you’ve
made it through w hen you realize that
you almost like working and have
stopped spending your weeks won
dering what you’d be doing ‘at this
very second' if you were still on
campus.”
Simple recipes are included (in
“WHAT Did You Call That Room
With The Fridge? Ah Yes, The
Kitchen”) for the graduate that never
learned to cook, and Klcinman ad
vises new cooks not to worry about
their cooking skills or repetitive menus.
“Most people,” she says, “would
rather cal duck a la orange at your
house for the fourth time rather than a
tuna melt in their own kitchens.”
“Real Life 101” provides a well
rounded view for the graduate, and
the book gives the student tips on
every aspect of the first year out of
college. The information contained
within its covers will most likely
reassure many about-to-bc and recent
graduates.
Moving
Continued from Page 4
these booklets include ways to use
bubble wrap and Styrofoam “pea
nuts” in packing and how to balance
the load in the truck.
Morey said it is important to put
heavier items in the front of the truck.
Besides graduates, Morey said,
Ryder gets a lot of business during the
summer because children arc out of
school, and it’s a good time for fami
lies to relocate.