A Part of the Grinnell Experience

Wanted to get a word in before the end of the month and our trip away...  Going to Grinnell, Iowa for a few days to reconnect with friends and colleagues at my alumni reunion.  20 years since I "graduated" there.  It's in quotes because I didn't want to use an asterisk.

The story of my graduation is a culmination of my childhood or teenhood.  I grew up that day.  In a hurry.

I wore the gown, after having traversed the multitudinous syllabi and reaching the apex of requirements.  At least, I thought I had paid the right people for the desired results...

I had plans to pull out my wallet once I walked across the stage to face then president of the college, Pamela Ferguson (did I spell that correctly?) and settle my tab.  "What do I owe you?" I would ask her in my best theatrical voice.

But I stammered, mentally.  I got worked up and worried.  Nervous.  So I stepped in front of her, holding my wallet, and stood there.  She smiled and handed me my diploma folder.  I fumbled with my wallet, then took the folder, juggling.  I think I even shook her hand (details are not very clear).

It was now time for me to exit the stage.  My moment had passed, and I had not taken full advantage of it.  This was to be a bit of a metaphor for my academic experience while at Grinnell.  I was confused-- I couldn't see where my classmates had gone to get off the stage.  Which way was I supposed to walk?  I didn't see stairs or a ramp or anything.

So I finally acted and zigged instead of zagging.  I walked over to the back of the platform, behind the backs of the faculty and other dignitaries sitting in their folding chairs on the stage, and jumped off. 

It was totally unrehearsed, just me getting through it, muddled mind and all.  I don't recall the reaction of the crowd.  I just remember what happened next.

I stepped into the shade of one of the great trees there on central campus and opened the diploma folder.  But there was no diploma in it.  Instead, there was a note explaining that I had not satisfied the requirements for my successful graduation.

A friend walked up to me, laughing and joking with me for jumping off the back of the stage.  He saw me open the folder and experience the let down.  He commiserated with me as my thoughts swirled.  I knew that I had come up short in my French class.  That had to be it.

Soon I was surrounded by family.  I was totally defeated.  I had failed!  All that work, all that money.  What a waste of time!  I was humiliated and despondent.  I was inconsolable.

In the next couple days I learned that I had actually flunked my French final and earned a "D" in the class.  I had been so distracted by the fact that I broke up with my girlfriend the night before the final that I had failed to study well.  But the work hadn't been done for the whole semester, really.  I hated that I had to take a language class as part of my major.  Wasn't studying English enough?  And I was so nervous and anxious in those classes, so much going on and me not able to figure out what it was.  I couldn't get over the hump and relax enough to learn.  So I avoided the classes.

I was also erroneously enlivened by the fact that I had worked on and given a good oral report.  I had figured that this was my ultimate weakness-- speaking-- as I had trouble speaking up in class in a language that I had been speaking all of my life.  It was shyness, yes, but also perhaps social anxiety.  I couldn't think straight when I didn't know for sure what was going on.  I'd get self-conscious and figure that I was too dumb to learn-- or I feared that such a truth would be exposed if I tried to talk in class.  My fears were too great to allow me to learn in a relaxed, natural fashion.  So I found ways to get by, and I found my own way off the stage.

I traversed an unbeaten path to get through my Grinnell Experience.  It was my path alone.  It led to me receiving the "Closest to Earning a Degree, but No Cigar" Award. 

I've since tried going back to school and taking a language class to satisfy the requirement.  But I haven't been successful.  I've started over with Spanish but flamed out when employment challenges got in the way.  I've tried auditing a Latin course at our local university, but you have to be an alum to register or audit a class, unless you go to summer school, where language classes aren't often offered there. 

So I haven't found my path to my degree.  At least, not yet.  I had enough credits to graduate;  I just needed a "C" where I received a "D" because the language requirement was considered to be part of my English major requirements.  So I missed my degree by a few percentage points.

If I had come from a family of litigators, I might have found a way to financially motivate Grinnell to working with me.  But as it stands, I don't have the piece of paper.  What I do have, though, is a great education and access to the network of friends and colleagues through the college.  There is a fellowship that exists between any- and everyone that has gone through Grinnell, and I'm proud to be a part of that.  I'm still walking the path for my steps alone, finding my way through my Grinnell Experience.

An education is not a piece of paper, anyway.  It's the journey and the mind set.  The Grinnell Experience.

Typical Midwest College Experience

Describe a typical day in college or university.

Okay.  First of all, that's not a question.  Just so we're clear.

I suppose that the Journal Jar is full of writing prompts, not questions.  Now I know.  Learn something everyday.

So how do we write about a typical day in a non-typical experience?  College was typical when I was procrastinating studying or doing my homework.  Or when I talked myself through the snooze bar abuse and finally decided that it would be better not to brave the weather and freeze my nosehairs and just stay in bed and let the good little students have their class without me.

It's not like I didn't care at all.  I tried to pass the classes.  But my priorities weren't there.  I wasn't into academics by then.  I was into social studies.  Cultural studies.  Mating rituals.

I wanted to belong, wanted to know who I was and how I was doing it.  I wanted to find my way, find myself.  I wanted to have fun, push envelopes, escape the drudgery.  I wanted to fall in love.

That would come much later.

But before it would happen for me, I would dabble in love, thinking that I was getting somewhere.  I would try a handful of relationships, but none would last more than a few weeks.  I was hung up on this perfect, romantic, fairy tale vision of what love was supposed to be.  And it ended a lot of relationships for me.  Because I felt that I loved the person, but I wasn't in love with them.  Or something like that.

Some of the typical things that I did while in college were things like... well... eat.  I had to eat.  I didn't always have money, so sometimes I would be out with friends and they would stop somewhere and everyone would get something to eat, but I couldn't bring myself to ask for a loan, and so I'd sit with them and watch them eat.  One time I chewed on the paper wrapper from a straw until it disintegrated and I swallowed it, the only nutrition that I got at that meal.  It's not like I was starving, but it sucked not being able to indulge with my friends.  And now that I think about it, it wasn't typical.  I usually had someway to partake in the fun.

I remember walking to class in the winter, with the wind freezing my cheekbones and making my eyes water as the cold singed everything that wasn't covered by coat, hat, or scarf.  My shoes crunched through the snow and slid around as I walked, as if walking in sand.  But I didn't dare go barefoot.  One pair of high-top sneakers lasted for a winter or so, but soon the wet melted snow seeped in through the soles and doused my socks with searing cold.  It was sad to see those shoes go-- they had been a good friend.  It was more appropriate that I should wear my "Big Momma Boots" anyway.  They could handle the weather, and even assist well in kicking through snowbanks.

There were typically warm days too, however, where I had trouble staying awake in class because it was just to warm to pay attention.  I remember taking off my shoes and placing my bare feet directly on the tile floor to experience the coolness in an attempt to keep me awake.  But some lectures were just laced with sleep agents.  It wasn't the student's fault.

My favorite textbook was from a Political Science class.  "Contemporary Readings in American Politics," aka "C.R.A.P."  Okay, so I loved the title of the book.  Never really read any of it.  But I still have it, so I could eventually pick it up.  No, really.

We spent a fair amount of time goofing around.  We played frisbee in the hallways of the dorms, nearly decapitating unsuspecting floormates coming out of their room.  We drank for the sport of it, then placed empty cardboard twelve-pack boxes on our heads and grabbed 2-liter plastic soda bottles and raced at each other through the hallways, a makeshift game of joust.  We played team quarters, speed quarters, anchorman... we placed our thumb on our foreheads when we burped and the last person to make the gesture was sentenced to drink.  These were typical things that made up my college experience.

It was typical to laugh.  I don't laugh anymore like we used to laugh, and I miss that.  We were freer then, to yuck it up about things so funny.  Life is so much more somber when you're older.  And that makes me sad.  But there's still some levity out there.  Just have to hunt for it.