Signs of a Graduate Student

• Instead of the "Fontenot Flu" after partying on a chilly night, you just get the flu. 
• Your plan for watching Ghostbusters is ruined by your actualized plan of reading Chekhov's Three Sisters.
• You pass on that last cup of coffee, afraid it might keep you up past what you now call a reasonable hour.

My 25th birthday is next week, but the simple act of approaching 30 doesn't scare me nearly as much as the idea of post-post-graduate unemployment,

So I thought I'd get any temporal angst out of the way by noting how I'm actually shaping up to be something resembling studious (as opposed to my former college trade of "getting away with things").

Whew.

Now that's done, I can spend my birthday fan-girling all over the Dr. Who Experience without any qualms.

And now, pictures!

Hyde Park, you so pretty.

It's all fun and games until they bite. Seriously, toddlers can be vicious.

"New York Style" Hotdog

 I just really like this.

Oh, hey random statue lady. You hungover, too?

Me! In case you forgot.

One Chance

No pictures in this post, just something I wanted to share with you. Let me see if I can capture this moment:

I’m sitting in the garden in the courtyard, something I hardly ever do. I’m already delighted because I’ve found a wonderful patisserie with the most delicious, cheap sandwiches. I’m sitting on the bench, enjoying my baguette with cucumbers and brie, happy as you please that there will be enough leftovers for my supper. There’s a chill in the air and a stiff breeze, but it actually feels nice being out in the slight cold with my cozy sweater and the hot coffee warming my hands. The architecture of my dorm is flat and unremarkable, but the hotels surrounding it have beautiful detail around the windows and sleek columns marking their tiny entryways. All of the buildings in the courtyard are white, so even under a completely overcast sky the garden stands out as a lush oasis. The trees in the garden are beautiful and full, and although every bit of it was obviously planned the square doesn’t look or feel overly manicured. It’s settled, it’s claimed this space. There's a sign that says it's only been here a few years. It could have easily been here for ages and everyone decided, “This place is fantastic. Let’s just build around it.”

I’ve got my music on, and “One Chance” by Modest Mouse starts to play.

I decide that eating a good meal in a pretty park on a cool day in a warm sweater with hot coffee is probably one of the greatest things to experience alone.

The chorus of the song comes around again, and pulls me off my train of thought.

We have one chance, one chance, to get everything right.

I think about every change that has brought me here, and all of the times I wanted to pull out my hair because I could see my life slipping away into something I would hate and I was terrified.

I think about my mother and my friends and my family and all of the love that has constantly surrounded me, even when I was so desperately unhappy and probably very difficult to be around.

And although I do get sad here, because there are people I miss with all my being, because for so long the people in my life were the only reason I ever found joy, I look around me and I can’t fathom the improbability of it all, that I’m here and seeing and learning unbelievably wonderful things. I’m blown away by the idea that this is my life, and I feel so happy that I have to keep myself from crying.