Educated Guesses

Tag: back to school

  • School’s out forever?

    School’s out forever?

    I drive to work in the cold 50 degree shiver of the morning. I’ve started wearing sweatshirts outside of my house and turning on the heat in my car. Leaves are beginning to scatter on the ground, forming a collage of oranges and reds that mixes in with the few green leaves that are left. 

    It’s September in every sense –– it’s written on my mom’s whiteboard in the hall, highlighted on my phone lockscreen, whispered in the crisp breeze. But, this September is different from all my Septembers before. 

    Every fall used to be so exciting. At the first trace of summer’s end, my mom would take my siblings and I to Target to pick out school supplies when we were kids. We would bring lists from our school that required us to have items like glue sticks, pencils and loose-leaf paper. I picked out binders and composition notebooks with colorful patterns along with a fresh JanSport backpack. We all browsed the aisles for new clothes to match our fluorescent Converse, bows and clips to pin our hair back with, and socks that would eventually all get lost.

    Even though summer was ending, fall always felt exciting. It was something new –– a new grade level, a new school, a new season of sports. Things felt different in the fall. It felt like the second season of a TV show. The cameras were rolling again, featuring new and old cast members each year. It was a clean slate –– a new chance to learn and make friends and figure out who I wanted to be.

    And then college came and the fall was even more exciting than before. There was dorm room shopping and apartment shopping and buying kitchenware that had no business being in a college apartment. There were football games to look forward to and parties and bar crawls. After long summers of working and saving money, the fall felt like it was all worth it. I was back with my friends, in this new place that became home.

    Every fall also had a new stack of classes. Each year of college, I found myself loving my classes more and more. I took poetry classes, french classes and even a class on alcohol my senior year. Yes, some were hard and had strict professors who assigned long papers that I struggled to hit the word count for. But, I never hated that part. I knew that the boring homework would eventually be over, and a new semester would begin.

    This fall, and September, is obviously different. I’m working as a bartender, trying to find a journalism job and avoiding “back-to-school” TikToks as much as I can. I keep falling victim to Penn State football videos or “two years ago” photos on Snapchat that remind me of my former college life. I should be there, I think to myself. I should be doing homework. I should be tailgating at 9 a.m. I should be in school. 

    But I’m not. I graduated. I finished my very last year of school and have no plans for grad school. It’s weird to think about my kindergarten self getting lost in my elementary school, and how I thought school would last forever. 

    I’ve always thought about the day school would be over –– no more homework or tests or papers. I dreamed of it sometimes. I prayed for it to come during my high school AP exams. And now, I’m here and it’s hard to know what to do with myself. My body is not used to not being in school. I have this sudden drive to do something, to learn something, to write my name and date at the top of a page, but for what? My muscle memory is all confused and wondering why I don’t have pencil-dents on my fingers.

    What do I do with all that academic validation now? I guess I will have to start leaving grades on my blog posts instead. 

    How do you feel about school being over? Let me know by emailing me: gingerlyons23@gmail.com:)

  • One Last Weekend

    One Last Weekend

    This weekend, I am going back to my college apartment for the last time. My last month of rent has been paid and it’s time to move the rest of my things out. 

    I’ll dismantle my lamp with shelves that used to hold textbooks and college ruled notebooks. I’ll wipe down my bathroom mirror –– where my roommate and I used to write little notes to each other –– with Windex. I’ll take home the dirty toaster that my roommates and I used to make 2 a.m. pieces of toast with. I’ll dismantle our gold bar cart, with shot glasses and open bottles of liquor and leftover seltzer cans.

    I’ll take home all of my bed sheets, pillows and leftover winter clothes. My closet and dresser will sit empty, waiting to be used again in August by somebody else. My walls will be ready for the next college student to decorate them with Command Strips and their own photos. My own Command Strip residue will be all that remains.

    Each piece of me will be packed into my car, leaving the blank canvas of this apartment for someone else to fill in.

    The banner hanging in our living room from graduation will be taken home –– the pomp and circumstance lingering faintly. All the blue and white frosting has been gone for two months now. It’s been two months. Two months of something new and lonely and exciting and terrifying. Two months of being an adult.

    But, this weekend isn’t all sad. I’ll be back with my friends, laughing in the familiar lights of our college bars. I’ll wake up in my apartment this weekend, probably with half of my makeup still on and an urge to rot on the couch with an everything bagel surrounded by my friends. 

    I’ll feel the warmth of State College and its people, and maybe sit on a porch with summer country music blasting loudly. I’ll sit back and embrace that this was once home.

    In an incredibly uncomfortable time, it will be nice to feel a sense of home in the midst of job applications and a whole Google Drive folder full of cover letters.

    Just like the scene in “Gilmore Girls,” when Rory graduates from Chilton and Lorelai says to her, “it’s not so scary anymore.” While Penn State was once a big leap I took at 18, now at 22, I no longer feel the same nerves or doubt. 

    This weekend, I’ll feel joy about what happened here. I’ll smile as I say goodbye, and gently close this chapter –– one that I’ve spent so long writing, scratching through and editing. It is now, officially, finished. And thank god I got so many friends, memories and lessons from writing it.

    Let me know your thoughts, comments and questions by emailing me at gingerlyons23@gmail.com or typing down below.