sealed with a... pee

Of all the things I remain bitter about regarding my undergraduate experience (and there are really only two, or perhaps two and a half, but I make up for the low number with the fervor of my unending bitterness), the worst offense is that I graduated in a megachurch.

See, Millsaps seniors traditionally graduate in a big green grassy area known as the Bowl (named for its gently sloping sides, not for what is sometimes smoked there by students... and occasionally teachers). It is a treasure to behold.

I don't remember whose Twitter I saved this from, but I hope its okay that I use your photo skillz...

And in the center is The Seal of Millsaps College. What is neat about The Seal (and the Bowl in general) is that on the night freshmen are formally inducted into the college, they process through the Bowl and across The Seal before taking their seats. And then, four years later, they make the same procession in front of god and everybody to receive their diploma.

Like most colleges, there is an urban myth that if you step on The Seal as an undergrad, you won't graduate. But ours is clearly superior because of our matriculation/graduation tradition.

A lot of people didn't really care about such silly myths, but a good portion of the campus avoided stepping on The Seal. I, being a sucker for tradition, meticulously circumvented it even in my stumbliest trips back to the dorm. For four years, I didn't put a single toe on The Seal so that on graduation morning, I would be ready to feel its full glory.

Unfortunately, it came to be that around 3:00 a.m. on graduation morning the skies opened up and let loose torrents of water, and I awoke to lightening and an email saying graduation had moved to the rain location.

Which was a megachurch.*

There was a lot of 6:00 a.m. bitching with my roommate Tait and continued bitterness throughout the morning, particularly after it stopped raining and turned into basically the most perfect Bowl weather imaginable about an hour before commencement (too late to switch the location back).

There was only one tiny ray of light in the change: that I got to hear what remains one of my favorite quotes from college. As we were getting dressed and bitching and doing our hair and bitching, Tait finally just burst out, "I want to graduate where we peed!"

See, a couple weeks earlier, after passing comprehensive exams and therefore finishing essentially all the hard work required of a second-semester senior, Tait and I packed a backpack full of PBR and went out to the Bowl late one night to sit by The Seal, drink and reminisce. It was a great night. But you know what happens with beer, and eventually we needed to take care of some pressing needs. However, it being some obscure hour of the wee morn (wee, ha!), all the buildings were locked. So we did the classy thing and took turns going off behind a giant tree to the side of the Bowl. And then we laughed and drank some more.

And come graduation day, Tait's outburst pretty much perfectly, succinctly summed up why the Bowl represents so much of the Millsaps experience.

But we didn't graduate where we peed. We graduated in a megachurch.

And since I moved out and away the day of graduation, I never got to go back to visit the Bowl or to step on The Seal to make it official.

This is not me. This is Brian. Of course HE got to graduate in the Bowl.  Jerk.

All this is on my mind because I realized today that I went ALL the way back to Millsaps for Founder's Day weekend and FORGOT TO GO STEP ON THE SEAL. Y'all. I still have not stepped on that thing. At this rate I'm going to have to go stand on it in my wedding dress or something.

Which only makes me want to say, "I want to get married where we peed!"


* I don't mean to offend churches or religion here. Just megachurches, which are an eyesore and whose largeness makes it impossible to form true community and generally makes me itch. 

a weekend at Mother Millsaps

It's funny what lends itself to a good blog post. We just got back from one of the best (albeit shortest, in Brian's case - thanks a lot, airlines) weekends in a long time. I laughed so hard I nearly peed. I did possibly irreparable damage to my body in the form of a Cool Al's cheeseburger, Julep chicken, OEC fried rice, two Cabot free happy hours and more. In fact, I am literally scarred from the amount of fun I had this weekend.*

But trying to blog it up is nearly impossible. There's too many things that, while hilarious in real life, don't translate well to reading off the screen. Or they only make sense to such a small group of people it would just sound weird to put it out there to the rest of the blogosphere (like that list of foodstuffs in the paragraph above that anyone not familiar with Jackson probably stopped reading after). Blogging about extremely fun, personal things is weirdly self-indulgent. Actually I think all blogging is pretty self-indulgent, but writing about something fun is even more so. It's enjoyable to the writer, but perhaps not so much to the reader.

A random moment or two might float up through the crawfish-filled memories the weekend that will hit the blog, but in general I'll suffice it to say that a) it was extremely weird returning to a campus that is more my home than anywhere yet I haven't stepped foot on since May, b) I have the best sistah family in the entire universe, THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE OKAY, c) the weather in the South is epically beautiful right now and it was especially cruel to return to a 20 degree day, and d) I love my friendys so much and don't know what I would do without them.

We are all so spread apart now, across so many cities and states and even countries. But no matter the distance or the time, some great things never change.

ANYWAY, if you made it through this self-indulgent post (especially if you don't know me, Millsaps or what in the world I've been talking about), I have a reward for you:

That is ED HARDY BEER.
It exists. And surprisingly doesn't taste as much like Jon Gosselin as you'd think.

please excuse my heinous posture, which is giving me
an awesome physique in this particular shot

*Don't operate a hot straightener while under the influence, kids. 

missing Millsaps

Lately I've been thinking about Millsaps. A lot.

I miss the instant access of having all my best friendys at my fingertips. For four years I only had to go next door, down the hall or at the most to a building 100 feet away in order to spend time with all my favorite people.

Every weekend was a party (often involving costumes, heaven). Every meal was a chance to catch up with my friends. Every class was an opportunity to exchange thoughts and opinions with people that I respected.

Tait was always there to watch Harry Potter and craft and drink wine. Bonnie was always there to work out, hit the caf, procrastinate in the English house or get dolled up together. Molly was always there to pre-party for any and every occasion. So many friendys meant so many different things to me it would be pointless to try to name them all individually. CMO was there to dance and gossip and laugh. Kappa Delta was there for swaps, formals and post-chapter dinners. Lambda Chi Alpha was there for parties, games and movie nights. Of course Brian was always there, for everything.

And he still is. I love that we get to have this Boston adventure together. I love that we get to figure out how to be adults (and sometimes rebel against adulthood) together.

But that doesn't mean I don't miss the other parts of my old life.

I enjoy BU and I like the friends I've made, especially through being a TA, and I really want to get better at my chosen field... but sometimes I think perhaps I should have taken a gap year or two. It's really weird, and hard too - unexpectedly so - to be technically in college but to feel so disconnected from the whole experience. I think if I had a year in between the feeling wouldn't be so... raw. At Millsaps we worked hard, but we played hard too. Having such close friends around made the work seem easy - or if not easy, then easier. The absence of those connections here makes the work feel so much harder, even when its not.

Then again, I've heard from others that going straight into grad school and knocking it out is the best way to do it. So maybe its just a grass-is-greener kind of thing. Which just makes me think of KD, and the wave of nostalgia washes over me again. Sigh.

Sex Ed

This past weekend, three of my closest friends and I went to a sex museum in NYC. For scholarly reasons.

No, really.

Allow me to explain.

Although I was an English major in college, I was an “everything else” minor. I took random classes in nearly every discipline, from math to chemistry to fine art, and although I loved my major, some of these random classes ended up being some of my favorites. One such class was a Philosophy course called Sexual Ethics.

I took the class with the same three friends I was with this weekend (one of whom was a Philosophy major and encouraged us to take the class because of her love of the professor who taught it*). Sexual Ethics was one of the best classes I took all four years of my undergraduate career, not just for the ample quotes it provided my inner twelve-year-old boy to snicker at, but because it was a legitimately fascinating, difficult, scholarly course that taught me to think in a different way about people, gender, relationships, the law and life.

But it’s my bestie Tait who provides what is probably my favorite memory of the class. Never one to waste ink or page space, Tait simply wrote “sex” in her planner every Tuesday and Thursday along with the other classes she was taking that semester. One day in a sorority chapter meeting, Mary Mitchell Williams saw Tait flipping through her planner, leaned over and whispered, “Do you schedule sex?!”

At Millsaps, I guess you never know.

* Who happens to be bald, gay and a complete genius.

Millsaps vs. BU

Since I've been here in Boston, I've spent a lot of time admiring the huge beautiful school buildings with what I imagine are state-of-the-art classrooms and photoshop labs and other delicious things inside. But today I was reminded why Millsaps is still superior to big fancy schools with endowments and multiple majors and buildings that aren't falling down and such luxuries. Please compare with me.

My professor/boss introduced herself to her TAs today with the following:

"You should always call me Dean Smith*, Dr. Smith (as I do have a PHD), Professor Smith (as I am the main lecturer for this course), or some combination of those. What matters is that the freshman should never, ever think it is acceptable to call me Jane. There is a hierarchy that must be maintained."

And she's probably right. With 425 little pain-in-the-ass freshman under her tutelage, she needs some respectful distance. But at Millsaps things are different. Millsaps professors don’t give a rip about such “hierarchy.” They would never blink an eye at being called Anne, Sandra or Curtis. Or, for that matter, MacMac or the Griffster or some other ridiculous nickname.

I also can’t quite imagine Dean Dr. Professor Smith carrying on this conversation:

Me: (as I alphabetize daily Heritage response papers) “Hey Griff, do you actually read these things?”
Dr. Griffin: “Sometimes I do. One time a student wrote, ‘Fuck you, Griff, I know you don’t read these!’ and I took it into class, showed it to all the students and said “FUCK YOU YES I DO!’”

*names have been changed in the hopes that I don't lose my job