New Beginnings

Here we are just about a month before the hooding ceremony to take place on the 5th floor of Cashion followed by the big ceremony held at the Farrell (?) Center. On the one hand, yes! Bring it on! I’m ready to get going with the rest of my life. On the other hand, I’m trying to slow time down. I’m going to miss the friends I’ve made and I’m going to miss the consequence-free environment of grad school.

My friend Stephen, who I often refer to as a Zen master, rarely lets anything phase him. Lots of assignments to get done? No sweat. Difficult team member for a semester-long project? Bring it on. A native of Shreveport, the former Congressional aid doesn’t let anything get to him. “This is play time,” he said to me once when I was griping to him about this or that in one or more classes. He sees difficult team dynamics as an opportunity to grow, since we’ll all surely encounter that more than we’d care to admit during our future careers.

So I’m going to miss that part of grad school. Where everything is make-believe and any error in judgement assessing a case doesn’t result in anything other than maybe a bruised ego.

This afternoon, classmates and I gathered at my friend Todd’s house. He lives on what is basically the Western Frontier in the town of Robinson just south of Waco. He is a little more obsessed with his dog than I am with mine and invited a bunch of us over to celebrate the 2-year-old birthday of his dachsund, Legend. There were a total of 7 dogs there. I was afraid it was going to turn into a canine version of Fight Club, but for the most part, they all got along well.

I’m hoping we have more get togethers like that before we all go our separate ways.

I remember last year’s tournament fondly, as students from across the three cores practiced against each other in the days leading up to the single-elimination contest. I’m out of practice, since I haven’t spent nearly as much time in the grad lounge as I have in past semesters, but still excited. I met and developed friendships with a bunch of people I didn’t know at the end of the Spring 2014 semester because of the tournament. A few of us still exchange stories from some of the matches held then, pointing back to signature moves perfected by our since-graduated classmates.

This semesters I’ve come to know a few of the Core 1’s thanks to ping pong matches and I expect to meet more in the coming weeks. I wonder if any have developed that off-the-blackboard-bounce that former classmate Spencer Holmes made his trademark during last year’s event.