Tuesdays are my early days on campus. I have a class that begins at 9:15, but in order to beat the traffic and get some studying done, I leave the house at around 6AM, arrive on campus at around 7, and read or study (or do this) and drink coffee until class starts.
The University of Chicago was the institution that overshadowed my childhood. Many of my friends' parents were professors here. I attended the Lab School from 4th grade through high school. The university's academic rhythms set the tempo and the outlook of my youth: urbane and urbane, yet, somehow, simultaneously isolated and provincial. Condescending of and aghast at other political viewpoints. Fiercely, competitively, ambitiously intellectual but fusty, nerdy and detached from the physical. I was happy to leave this little enclave, and yet here I am again.
Walking onto campus, I'm bombarded with sense memories: the dusty smell of fallen leaves and the cool shadows of the gothic buildings transport me straight back to senior year in high school, when I just looked forward to the next slow dance, the next vacation, the cliff-dwelling solitude of my bedroom in our 4th-floor apartment.
When the Sun comes up and these gothic buildings emerge from the gloom, I feel simultaneously privileged and lost -- just as I did in high school. Blessed to be here, thrilled to be steeped in learning. Hopelessly unworthy, profoundly alone.
Being a PhD student requires a lot of collegiality and a lot of initiative (the word my dad hurled at us whenever he was infuriated at our passivity, which was often). No one will tell you what needs doing -- just be sure you get it done. This is perhaps the main similarity between my experience in the Academy and the "real world."
This morning, as the buildings glower under a gray Chicago sky, I am besieged by friendly ghosts clutching musty books, and by the smell of autumn leaf-dust. Somehow, the leaf-dust memory is a mnemonic for the smell of Herbal Essence shampoo wafting off a girl during a final slow dance to "Reasons" at a high school party.
The Sun rises from behind its scrim of autumn ennui. The fragrance of memories rise with it. The radiator in the classroom hisses. A door closes, and the echo roams down the stone corridor -- another friendly ghost.
And then, suddenly, the past recedes, and the day is bright, and voices pass by underneath, and another day in my long life (please God) as student has begun.
--T.A.
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