After four years, I've picked up some pretty critical Dartmouth survival skills. Sean knows my breakfast wrap order, I've memorized the pattern at the traffic light and I know to count the remaining cups to figure out whose turn it is to drink.
My pants are hemmed about two inches shorter than they should be, and my favorite pair of frat shoes is made of plastic, so any griming up leaves them only a quick rinse away from being wearable again.
I've accepted that the paths on the Green are both asymmetrical and nonsensical, and happily cut across the grass.
With this skill set happily in place, I've begun to realize that these don't exactly hold up as exemplary transferable abilities. I'll be moving to Scotland next year, and will be forced to adjust to a new environment far from the safety net of the Dartmouth-does-New-York-scene.
Traffic lights alone will present a major problem, while cars mysteriously drive on the left side of the street. Even hemmed and rinsed, my fratified clothing needs to be purged from my wardrobe.
On a less superficial note, however, the hardest part about leaving Hanover is going to be less tangible. I love the community of people I'm surrounded by from peers, to friends, to professors. I've come to embrace all that New Hampshire and Vermont have to offer on the outdoor activity front, and I will vehemently argue that the Greek scene, flaws and all, is the best way to experience college social life.
I can't imagine not being able to blitz out for extra hiking gear or a formal dress, and I am even concerned about what I'll accidentally be saying when I throw the word "blitz" into conversation across the pond.
Perhaps the question that I'm most curious to answer is what impact the non-Dartmouth world will have on my life. I used to think that once I was in college I would be a grown-up.
I recently reevaluated that theory, and decided that once I graduated from college I would be a grown-up.
Well, unless some sort of magical transformation is going to happen in the next two weeks, that theory is not going to hold up. I go through weeks where my iCal is neatly ordered, my readings highlighted before class and my floor vacuumed.
Unfortunately, those weeks are quickly overshadowed by disasters that feel so frighteningly similar to freshman year that I wonder if I've grown up at all. Not real disasters, just the hide-your-head-in-Food-Court stuff I always assumed I'd grow out of.
What I've realized though, is that I have grown, and I have changed but only insofar as I can within the Dartmouth bubble that I know and love.
The extension of this realization is as much as I hate to admit it that it's probably time to find somewhere new to keep growing up. It's not so much an abandonment of Hanover, but more of packing what I've learned from the last four years and building that into a new Euro-life.
Getting up before 10 a.m. will be a tough adjustment as will deciphering Scottish accents but 2 a.m. bursts of productivity will be a breeze if they prove necessary.
Years of rush have helped me master the art of small talk, and time spent in the wilderness both the real outdoors and the grimmest of basements have depleted all expectations I've ever had about hygiene. That must come in handy some day.
Getting food at Collis during the post-10A rush has taught me to maneuver my way through any crowd, and though life still gets the best of me sometimes, attempting to master the art of balancing work, play and always-trying-to-fit-in-way-too-much has been one of the most integral elements of my college career.
Along with my free T-shirt collection, I'm preparing to pack this all up into the rental van in two weeks and say goodbye. You better bet I'll be back for Green Key 2010, but until then, I'll be on a mission to introduce the sport of pong to the Scottish.
