Tuesday, November 20, 2007
On graduating. Finally. For the last time.
I am slowly returning the stacks of books that I have checked out from the UCLA library. Some of them I have had for years because I horde books. Because I love them. I love having them piled around me. And when I return them, even though I may have read them years ago, I feel like I am giving away my puppies.
My sadness is deepened because soon I will no longer be able to go to the UCLA library. We have a long relationship, the library and I. When I first came to Westwood I did the following: 1) Moved into the Co-op, 2) Set up a bank account, 3) Bought a cell phone and 4) Located the the UCLA library. When I was lonely, I visited the library. When I needed to get away from my room or the lab, I visited the library.
There will of course, always be a library that I can visit, but it will not be a musty smelling collegiate library.
...
I am slowly cleaning up my desk in the lab. Naturally, my mind dwells not on the things that I throw away, but the memories behind them. And strangely what saddens me the most, is not that I will be leaving the lab, but the other people that will be leaving the lab with me. (Bear with me, because this may sound cheez-mo.)
Not real people, but the idea of people. You see as long as I am in the lab, the stories and memories of other lab members are in the lab. As soon as I am gone, nobody will remember that I-Hsiang put up that guitar poster, or that Noriaki signed DOOG on that card, or that Ji-Yong made that circuit. The names on the posters in the lab will have no faces attached to them. I don't care if I am forgotten, but I am sad that eventually the group that was will be completely lost.
I am slowly returning the stacks of books that I have checked out from the UCLA library. Some of them I have had for years because I horde books. Because I love them. I love having them piled around me. And when I return them, even though I may have read them years ago, I feel like I am giving away my puppies.
My sadness is deepened because soon I will no longer be able to go to the UCLA library. We have a long relationship, the library and I. When I first came to Westwood I did the following: 1) Moved into the Co-op, 2) Set up a bank account, 3) Bought a cell phone and 4) Located the the UCLA library. When I was lonely, I visited the library. When I needed to get away from my room or the lab, I visited the library.
There will of course, always be a library that I can visit, but it will not be a musty smelling collegiate library.
...
I am slowly cleaning up my desk in the lab. Naturally, my mind dwells not on the things that I throw away, but the memories behind them. And strangely what saddens me the most, is not that I will be leaving the lab, but the other people that will be leaving the lab with me. (Bear with me, because this may sound cheez-mo.)
Not real people, but the idea of people. You see as long as I am in the lab, the stories and memories of other lab members are in the lab. As soon as I am gone, nobody will remember that I-Hsiang put up that guitar poster, or that Noriaki signed DOOG on that card, or that Ji-Yong made that circuit. The names on the posters in the lab will have no faces attached to them. I don't care if I am forgotten, but I am sad that eventually the group that was will be completely lost.
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