The Penalty Box

I’ve been finished classes and exams for a year now, and it’s a rather odd feeling.  It really hasn’t felt like a year has passed since I’ve completed all necessary requirements for my BSc.  Yet in less than two months, it’ll be a year since I’ve convocated and a year since I’ve started working full time.  I’ve moved out and not starved.  I’ve actually started thinking about RRSPs, a down payment for a place of my own and opened an investment portfolio.  Growing up feels really weird.

Recently I read an article on the Internet about how the 20s are the new teens.  More and more, young adults are doing all the stupid shit they should’ve gotten out of their system when they were 16.  Instead, drug experimentation, DUIs and general asshattery has spilled into early to mid 20s.  While there haven’t exactly been ideal role models for twenty-somethings, the party lust hasn’t died as quickly as previous generations.  The rebellious “rage against the man” phase has seemingly extended further into adulthood.  I don’t know if parents have turned into a generation of wimps or what, but it sounds as if a lot of people my age are still rather carefree.  Undoubtedly it has something to do with an average university education taking a lot longer than 4 years.

I just wonder where the hell these people end up, because there’s an awful lot of them.  There’s only so many burger flippers and manual labour to go around.  And how have they not flunked out yet already? Then again, to get into SFU Computing Science these days you need something idiotically low like 75%, a far cry from the 93% for my year.  Catering to the stupid is a disturbing trend, and only goes to show that natural selection doesn’t apply to humans.  We’re doing a remarkably good job at protecting the stupid and weak.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve missed out on anything, having somewhat grown up rather quickly.  I won’t ever get drunk due to medical reasons.  I no longer have the energy, or will, to party to dawn.  Popular destinations to “go out” to (like clubs) appear more annoying and useless than fun.  I feel more like a 35 year old in a club than a 23 year old.  I take a look at what people my age do, and I wonder how it’s fun or how they don’t think about the mounds of debt they are heaping upon themselves.  Or if they’re not partying on loans, how their parents justify supporting such a unsustainable lifestyle.  I guess I just moved past that mentality years ago (though I’m not sure if I ever even got to that point, I probably skipped it).

So at what point do these carefree twenty-somethings realize what the real world is like? While it’d be funny to watch them crash and burn, they probably would just tax the welfare system to its limits.  Maybe we can just feed them to the hobos downtown.

My sister defended her master’s thesis today, and I’m proud to say she breezed through it with flying colours.  I now have an immediate family member with a graduate degree.  She worked pretty hard for it, not that it was made any easier by a certain power hungry asspirate who needs to work on his “people skills.”  Or you know, being a decent human being.  But she’s done and off to do another degree.  Academics.  God love ‘em, but sometimes I wonder just how many marbles they’ve lost.

Congratulations, Sis.  If you don’t have a hangover tomorrow, that means you didn’t celebrate this hard enough.  Especially being rid of that prick.  Onwards and upwards!

Today was my convocation, ending what was my final chapter in the story of my undergraduate degree. I saw some old friends, people I knew from my Pinetree days and a couple I went to elementary school with. Not a large attendance of people I knew, mostly due to work and school commitments. Majority of my family had to work too, but my parents, my sister and my grandmother was there, so it was all good for me. I never really did well being the centre of attention. I was uncomfortable at my high school graduation and not much has changed on my view of things since then. Were it up to me, I would’ve skipped walking the stage, but my family wanted to see it. Given that they’ve put me up this many years, it’s the least I could do.

It never really hit me that I had graduated before today. Even when I got my last mark back on goSFU (aka slowSFU lawls), it didn’t feel much different. Nor did I really feel any different since then. Not even when I was interviewing for a job, or when I started working. When I got up this morning, I knew I had convocation today, but I still didn’t feel different. Even when I got my robe, and mingled during the CS reception. I still felt the same.

It wasn’t until I lined up just outside Convocation Mall that it hit me. The wind was blowing the tassle in my face, the sunshine casting angled shadows on a beautiful fall afternoon. I looked up and saw the Terry Fox statue, a frozen Terry Fox in running form, heading towards a finish line he never was able to cross. In that moment, it dawned on me. The procession I stood in was the final leg of a five year marathon (insert Star Trek joke here). The finish line was up ahead, family waiting to congratulate me. The reward for it all? Real life.

The chatter around me blurred into dull background noise and at that moment, a small ray of sunshine hit the AQ Pond. The bagpipes started up, and the procession moved. There were flashes all around as my fellow graduates had pictures being taken all over. A small rush of emotion ran through me as I thought, “I’m done. I’m actually done.”

The next hour and a half went everywhere from really boring to really really fucking boring. No less than four speeches were given, and Michael Stevenson’s speech was the same recycled speech from the last five convocations I’ve attended. That’s over a period of 3 years. Goddamn, man, with what you’re paid you could hire a decent speechwriter to revamp that speech. Hell, you could probably expense it to the university!

As the people in front of me went up to have their names read, I couldn’t help but giggle when the Faculty of Applied Sciences Dean Brian Lewis mispronounced Eli Gibson’s name. I never knew it could be pronounced Ee-lee. As I began to approach the ramp to head to the stage, my heart quickened a bit. What was it? I was nervous. Why? I don’t know. Not the same nervous as when you forget to study for a midterm or that feeling you get when you know there’s no way in hell you’re ready for that final, but just a general overall feeling of nervousness. When was the last time I felt that? Jeez. My name was announced and I walked across the stage without incident. I half expected the only cousin of mine who managed to attend to scream something silly, but I guess he wasn’t quite sauced enough to do it.

The girl in front of me had every second step captured in picture form by her father and younger brother. “Safe following distance” I kept thinking, because she stopped every few metres to pose. She seemed somewhat familiar, and apparently she recognized me. I felt kind of bad for not remembering her name, and had to sneak a look in the convocation program to find out what it was. Once I did, I didn’t feel so bad, as I had met her once previously in passing, probably when I was talking to Wilson, an engineering friend of mine.

Oh, I should also mention that when I went through the robe obtaining process, there were people that helped you put it on. Harriet came out of the blue to help me and pinned that hoodie thing to my robe. She’s one of a few people who work for SFU that I’ll miss now that I’m done. Awesome person all around, that woman.

After it was all done, I dropped by the dollar store to get a picture with Aimee. She gave me a card with well wishes from the CS crew, a pleasant surprise to say the least. Oh yeah, and this oddly shaped pen that looks like a bird. With balloons.

So I’m done. I head now full into real life, finding my spot in the rat race with a BSc in my pocket. I had different expectations when I entered university, and my plan then was not what happened over the last five years. I can definitely say now that things went better than I planned, namely because of the experiences I had and the friends I’ve made. Onward and upward and such. New challenges await.

Hello World!

I am now part of the working world, the rat race, the melting pot, whatever you want to call it. I also have this big stupid grin on my face because I have a job. Huzzah!

I didn’t really expect it to happen this fast, but hey, I’m not complaining. Pending paperwork and all that fun bureaucratic goodness, I’ll be an employee at Mediatech Internet Inc. They’re fairly big in terms of the business they do, but the number of employees is around 15. Efficiency is the name of the game. I’ll be doing web development. I suppose not having to go through so many levels of hierarchy let them make decisions faster in terms of the hiring process. I was expecting one to two weeks between application and call for interview if needed.

The other piece of good news: the Senate officially approved my degree, so I’m officially graduated from SFU. Now it’s just waiting to walk across the stage and get that piece of paper in the fancy folder.

In the typing of this post, I realized something: back when I was helping out with FroshWeek, Greg asked what the hell I was doing back on campus as a friendly jab. I suppose it was a way to help “let go” or whatever, given how much time I’ve spent with the CSSS. The ironic part? My job, although not affiliated with SFU, is located in the Harbour Centre tower, directly adjacent to the downtown SFU campus. Tadashi was right…I may never escape.