Illusions and Evolutions

Someone dressed up school in a uniform of fieldtrips and told it that homework was no longer necessary. I don’t know who is responsible for this genius evolution, but if I had to venture guess, I’d say it could be my Australian Sporting and Traditions instructor. He’s the one who mandated a fieldtrip to the beach, where upon arrival he instructed us to think up a research topic while we lounged on the sand and floated on the waves. Then we’d meet him at the pub in two hours to let him know the subject on which we had decided to write. Over a beer that afternoon he encouraged me, “it’s just like Oscar Wilde said, ‘life is too important to take seriously.’ You only have eighty odd years here, so…bugger it!" So, yes, I feel pretty confident that he could be the brain behind the other school sponsored fieldtrip I took this weekend with my Australian Wine Industry class to the Hunter Valley.

There, we employed our wine tasting skills that we had rehearsed in class the week before—no holding the glass by the bodice, check for color against a white wall, swirl to release the aroma, smell and then, finally, taste. So for two days, we toured the wineries of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia attempting to develop our palates. Really, we were just faking maturity. Sure, we tasted and discussed wine by day, but the ruthless game of Sharks and Minnows that we started that night at the hotel’s pool adequately demonstrates that we are not real adults yet.

And speaking of real adults, I am about to become one, or at least be expected to be one. This weekend I will turn twenty-one, and if that’s not enough, I just received word that I will in fact graduate next December, making me a college graduate by the end of this year. I’ll repeat that: a college graduate. Luckily, my best friend/roommate/travel companion, the one and only Miss Jorie Larsen, is in the same predicament, leading us to the discussion we had last night.

“Kate, do you feel scared to graduate?”
“Well...it’s kind of exciting. I mean we get to start doing what we want to do!”
“Ya…what do we want to do again?”
“Well…yes, I feel scared.”

For now, I’m taking the advice of my instructor: bugger it.