Doctor without borders

I officially completed my duties to Cal today, by submitting grades for my students. Everyone passed. I've managed to return about 100 library books, though I've also checked out another 20 in a mad rush to hoard them before they cut off my library priviledges. I haven't cleaned out my office desk or returned my keys yet because I still have 600 copies left on the department copier that will also disappear one of these days. I hope to use them before anyone notices. I get to keep a membership to the gym through the summer, so I don't have to clean out my gym locker yet, either. I still have a mailbox. Actually, I have two, because they never figured out whether I was a grad student or a faculty member this year, so, according to my mailboxes, I was both.

The shoulder bag I've been using for the past five years is being repaired, so I went to campus with my old backpack today, and I was remembering life in 2000, back when I first set foot on the Cal campus as a fresh-faced backpack-wearing 23 year old. Some things haven't changed: I still don't know any of the buildings in the mathy sciencey quadrant of campus, and I still get the chicken teriaki sandwich at Espresso Experience, where I had lunch back when I was a pre-grad visiting the department. My cracked mug is still on the shelf in the grad student lounge in Stevens Hall. I still stop and admire the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the South entrance to the library. I still ride my bike to campus. I still move the stack shelves three at a time, even though you're supposed to move them one at a time.

But seven years is seven years. I call my professors by their first names now. I finally agree with the crusty old alum who wrote into the Daily Cal to say that there's "too much concrete" on the Cal campus, though I don't read the Daily Cal all that much anymore, either. I keep my hands in my pockets when I walk through Sproul Plaza so as not to be bombarded with fliers. I've learned that the Free Speech Movement cafe makes an excellent chai, and I never settle for less. In any part of campus, I can find a bathroom in under 5 minutes, and I know where the wierd, funky ones that have been hermetically sealed since the '50s are. When I walk down Telegraph, I don't even notice the chaos, I just head to my regular stops: Yogurt Park, Moe's, Milano, Amoeba, Intermezzo, Eat a Pita.

Cue the nostalgia.