"Gadzooks, I'm a SENIOR!"

I'm a stickler for chronological order. Usually I like to start at the beginning, but this time we'll start at the beginning of the end. The end of an era. The end of college.
A quick recap of Senior Spring:
Not much happened.

No, seriously. It was great. I have never enjoyed so much chill time, passing out to movies, and the obligatory but well-loved "hey gurl!" catchup sesh.

But then there was also frenzied paper-writing, staying up all night for the Ec 10 exam, panicking in a cold sweat before a final or deadline but being too wired to study effectively or get any rest. And scrounging for scraps at Bagel Party (aka Brain Break) as a form of procrastination. (O college nights...I hope I never live like that again...)
There was Eastbound, SB2K8, the Cabot House Musical, and the aborted thesis.
There was painting the town red--but enough of that has been documented in many, many busted photos. For more information and if you really are among my lucky few friends, refer to www.facebook.com.

And then there was Senior Week.

Monday: Casino Night (which I didn't attend but include for sake of full documentation). Cabot BBQ. Acetone, bleach, white-out, Exacto knives, and old box office tickets. Transactions.

Tuesday: Cabot Senior Dinner. Many drunken and not-fully-thought-out toasts. A few last-minute transactions. Party Bus. Booze Cruise. Too many underclassman girls asking for my IDs. I hope I was never this bad when I was under 21.

Wednesday: Datamatch comes out way too late. What happened, Senior Class Committee?! But it's okay because I don't have the courage to use it anyway. Quad Luau. In the Library Suite we laugh about how Aria and Bombs have never met J-Hop. Last Briggs study break ever. Photo shoot. Last Chance Dance. Stoplight Party. Too many underclassman girls asking for my IDs.

Thursday: Dutch auction dinner with Jay and Cheryl. Walking back to Briggs we see J-Hop and Jack loitering outside. Noooo! The illusion has been broken! Senior Talent Show. Senior Slide Show. The sound of impending doom as Growler bottles broke on the pavement.

Friday: Sam Adams brewery tour. Jim Koch is the man. He gives us so much beer. And collectible glasses which people try to take home but promptly break. He gives us Utopia, which at 27% alcohol by volume he claims is the strongest beer ever invented. "It was like breaking the sound barrier," he asserts. After imbibing a liberal amount of Utopia, I believe him. He also insists it is an aphrodisiac. Luckily for my fellow Cabotians I did not put that to the test.
Crazy picnic courtesy of SParker (amAzing!) with too much food and Canada geese. Food coma.

Saturday: Senior Olympics. All I want is to excel at my event, Dizzy Bat.* Surprise, we don't get very far in any events! Well, Beer Mile was decent. Cabot was about to leave the Olympics early, but we get our second wind after winning a couple rounds of Tug of War. Literally a couple. As in, two rounds. Then it was all downhill from there. Exhaustion.
*Up to that week, I had thought Dizzy Bat was "trying to hit a piñata with drinking involved."

Sunday: Too many underclassman girls asking for my IDs. Senior Soiree. Science Center roof. Liam, puh-lease!! You can't pee in every stairwell and expose yourself in public even if you're blackout. Bop-it Xtreme. Call from Niroshi via Alingon's cell: uh-oh. Aftermath: Escape from prison. No, hospital. Crotchety UHS nurse.

And finally there was Commencement Week.

Monday: Half-hearted attempt at packing which ultimately gave way to capitulation and despair upon realization that I have too much stuff.

Tuesday: Baccalaureate Services. Near death from heatstroke in Memorial Church. Drew Faust encourages us to find happiness and the meaning of life. Class picture of the worst twenty minutes of my life. Senior class family dinner. Awkward introductions of my parents to other parents aided by open bar.

Wednesday: Class Day. Hard rain. Rain, rain, rain. -_- Faculty Club reception and meeting Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. Lobster rolls and Pellegrino instead of shrink-wrapped sandwich in Harvard lunchbag. Senior Class Committe attempts to censor me. Tercentenary Theatre exercises. Boredom. Laughter. Boredom. Consternation. Recalling SCC's Gestapo-like censorship, I ultimately decide, to hell with it. Finally, speech delivery. Master's Reception in Cabot. Awkward introductions of my parents to other parents aided by open bar. Nighttime tent party.

Thursday: Commencement. Being awoken in shock and dismay at 6:30AM by blockmate because of passing out to a movie in their common room. Breakfast and crazy toast from Susan Livingston. Procession to Yard accompanied by "New Orleans" band with promise of beating Currier and Pfoho but being unexpectedly flanked. Service in Memorial Church with Peter Gomes in pimp regalia. Procession of faculty wearing pimp robes! Almost makes me want to go into academia. Commencement exercises and unexpectedly entertaining presentations of each school's degrees (favorite: law degree being knowledge of "the wise restraints that set us free") and the honorary degrees (favorite: the man who invented computers. And intelligence. Fought back desire to stand up and shout "Can't you see?!" à la John Connor of the Terminator series re: Skynet). Presentation of diplomas in very satisfactory Cabot ceremony only marred by lack of adequate seats (where were you when we needed you, Colin Flood?!) and quality of food. Afternoon Tercentenary Theatre speeches. Fell asleep in middle of crowd of 10,000+ people during Faust's speech and missed JK Rowling's speech. Woke up to very end of JK's speech, overwhelming applause, and cacophonous Harvard Band. Obligatory photo shoot in Harvard Yard in front of every building. Graduation dinner party with friends and family. Awkward introduction of my parents to other parents aided by champagne and hors d'oeuvres. Dinner and tapping of fork against glass. Surprise outpouring of emotion and bucketworks from Llegs. Impromptu toasts and speeches. Return to dorm and mess of half-packed boxes, exhausted but obligated to go out, say good-byes, and finally return the belongings of friends. Small tent party. Good-bye Lipkin. How will you ever survive on your own in Houston? You'll find a way.

Friday: Sympathy for blockmate dealing with aftermath of the menace. Lazy morning and returning over tons of books used to write aborted thesis. Aria and I finally decide to purchase a class ring after being nearly blinded by the ostentatious chunk of gold Alingon is sporting. After lunch at Le's, I return to Cabot and finally face the biggest challenge yet of my undergraduate career: packing the fallout of four years of courses, shopping, common room chilling, disorganized overflowing drawers, random paraphernalia I stuffed under beds and in closet corners. We are supposed to move out by 5PM. Never have I ever been so sure that I would not be making a deadline. At least I have my right-hand woman, conveniently pocket-sized Jchan, who teaches me how to pack my accoutrements just so. My anxiety is temporarily assuaged by the discovery of cute plastic storage containers I scavenge from people who already moved out by force of circumstance--flight plans. I give thanks for living locally. I love plastic storage containers so much. Later that night Jack stops by for some chill time. He brings me chicken piccata! Tons of capers. Mmm capers. Jan Pararas rocks.

Saturday: Wake up to Mike, the Cabot superintendent, shaking my shoulder--in bed!--and saying "You can't stay here." I feel alarm at being caught in such an exposed, compromising position. More packing. I receive text message from Matt asking me to save his globe. How can I say no to Matt? I respond in the affirmative. "Yes, I will save your globe." His response: "The entire planet thanks you." Later, feeling overwhelmed by volume of stuff I have, and taking a tip from Llegs, my partner in too-much-stuff-crime, I decide to rent a moving truck. The U-Haul in Somerville is about to close soon. I decide to bike there. I remember that my bike has a flat tire. I go to Quad Bikes--for the first time ever despite having owned a dysfunctional bike at Harvard for three years--to get the flat tire fixed. I am told to be careful because the "side wall of the tire is weak" and, after the inner tube is replaced and pumped up, the Quad Bikes boy points out the spot where the inner tube is bulging out. "That's probably where the old inner tube exploded," he says. "But can I ride it a few miles?" I ask. "Yeah, you'll be fine," he says. LIAR! I only make it two blocks before the new inner tube explodes. I attempt to keep pedaling but things fall apart, the center cannot hold. I decide to take a taxi to the U-Haul. My hands are clammy because the U-Haul will close soon. The cab driver doesn't even know how to get to U-Haul. After I give her the address, she calls a friend on her cell phone to ask in Russian how to get to this address. I fume helplessly in the backseat. Finally I get to the U-Haul. I rent a truck and start driving it back to Cabot. The truck putters along jerkily and I am afraid the e-brake might be on, but I can't figure out how to release it even if it were on. I get lost along the way but miraculously I make it to Cabot without killing myself or anybody else. I try to assure myself the e-brake was not on. It wasn't. I congratulate myself.

Sunday: Mike and Jose pressure me to move out. But I am still packing. Unicco people come in and out of my room but I am still packing. I deal with Matt's globe. He will never have a more conscientious neighbor. By early evening I finally, finally move out of Cabot.

But the adventures don't end there. Stay tuned! This is only my second blog post ever!