The first day of the rest of my life...

...and also my first blog posting ever. May 26th 2009. I woke up this morning in my parents' apartment, with the TV on in the other room and the sounds of them getting ready for work, and I could have believed for just a second that the last four years were a dream. But of course the evidence around me in my room contradicts that, in particular the two-foot tall piñata that now greets me in the morning. Duffito will miss Yale and you guys especially, just like me, but he takes comfort in the fact that soon he'll be living much closer to his homeland south of the border, and in a much more "natural climate" for him. :-)

Yesterday was a very interesting day to be sure--not surprising, given that we'd all been anticipating May 25, 2009 for years, but it still had some unexpected twists and turns. It started with all the pageantry and pomp and familiar music that I've come to expect having participated in Commencement all 4 years, and ended with me leaving my residential college for the last time armed with nothing but a small suitcase and a half-empty container of Pringles, my parents' car being too full with family members and my stuff to take me home. As I walked through Old Campus in the setting sun to catch the shuttle to the train station, the finality of it all hit me, and I felt a combination of intense nostalgia and peacefulness. In the past couple months I'd experienced denial about leaving Yale, followed by being too stressed out to think about it, followed by a simple inability to grasp the fact that a stage of my life was coming to an end. I expected that when I finally did grasp it I would be incredibly sad, but I was at peace with it. And ten minutes later I was in the real world (i.e. the New Haven train station), having left the pageantry and pomp and familiar faces far behind. It was an oddly liberating feeling. Not that I won't miss my four years at Yale (not to mention the eleven years of my life I've spent playing in bands), but it's comforting that the friendships made will not be lost, and neither will the memories. In the meantime, I'm definitely ready for three weeks of down time and just chillin' out.