Most things work out in the end

Today I took my final courses as an undergraduate and went down to the South Quad where they were serving free beer and free food to all the outgoing seniors. The turnout was good, if turnout can ever be bad for a student event offering free alcohol. The lines were long, which was all right, because it gave us all a chance to stand around and look at each other in the hope that we'd see someone we knew. I posed for photos with anybody with a familiar face.

For me-- I'm not going to graduate school-- graduating from Mizzou means that not only do I become an alumnus of the university, but I also become an alumnus of the kind life I'm used to living and an alumnus of spending time with all the people that I've come to know. No matter what happens, things are going to be different from now on.

I've heard a lot of people say that their college years were the best years of their lives, but I think the real tragedy would be to say that the best years of my life are now over. Were they great years? Yes. But the best? That's obviously yet to be seen. There's certainly no doubt that things might not get this posh again. I'm an English major, and so I read the subtext in everything; getting free beer today was sort of like a symbol for This could be the last time you have it this easy.

But I don't think any of us should be feeling sorry for themselves. After all, most of us standing on the South Quad today come from a long line of people who work for a living. Hard work keeps this country running and makes a college education possible in the first place. We certainly shouldn't worry about not figuring what we are meant to "do" with our lives when we can pick up the paper on any day of the week and find that there are no shortages of opportunities for our lives become things of real significance.

Am I scared about what happens next? No. If I'm leaving this place with nothing but an education and a handful memories, then you'd better believe I'm going into the world nothing less than well-armed. And as soon as everybody finishes this beer, it'll already be time that we were seeing to the work at hand.