Grey's Journal:
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I moved into my residence hall on Saturday along with my fellow students. Fathers were stereotypically moving large objects for their children. But not the mothers. They had another agenda. While I moved my belongings alone, the mothers shamelessly appraised me. They looked me up and down without subtlety. I heard the adding machines in their heads tallying up my physical attributes until they determined if I was an appropriate playmate for their child. I don't remember this mother appraisal when I moved into my college dorm four years ago, but it must have happened, I remember the comments my mother made to me. "She's an attractive girl, don't you think, Wellington?" It seemed that my mother never waited until the girl in question was out of hearing range to ask my opinion. "Mom," I pronounced this through a clenched jaw in the way children universally express displeasure with a matriarch: Muh-aah-mm "OK, OK, I won't say anything else." And she always kept her word. Until the next girl walked by. "Wellington, what do you think of her?" Being in the dramatic-and-overly-sensitive-teenager phase of my life, I just died of embarrassment. Now, as I moved into my new place in London under the scrutiny of foreign mothers, I wondered what they said about me. * * *
It took the university three hours to get my photograph taken for my student ID card, but only three minutes to make my wallet several thousand pounds lighter. Sunday was enrollment day for international students at London Metropolitan. The `Weekend of Welcome' packet I received in the mail made it sound like this was going to be quite a fun event. It wasn't. I got to wait in a hot room with hundreds of other students and pass from one processing point to another. My first task was filling out a form so the university could determine who I am. I hate filling out forms. Not because they are long and boring (which they are), but because I'm afraid I'm going to answer a question wrong and it will come back to ruin my life years later: "Oh, Mister Grey, I see that on the London Metropolitan processing form you filled out two years ago you gave the date of your college graduation as May 21st, 2003. We checked with Geneseo. It was May 25th. I'm afraid you aren't the sort of person we want working in this very lucrative and easy position. Best of luck with your job hunt. I hear McDonald's is willing to hire people who can't fill out a simple form correctly." When it was my turn at the first of a long series of desks, everything seemed to be going well. My ID checked out, I had my letter of acceptance from the university, and, most importantly, my name was in the computer. I thought I was ready to go on when, just like a sneaky detective interrogating a guilty subject, the woman behind the desk had 'just one more question'. "Can I see confirmation of your qualifications?" "Excuse me?" "Your diplomas. I need to see your college diplomas." I panicked. She wanted to see my college diplomas. I haven't seen my college diplomas. I've been harboring the irrational fear all summer that I never received them at all. At the beginning of every semester in college, I sat down with my adviser and made him check the schedule I created for every subsequent semester. His job was shorter after each visit, but he never looked forward to it. I made him check and recheck every possible detail, potential schedule conflicts, and permutation of futures. In spite of my obsessive-compulsive schedule checking, I spent the second semester of my senior year living in terror that I had missed something. Something that would prevent my timely graduation. Unfortunately, I had a friend, Troy, who had the same fears. When we discussed the matter, our fears fed each other and grew. We were like children telling ghost stories at camp: both of us becoming more scared with each tale, but unable to stop telling them. We eventually talked ourselves out of answering the telephone. It might be The Call. The one where a woman on the other end says politely: "I'm sorry, but it looks like you are an art credit away from graduating this year." We jumped every time the phone rang. But, eventually, graduation day came and went and I never got The Call. I moved to London shortly after, without seeing my degrees. 'They are in the mail', the records department told me. My father never called to tell me they arrived. I'm afraid to ask him if they have. And now, this woman wanted to see them. "I'm sorry, I don't have them with me.", I replied. "Hmmmm." She typed something in the computer. It seemed to take forever. After letting me sit in the chair, full of nervous tension, for what must have been an appropriate amount of punishment time, she told me I could move onto the next part of enrollment: finance. Apparently, the University still wanted my money. While validating my identity and getting my student card took the whole afternoon, paying my tuition was over before I knew what happened. At the cashiers counter, unlike every other part of the enrollment process, there was no line. I told the woman behind the desk my student number and gave her my debit card. She printed a slip for me to sign, and it was over. I remained by the counter waiting for something else. She looked at me uncomfortably, so I asked, "Is that everything?" "Yup." I felt the need to prolong the moment. I needed to explain to her that I just made the largest single purchase in my life, and it took less time than buying my groceries. I wanted her to know that I don't have any experience in economics. I don't know if I'll like it. I don't know anything about the school. I don't even really know what I'm doing here. I'm having anxiety attacks about my future daily. I wanted to tell her these things, to make her understand, and to have her comfort me and tell me it would all work out. I wanted to, but she was busy taking the next person's credit card. Leave a comment, send an email or join my mailing list. Copyright © 2003 Wellington Grey  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. |
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