The Best Years of My Life?

Tonight was the awards ceremony at Concordia, and while it was--as to be expected--something of a quick shuffle through all the deserving award winners with little time to linger, it was ultimately still worth going to, though even in the conversation afterward, there was little of note that passed.

Of course, one should remember that I tend to enjoy formal things. An excuse to put on a suit is a good excuse in my book. Also, despite a tendency towards shyness, I love social situations. Communities and relationships fascinate me, so events where everyone's name is printed out and trotted across the stage is always enjoyable, since it means I not only get to find out who people are without having to ever talk to them, I also get a sense of how they fit into the Concordia community. These are the smart people, the achievers.

What really made attending the award ceremony worth it, for me, was the reflection on how time passes. Now, it should be noted that I find the passage of time endlessly fascinating, but despite that fact I still seem to find myself marvelling over it as though I'd never noticed it before.

It's been ever more apparent the past few weeks that this school year is almost over. Just one more full week of classes, then finals, then--BOOM--it's over. And I'm finding myself back where I was at this point last year: ever so eager to just be DONE, but really, really wistful about the fact that it's over. Let's face it--I really haven't got much of a social life outside of seminary and Concordia, although I would argue that this isn't really what's at stake in my wistfulness here, so much as the fact that I really like being in school. Call it the repressed yearnings of an academically inclined, people enjoying, home-schooler.

Whatever the reason, that's kind of beside the point at the moment. Although I am VERY strongly reminded of this same point last year, my situation is radically different. By this time last year, I was pretty much just reaching the point where I was developing friendships and bonding with the school. And yes, that does seem like it took me a long time, but let's put things in perspective and recall that in my first semester, I only had one class a day, effectively, so I would go in for class, then turn around and go home, never really doing more than school proper. On top of that, you should be aware that I take a long, long time to warm up to new places, and not only was Concordia a new place, I was adjusting to seminary, adjusting to city life, adjusting to Edmonton in particular, going to class for the first time in eleven years, as well as coming off a year so social-less (Never, ever, work night/weekend shifts for a living if you want a social life!) as to be solitary confinement... and the list goes on.

Now, a year later, I can honestly say I had the best year of my life--thus far. Funny, but I thought I could say that last year too--and the year before (despite the job...), and the year before that too... Now, although Grade 12 was a good year, there is no denying in my mind that each year since has been progressively better. This school year was no different, and a look at the three other award-winners I would say I know rather well, each can be taken as a marker for a change in my extracurricular life in this past year.

Starting with Shane: he is the face of the Philosophy Club, which has probably been the single greatest change in my schedule this year. It's impossible to evaluate completely what kind of a difference this has made, since one year is never the same as the one previous, and I barely can remember last year at this point. Philosophy Club has absorbed huge chunks of my time, and has been integrally connected to a huge number of relationships, and is definitely going to affect next year, given that they elected me president next year. It's kind of funny, looking back, that I'm quite sure the reason I really got involved in the Club has largely to do with the fact that I chanced across Shane and Nolan in the cafeteria and sat down just as they were plotting the formation of the club. Next thing you know, I'm the Recording Officer, and my Monday evenings are booked up.

Moving on to Lindsey: last year I would never have probably spent so much time willingly in the cafeteria as I have this year, and this semester in particular, it's been with an entirely different crowd, and in all honesty I don't even remember how or why I started associating with that group. Now, Lindsey's actually probably the least typical example in the group, but it's probably fair to say of the others that they are crazy... in one way or another. Now, it's not that I'm NOT crazy... but I definitely don't think I'm quite the same kind of crazy.

And then there's Ben... Ben is someone I generally only know from classes. He's not in Philosophy Club (though he's in the classes), and apart from random encounters passing through Tegler, I don't generally see him between/after/before classes like the cafeteria crew. He is, however, an excellent example of the mysterious phenomenon I've had my attention drawn to lately, of how all sorts of people seem to know me, generally from having taken classes with me. Ben's probably better known than most of these random examples, but after Sierra pointed it out to me that all kinds of people seem to know me, I started keeping track of greetings from people randomly walking past in Tegler, and it does seem that, quite apart from being a faceless entity among hundreds of students, that there is never really a time I cannot go somewhere public at Concordia and find someone I know. Not that I'm a public personage, by any means (at least, I sure HOPE not!), but it would seem I've not exactly been under the radar this year either.

Of course, being me, all this reflection and fascination with time only means that I'm also well aware how terribly close a year from now is--the very end of my time at Concordia. It's ironic, given that I've only had one better year after another, that I'm kind of prematurely depressed about life going on. I mean, I definitely want to be done my degree, and I definitely want to move on to ordination... but I really do hate to see good times end, and Concordia, once I warmed up to it, has been good times.

There are definitely times when being a nostalgia nut is not a good idea...