Doing Time in AA: Confessions of an Alum

Welcome to AA (Alumni Anonymous), let me open the meeting, my name is Elizabeth, and I am a recovering govie alum.Yes, there is a chapter of us, hundreds at this point, maybe thousands- the few, the proud, the GSSM/NCSSMST alumni. My class walked across the stage at Center Theatre on June 3. Yes, I am officially an alum, and, yes, like most of my class, I want to come back. OK, OK. I know, my seniors told me I would always want to come back, and I said "Yeah, right."

It wasn't always like that. Junior year, I couldn't fly out of the Mill Lot fast enough on Friday afternoons, and I raced the clock to 8:00 coming back on Sunday nights (in the pre 7:50 hall meeting days). And second semester, my class might as well have had senior privileges-in those days, movies cost two bucks, and I saw quite a few on weeknights second semester (shh- don't tell admin. or for the sake of TFJ, the members of admin who might care). But that all changed.

Suddenly, I was a senior, and after applying to six schools, losing my mind repeatedly. changing my mind repeatedly, considering the Peace Corps over college. I finally made up my mind. Okay- so my advisor sort of decided for me. All of you seniors know what I mean. For the junior girls, just wait for the college fair, once you're on the ASC mailing list, you are doomed. So, the college was chosen, I planned a summer in Italy, and magically g-school was over. No more *uck A. Coker dorm. No more room 303. Cry for a couple of hours, spend seven hours on a plane. Goodbye g-school. Hello real world.

And to you juniors, and a couple seniors who failed the quiz say, "Oh no, not me. FA! FRL! I want out. Give me my diploma and I'm gone." Just wait.

I talk to my classmates, no, not just the ones in Atlanta a couple of times a week, all hail AIM. This lasted all summer, then I moved away to college. Okay, college is pretty great. Yes, I went to an all-girls' school. Yes, our t-shirts say "Agnes Scott College, not a girls' school without men but a women's college without boys." No, I don't buy that. There are plenty of men and boys, I promise. More than I see on an average trip to GA Tech (where there are more Govie type guys than well-anywhere). College is nice, a max of five academic classes (yes- there are still language labs. but not at night) no curfew, four food options which do not require a stomach pump, and GASP, overnight guests. and imagine, no more PDA rules, no open door rule, no scromping. you have your own room, to hell with some place in the open for making out. and yes, I do live in Atlanta, and why, yes. thanks to GSSM, college was paid for. (Okay, maybe it would have been free from my home school, too. But it doesn't really matter.)

And now I live in Atlanta, where I can go clubbing, bar-hopping, or to a frat house every night. but it all gets old after a while. Trust me on this. Foam parties are only fun for the first semester. and it's also true that work is largely non-existent. Those 4.0's you had before GSSM, well, they magically reappear (or something pretty close appears). All-nighters? Study-nazis? Well, all-nighters are what you don't want to pull at Tech frat houses the night before a 9 AM class, and study-Nazi's go crazy for lack go work. Did I mention that there are no 8 AM classes here? And for you humanities types- there are art classes, and music, and history, and anthropology, you can go crazy on humanities, for example, APs freed me from so many classes. Learn a lesson here, take all the APs you might be able to pass. Hello 58 hours.

But, you know, sometimes I wish that I were back on the Naked Hall watching TV during QUEST, pretending to do physics, or talking on the phone while Amanda the RA on duty "entertained" her boyfriend upstairs. And Govie dances. when I hear We Didn't Start the Fire, I almost cry- by the way- you better get over this Western Civ fascination- Special Topics is: easier, more fun, involves Billy Joel, less work, and a class Dr. Hendrick actually enjoys teaching.

I want to go back. I don't care if I do have to take 2 or more lab sciences and math a semester. It doesn't matter. I miss Wiggins. I miss the Science Building with 16 people in the elevator, including Dr. Jones-Cooper and her projector. And in college, no bio professor says, "And now, I am going to blow up." And there are no Crumpet Monkeys, no research, no Sparkys and "In essences" and "cute little bodies" (ask the seniors). No Enviro Sci labs at Wagner's farm, no more all-night history cram sessions. No more Bill curves, satanic code labs, "Oh my dang's," appreciation for the work "random," or Happy Physics Man. No more Ike stepping on your foot or hitting you, no more Junior English, and no more subversion of rules or FA grafitti. I should mention, however, that our cross-country coach invites (forces) students to play chess at lunch, a la Dr. Smith. (By the way, apply to be an SSP RA. It's really cool. You'll like it .) and, instead of LLS, you have, First Year Seminars, once a week for one semester, but even worse, because you already know everything they'll tell you.

But you will move on. I still have Govie pictures in my dorm room, govies will be my best friends forever, though I do have pics of my ASC friends, too. And I have a life, I'm making mega-bucks babysitting in Atlanta, I have a social life involving guys and frats, and I am on Dean's List. Not exactly all that my parents were hoping for, but hey, it's my life, and I'm 18 now. But now, instead of Govies, except at Tech and Emory, I have friends from the Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maine, Illinois, Arkansas, and North Carolina g-schools. And whenever I miss GSSM, I pull up TFJ, or call someone (did I mention you have your own phone, and T3 line whenever you want to use it?), then I go out. But GSSM is always there, in a mythical position somewhere within my cerebellum. And besides, I keep up with GSSM through the two ASC alums, Ma Bunn and Dr. H. And junior girls, let me warn you AGAIN, don't tell Dr. H you don't know where you want to go to school. The immediate response is "Have you thought of Agnes Scott?" And you can come back, even if it really isn't the same. If you think there were a lot of members of the class of 2000 in January, wait until Colloquium. :-p

--Elizabeth