What started as a weekend trip to see an opera has turned into a 6-day fling in Vancouver. When I started this blog it was supposed to be my observations about the life of an American in British Columbia, at UBC.
But yesterday when I reached the Canadian border they took my passport and tore out my expired study permit. I've been turning in keys and closing my bank account (which was pretty much empty, the sign of a life well lived). So really, this blog is changing. What lies ahead of me is a Blind Date with CoMo (that's Columbia, MO. My future home for grad school). So in the interest of tying up loose ends I'm going to write for the next several days about the things in Vancouver that made up my life here. It's a way for me to say goodbye. So let's begin.
Breaking Up with Barber
Much of my time in Vancouver wasn't spent studying (sorry mom and dad) but the times I did study I, like many, got down to busness at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Aka Barber. Each semester it seemed I would stake out a different room here: library stacks, Riddington Room, Musquem, ect. Now I'm sitting in the room on the second floor I utilized most of this past year.
It was here I composed most of my graduate school applications, read many a text, and worked on a few papers. I also raced the chairs around the room pretty intensly and, one night in November, I served communion here. So this is pretty much MY room.
When I lived on campus I would be in Barber til it closed at 1 am. Working. Writing. Worrying that I wouldn't make it out of undergrad. Last year, when I commuted, Barber was the place where I had exactly 1 hour to eat lunch and study as much as possible between class and work. This was a room that filled me with anxiety.
In November I decided to fight back. On Remembrance Day I helped organize a night of music, art and prayer in this room. I wanted to hold the night in this room because so often this building is full of overworked, desparate students struggling for a tiny spot of study space. On that night, with the building pretty much empty, we came together to paint, to sing, to read scripture, and serve each other communion. After that night on my hour long rapid study breaks, I felt calmer here. It was as if I knew that even this building, that forces you to ruthlessly prowl for study space like some sort of hungry lion, could be transformed. I knew it could be peaceful.
Now I'm sitting here with my blue chip coffee and holding a textbook. A textbook I'm studying for grad school and I can't help but think that back in the middle of all that chaos that surrounded school, work, UCM, and grad school apps that this is how it was always supposed to end up.
In many ways, my time in Barber has seemed like 1 Peter 5:7-9:
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."
Sometimes this building reeks of failure (during 24 hour study it reeks for other reasons). Not that people here ARE failing, but they're so afraid of it. I feel like failure stalks this building looking for people to devour. I was afraid of it. I thought that by June I would be jobless and adrift. That I would never figure myself out. I can say now, as I finish my coffee, I may not have it all figured out, but I do know that I feel peace.
So to conclude, goodbye to you Barber. Goodbye to study sessions, to early morning wake ups to secure a good table, to the security guards and the overpriced cafe. Goodbye to the pressure. Goodbye to the musty smell in the stacks. Goodbye to the feet smell that creeps up every now and then. Goodbye to the fast internet I used to download movies. I'll miss you occasionally, but we've run our course. I hope you find some new undergrad who can break the landspeed record I set on your black wheely chairs.
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