The Real Accomplishment of Graduating

I learned a lot of things in college.

Impressive things like how to sing “Happy Birthday” in solfege, analyze “The Rite of Spring,” and completely dissect the Sonata form. (What do you mean you’re not impressed?)

Interpersonal things like if you manage to recruit a chamber group without at least one person who will show up to rehearsals only half of the time and in a half baked state, then you’ve TOTALLY beaten the odds.

Useful things such as: when you live in Rochester, NY in the winter time, you need not bother trying to look sexy when you walk (it’s all in the hip shifting) or style your hair because if you don’t wear a stiff, hooded, down-filled coat that goes down to at least your knees and allows for no extraneous movement plus a warm hat that covers your ears under the hood of that coat, then you WILL freeze your ass off.

And as so recently pointed out to me by various people in my life, illegal things. Like jaywalking across the busiest multi-lane intersection in downtown on an average of 15 times a day. At the time, it didn’t seem as if I was risking my life each time I ran on the snow and ice in the above-mentioned coat (which if you are wearing, you have to turn your entire body in order to look left or right) while carrying a bag full of books and an instrument worth thousands of dollars in just enough time to beat the next speeding car. It seemed the only smart thing to do. I mean, it was COLD and we didn’t have the time to just STAND there at the light, waiting for it to change. Please. Those lights were just suggestions.

Which is why I felt a sense of familiarity during my first visit to my new campus, even before I accepted admission. Not only is the communications building located on one of the busiest intersections on campus, but when the Director of the program walked me over from his office to said building, he didn’t just jaywalk, he jaywalked at least 10 feet away from the actual intersection. As we jogged across, he turned to me and said, “They did teach you to jaywalk at that New York school, didn’t they?”

At that moment, I knew I was among friends. The difference is that now I check for cops.