Of The Essence

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I feel like I should write quickly, before something goes wrong. Among the hailstones pelting campus yesterday, the only one which could be large enough to pop my constantly-inflating helium balloon of blissful perfection is the IB itself, which I consider more of an inevitable fiery meteor now than a hailstone anyway. After the week and a half that I spent actually living (as in, eating in the practice rooms and sleeping on the white leather couch) in the upstairs of the music department, the frantic hair-tearing night I typed the final full stop at the end of my conclusion in my chemistry design practical, and the methodical afternoon I spent in Marion's guest bedroom skipping out on lying in her garden in the golden afternoon to ask her statistician father how to do problem 3a on my maths portfolio, I have finally finished all of my coursework. The minor gods of my email inbox have rewarded me by filling it with the blessings of subject lines such as 'Congratulations on your acceptance to Northwestern University-Medill School of Journalism Class of 2013', 'Events for Newly-Admitted McGill Students', and 'Your Reed College Application Inspired Us: Follow This Link To www.reed.edu/apply/accepted', leaving me nothing less than buoyant as I float around campus bare-legged for the first time. Having already realised that it makes no sense to be choked by the toxically competitive atmosphere the day that Ivy League decisions come out (I'm still waiting on Yale - so much for my winning streak), I've already arranged to escape campus completely on the 31st, with hiking boots and a picnic. As a result of my limited admissions and coursework days of glory, I have decided I deserve a week of utter responsibility-free vacation-at-home time before I seriously start studying for the Idiotic Brainkiller, basking in the sun filtering through the window to the dayroom with a pot of coffee and a book on travelling the migration paths of swallows (signed by the author, last night, 'with best wishes') as I savour for the last time the meaninglessness of an hour or two. The SoundBite festival this weekend basically happened at the perfect time; having finally properly shut my laptop down instead of leaving it on Hibernate and Save Session (as I had to do for the past three weeks so I could continue working later), I filled the past 48 hours with Ancient Greek Cynics - Are They Relevant Today?, a Hungarian folk-dancing workshop, Indian Meditation and Music Therapy, Street Dance, Animation, African Dance and Drumming, and Radio Poetry (though I wish I'd had time to attend Travel Writing - could always improve my blogging with help from the aforementioned swallow-chronicler). As part of the Fringe Festival committee, I helped kick the whole thing off by yelling Shakespeare from trees with a very loud bunch of my equally likely-to-yell-Shakespeare-from-trees-on-a-Friday-morning (I would have used the word 'exhibitionist' but somehow it doesn't fully apply to shouting 'I AM THE MERRY WANDERER OF THE NIGHT' from an oak) friends as everybody walked down to breakfast. Basically, there were some really fascinating people hanging around campus this weekend, from 'the mad axe-man of Irish poetry' to the Teblab Hungarian folk Dancing troupe taking pictures from Top Lawn and filling up the long wooden tables grimacing at the Thai Sweet Chilli Chicken. I guess if the Reed/Northwestern/McGill (all of which I can go to now. Because they accepted me. As in I have been given acceptance, I consider myself one who has been accepted, it is all in past tense because it's already happened it can't even be changed now because I AM accepted! Only the physical limitations of the downstairs quiet room actually prevent me from doing a cartwheel right now) thing doesn't work out I can always renounce all earthly goods and escape to Hungary or Ghana: during the folk-dancing workshop, the impressively-highly-cheekboned featured male lead of the Hungarian dancing troupe chose me as his partner after informing me in charmingly broken English that I was 'beautiful graceful', and I was forcibly moved to the front row yesterday by the drummer of the Nzinga African dancing and drumming group, who thumped me on the back with a massive callused hand and crowing 'you don't move like a white girl!' Do I ever even have to stop floating up; why am I even expecting that someday it will all end with a sudden startling pop? Even if it does I'll catch the falling colourful pieces of pink balloon-shell falling from the sky, and remember this ultimate timeless week as the helium gas escapes again into the air.

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