I have PCVOAD: Post-College Visit Over-Analysis Disorder «

I have PCVOAD: Post-College Visit Over-Analysis Disorder

September 23, 2009 by showson2

Now you won’t find this disorder in the DSM but I’m suffering from it, I’m sure of it. Like a great first date, I’ve been thinking about my Bates trip constantly since it finished. I don’t even know how best to express “how it was”. I guess what I would say is it was totally predictable and totally surprising at the same time. Not very descriptive, I know.

I think back to one of my first blog posts ever about the Naughty By Nature concert at Bowdoin. Now this was over a year ago (yikes) but I remember commenting on how friendly Batesies are. And it’s true, look in any Barron’s-type book and you’ll see some Bates student talking about how nice everyone is. Now, I tend to get cynical, and I tend to think that people sometimes aren’t very nice (because when you go to Ikea on a Sunday afternoon frankly people aren’t that nice and you leave the gigantic building with primary colors burning in your eyes, a bunch of useless little gadgets, perhaps a big ticket item like a bed frame or bookshelf, and a feeling of absolute disgust for humanity, especially that old lady who elbowed you out of the way in the “Marketplace.” I know Sally Field and the medical community say old ladies have brittle bones but maybe “brittle” is their description for sharp and deadly.

But anyway, this trip solidified it for me, Batesies are nice. I mean like really nice. Jordan and I arrived at Bates around four hours after leaving our home. Now, this should sound weird- it only takes about 2 ½ hours to get to Bates from Boston. Unfortunately, not on a Friday afternoon when you’re following the directions of Jordan’s degenerate GPS. The lady (Her name is Winona after the famous Ms. Ryder. I didn’t name her, Jordan’s the one crushing. I would have named her something robotic like Adventura. Maybe Crappy Adventura because she takes you on the most deluded routes known to (wo)man. I don’t know what Satillite Winona’s getting her signals from, maybe it’s the satillite that signaled the actual Winona to shoplift all that stuff from Saks when SHE’S A MOVIE STAR.) But I digress. The point is, it took us forever to get to Bates. And I packed my dinner because I don’t trust Winona and I knew we wouldn’t get there in time for a delicious dinner at Thai Jarean or Pats Pizza. So after snapping at each other in traffic and then stopping at a rest stop so Jordan could get an Angus beef burger and I could get a water (I had drank a liter of Coke Zero earlier that day so I could stay awake at my archives gig and by that time my cells were shriveled and screaming out for water), we finally arrived at our Econolodge digs. There we marveled at how tiny the room was and Jordan took one bite of his then-cold burger and threw it out in disgust. Burger King can’t be eaten cold apparently.

So, what to do next? I called a friend, Jordan called a friend, and everyone was at an off-campus house that was notorious for holding gigantic, out of control parties the last two years in a row. As we drove over we peppered each other with questions: Would it be incredibly packed? Would people be sweating massively even though it was a cool fall night? Would we want to run for the hills upon arriving? But as we approached we saw… nothing. No one was anywhere, no girls in the street with one high heel on yelling into their cell phones. No billowing clouds of cigarette smoke. No music blaring. Nothing. What? This didn’t make sense. I was convinced someone was going to pop out and get us like they do when it’s quiet in horror movies and CSI episodess. But we made it to the door without getting accosted.

And when we entered, it was clean. You could see the walls and furniture and architecture of the house. In all my four years at Bates I had never seen these parts of this house and I’m not exaggerating. And not only was it clean but it wasn’t crowded and they had just had a potluck there. It reminded me of the old days. It reminded me of a real house.

And another thing was that everyone seemed really happy. I can’t remember if I was that happy or not at the beginning of my senior year but from what I can remember, I was. I was so glad to be living off campus and to be the oldest at the school. Seniority means a lot. I knew Bates like the back of my hand, I knew the professors, I had a solid group of friends- I wanted for nothing socially. It was the culmination of three years of social awkwardness and being unsure about going to certain parties. As a senior I found I could go most anywhere and be welcomed. It was nice to see the feeling of senior euphoria from the outside.

After turning down copious offers to have a cigarette , followed by bewildered exclamations of “YOU quit!? Oh my god! I’m going to quite after this year. I stopped smoking for four days this summer you know…” Jordan and I headed to the show. It was a great performance and Bates kids were dancing all over the place as usual. I had three random people approach me and say things along the lines of “Comon, you gotta dance!” I did what one does when one is accosted by someone who you know won’t remember approaching you in the morning- you placate them. You go “Oh yeah, yeah okay. I just need to get into it. I’ll dance in three songs.” And then they’ll tell you that they’re going to come back in three songs to make sure you’re dancing but they never do, they never do.

So heading home the next day after a late-night dinner of Papa John’s and beer and a restful Econolodge slumber Jordan and I debriefed. We were really happy for our friends still there. They seem to have made really fabulous lives for themselves and they’ve decorated their homes way better than anyone in my class. My old apartment looks even better than ours did and let me tell you, ours was way better than it was the year before us when they had blow up pool toys on top on the dining room table. We also enjoyed looking at Bates events from the outside, aka. Completely sober and members of the real world. We never really realized that Bates students were so apt to approach strangers and command them to dance and we both hoped we had never done that to anyone. Well we know it was never us because we’re both way too introverted for that type of behavior but still, it was like we were two anthropologists attending some tribal ceremony that was familiar and completely ridiculous to us at the same time. It was an “Ohhh, this makes so much sense” kind of moment.

So, will we go back? I will if Jordan promises that we won’t listen to the whiny directions of Winona the GPS. What did I learn from this trip? That Bates is still a great place to be, that the Econolodge curtains are so thick that they block all traces of morning light, that the small size of Papa John’s pizza is really small but it’s okay because each individual piece is a really cute, tiny triangle, and that you can’t eat an Burger King steak burger cold. I’d say, all-in-all, it was definitely a learning experience.

Here are a few photos from the journey for your viewing enjoyment: