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3 years in 3 months

At least that's what it feels like. It was only a few moments ago that summer was starting, my birthday was passing...trying to look back in any great detail is difficult, like walking into a storeroom of old film reels, open tins all over spilling forth a no-longer chronological story.

And it's strange, because I think I'm finally starting to see why everyone out of college is suddenly feeling that postpartum/age-induced melancholy: The campanile is gone [ed. note: for the non-Berkeley nerds, that's the giant clock-tower in the center of U.C Berkeley's campus].

I don't mean it's literally gone; though I've heard if it were to fall over it would slide all the way into the bay (maybe in the next Transformer's movie). But, some sense of chronology is definitely gone (unless you're finishing a PhD, Masters, J.D., etc.). Otherwise, things have become a little more free-form and abstract.

And it's funny. It's funny because when I was 19 going through the whole 20-year-old transition with all my other friends, I knew people who were having the 1/5th-life crisis (oh yes, it exists), and I did my best to cheer them up and tell them it's all in your head, and what matters is...well, in your head. In fact, I even said to myself that I would never let that sort of thing get to me--I actually used to be really excited to get older (and I guess I am still, in a way), as if I would receive some stamp of approval that would keep the "over 30 year olds" from judging me too swiftly (and as soon as I hit 30 myself, I get the upgraded '40-year-old' stamp). For whatever reason, that stamp got lost in the mail, and I'm sitting here wondering how to cope.

And of course, this is all blasphemy to my rhetorical training. It's supposed to be about the middle (Deleuze), the grass in between the stones (Walt Whitman), against a teleology (Foucault), and on...so, before I anger the gods too much more, I'll pause on this one.

But at least in the next few days, I'll finally be able to tick off some milestone: the passing or failure of the CFP exam. Either way, I'm ready for the last three yea--months--to be over.

Maybe it's time I started wearing a watch.

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