Dusk is beginning to fall over Hyde Park and I’m high on life and a few plastic glasses of wine. (At college orientation they feed you. At grad school orientation they ply you with booze so you forget you have no income and 300 pages of reading.) Michael’s called me twice in the past week and so I finally return his call.

 I fill him in on the past few days, and he tells me again how different I sound on the phone “Different from a year ago…and totally different then five years ago.”
“Yeah. I’ve decided Hampshire Rachel is officially dead.”

Ghosts dealt with, demons exorcised, and what’s left is this; a dozen new names in my cell phone, plans for dinner, and neighbors in my building. Tuesday at lunch I recognized a girl from Campus Days and so I went over and said hello and she was all like “oh thank you for coming over here! That was so friendly.”

And a butterfly flaps its wings because someone just accused me of being friendly…

There’s about 150 MAPSS students which is a good size – big enough that it doesn’t get incestuous, small enough so you can know everyone’s name. It’s broken down by discipline for the one required class and most of the political science people are taking the same methodology class as me, so I’ll get to know a dozen people really well. Most of them are political theory people, and so it is mostly guys, which I like. I actually have female friends and acquintences now, but my forever comfort zone is being the lone girl at a table full of dorky guys. Which is what I did for an hour at the end of the barbeque last night; I didn’t realize I had been missing that.

Tuesday afternoon, after the useless information sessions were over, there was a gathering at the on campus Pub with free beer. The guys I was talking to while waiting on line turned out to be MAPSS, and then I spotted some girls I’d introduced myself to earlier, and so a bunch of us grabbed a table and wound up being some of the last people to leave. A few non-MAPSS people joined us…Computer Science and Math boys are very cute and kind of hot respectively. Anyway, we all went back to their apartment for cheaper beer and we ordered dominos and it was very, I guess collegiate, except we are grad students now.

 And yeah. It was great. I did not feel awkward or shy or uncomfortable. Last night was more of the same and the great thing about graduate school is how normal everyone is. I remember the first days of college (and I did that twice, so I REALLY remember) how everyone was trying so hard to reinvent themselves and come across as cool and together and whatever. I remember being utterly exhausted after the first day of performances at Hampshire. There’s none of that here – everyone can kind of admit that they’re a little nervous and that they feel a little awkward and then that becomes the ice breaker and before you know if you’re sharing a six pack and talking about bad TV. That never happened in college; everyone at Hampshire was too busy trying to impress each other with what they were studying. People aren’t really doing that here. It’s already acknowledged that we’re serious, intelligent people; we’re relying on each other as a break from thinking too much about academic minutia.

So coming here was the right decision. I’m breathing a giant sigh of relief.