The Elephant in the Common Room

            We were at The Man’s allergy appointment today and I heard it again: “Aren’t you excited?” I've learned to reply simply with an emphatic “YES.”

One of the sweetest things about the prelude to this grand adventure is that everyone whom we’ve told about it (Tally: Me = 3 people, The Man = 4,013,845 people, or everyone in the state, not discounting those currently in comas) is so thrilled on my behalf.  It’s how I imagine it must feel to be an Olympic athlete the spring before the Games (ya know, if I could be one of those Olympic athletes you see in yoga pants and slippers, drinking a Coke and reading The Kite Runner on the porch swing instead of, say, packing).  Every time someone hears me mumble, “I’m going to Oxford” the reaction is the same: “Wow! That is so cool! (Or fleek, if they’re under 18.) Congratulations!” Then they draw themselves up a little straighter and say one of two things: “Aren’t you excited?” or “I’m really proud of you.”

The “proud of me” comment is not restricted to people who know me well, or to people who know me at all, for that matter (like the poor grocery clerk The Man cornered last week); the “excited” comment is always accompanied by a megawatt grin. With either one, it’s the standing-up-straighter thing that gives it away: One of Us is doing this. I thought Oxford was a place for Other People, but she is one of Us.

I have become Everyman.

And here’s the deal: I am 20% excited, yes, but so far I am 80% just plain nervous. Dudes, a week and a half ago I was cramming for final exams. Now my face is breaking out, my fountain pen is dry, I can’t find my little teeny stapler and my hair looks like I colored it in with a felt pen that started to dry out halfway up my head. In short, I am a bit more Everyman than I would like to be. I feel I would better represent the team if I was a little bit taller, a tad younger, better read and twice as smart. When I can forget about that, yes, I am very excited. The library! The books! The spires! The rivers! The library!!!  At other times, though, there’s that familiar, self-conscious undercurrent with which we’re all familiar: There are people who deserve this more than I.

But you know, it’s not all strangers in the grocery store. My kids are watching this. My kids are watching a middle-aged woman work her hardest and achieve something that many of Us would consider mere daydream fodder. No, it’s not the Nobel Prize, and I’m not going to Mars, but – people do win the Nobel Prize. People will go to Mars. Just people. Like you. Like me.

Tonight my two-year-old grandson looked at me solemnly and said, “Gwamma, you going to school. You gonna drive the airplane up inna sky.”

And by Jove, he’s right. He’s a bright boy.

Takes after his Grandma.

Backstory

            I just finished my junior year at Portland State University. PSU is the sixth college I’ve attended in an educational career that is unique not only for its peripatetic nature but for the 35-year “gap year” between Sophomore and Junior. When the last of the brood left the bunker (families with six children don’t do “nests”), I thought it high time to finish the English degree that was put on hold when I moved to Japan in 1984. I gathered all the stray academic threads into an Associate’s degree at a local community college (side note: it is especially challenging to get an official transcript from a college which no longer exists, but I have done this) and started Big Girl School at PSU last fall.

            It may come as a surprise to you to learn that in the non-academic world there is a dearth of people who are interested in discussing the parallels between Toni Morrison’s Home and Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman. This is not a problem in a college. People in a college are still susceptible to wonders. I scared an entire bus full of Parisian strangers once when I screeched and lurched to my feet in shock – I had looked up, by chance, and seen the Sacre-Coeur basilica glowing atop a hillside, just as it does in every photograph you’ve ever seen of Paris; it took me by surprise, okay? – but on the train to PSU, nobody thinks anything of it when I spend the ride feverishly declining Latin verbs under my breath. I’ve lived in towns where that sort of behavior would get you locked up; here strangers pat you gently on the shoulder to get your attention and say, “Good luck on your test!” Those middle-aged fears about early-onset dementia are ameliorated somewhat when one makes the President’s List every quarter. Still, when I forwarded the “Study at Oxford Next Summer!” blurb to The Man with a “Hah!  Wouldn’t this be a hoot!” note,

I WAS KIDDING.

He made me apply anyway and

I GOT IN.

            You don’t get accepted to Oxford and just not go. So I’m going. I’m leaving on Saturday.

            Come along for the ride, won’t you?

Introduction: The Adventure Continues to Begin

     I received an invitation to the St. Peter’s College Summer Term Private Facebook Group today. It was with no little trepidation that I scrolled through the Members page.

     It is worse than I feared. There are women with last names as first names. There are men who graduated from matching prep school/college combos. Mine is the only selfie with a shower curtain hanging behind the head – the rest are snapshots taken in front of bricks, columns or books, except for the one which I’m almost positive is a newspaper debutante photograph. These people are the editors of their Ivy League college newspapers, Peace Corps volunteers, and Big Ten quarterbacks.

     The main item of interest on my CV is that if I stand close enough to the bathroom counter my stomach slides into the sink.

     But a week from today, I am flying to England. My name is Siva, and I’m going to Oxford. Also, I just noticed that in an attempt to confuse those pesky Facebook ads I have listed my workplace as "The International Space Station." I wonder what Chervil Buff-Orpington III thinks about that as he peruses the St. Peter's Page?
     This is going to be interesting.