Dear graduating class of 2011:
After attending most of the graduation ceremonies these past few weeks, I've heard just about every variation of speech urging you all to go forth and conquer your futures, attain your destinies, find success, and above all, be true to yourselves.
Maybe it's arrogant of me, but I think I'm in a unique position to offer some advice of my own. I'm hinging it on the fact that 10 years ago, I stood where you stand now, clutching a sheet of parchment that proclaimed me a graduate, with no idea what to do or where to go or what will be waiting for me there.
So here's some advice from someone who knows – real advice.
Someday, you may find yourself with more caffeine than blood in your veins at four in the morning, standing at the bathtub in your tiny apartment, stirring every piece of clothing you own in water that's bubbling with laundry soap. You've just finished a marathon paper-writing session, you can't remember your thesis or even your topic, and you certainly had no time to make it to the laundromat that week – which is in a sketchy part of town, by the way – and it really was a stroke of genius to unscrew the broom head and use the handle to stir up your clothes.
Moments like these happen – don't let them destroy your sense of self-respect. Laugh it off. It's a triumph, really, and you'll look back on those nights fondly when they're a few years gone and you no longer have the ability to stay up later than midnight and wake in a panic to find yourself drooling over your first draft.
Other times, you may find yourself a lowly intern, clutching a battered shopping list of obscure vegetables that your boss gave you before sending you off to do her shopping at the market in Vancouver's Lower East Side – you know, the infamous one where bad things happen every day. Don't be ashamed to call your mother to ask just what those weird vegetables on the list look like – she won't judge you (though she may laugh), and the people at the market don't speak English anyway, so they can't judge you either.
These are not the moments that make or break you, they're the moments that you laugh over until your stomach hurts – once you're back safe and sound at home, of course.
Someday, you may check your bank balance and realize with a shock that somehow, you've spent your entire student loan on pub crawls and whale watching tours and you'll have to survive on Ramen noodles for the rest of the semester.
These things happen to us all. I hope. At least once. Right?
Debt happens. I'm still working on figuring out how the getting out of it part goes.
The most important thing I learned was that life (and university and career and family) is all about showing up.
Go to class (seriously – despite what your professor may say, he's going to notice, and maybe he won't call your mom about it, but he'll find little ways to make you pay), show up to work, and don't forget to come home again every once in a while.
Whatever you do, keep your sense of humour – it makes even the most ridiculous misadventures bearable.
Trust me, I've learned more while frantically trying to stop overflowing sinks from flooding the apartment downstairs and battling massive spiders in the middle of the night and ignoring the worried knocks on the door from the neighbours who heard my blood-curdling shrieks than I ever did in a contemporary poetry class.
But then, I still maintain that nobody ever learns anything in a contemporary poetry class.
