I picked up my diploma today.
Walking back home, I barely escaped the rain. On the way to campus the sun came out and everything looked gorgeous and shiny and just-washed, because it's been raining since Saturday night. Every morning since then has been dreary and wonderfully grey, but I hadn't been able to sleep in. I volunteered to work an extra shift on Monday and today, Kevin woke me up so I could drive him to class, because it was pouring. Berkeley just came back from break and that's probably why I decided to pick up my diploma today, to be near all the energy of the first day of school. Actually it was the sudden brightness outside that made me leave the house. Or, no, it was because of a misguided attempt to exercise. I pulled on my shorts and sports bra and everything. Except really, I had no intention of jogging. So I just walked, rather slowly, walked to campus and smiled to myself that people might think I am still in high school from my "Russian Rocket" Terra Linda sweater, but I am actually about to begin medical school at a certain well-known school nearby. I tried to find Beatty, one of the teachers who wrote me what must have been an exaggeratingly glowing recommendation (how else would've I gotten in?) but his office door was closed. On the way home I decided to make a detour to Berkeley Bowl, just to pick up an onion, cumin and olive oil - all of which we'd run out of - and that's when I noticed that it got a lot colder while I stood in line to get my diploma. It took me seven months to pick up the damn thing and apparently they unsuccessfully tried to mail it. My parents address was perfectly correct on the label but it had a "return to mailer" stamp. It took two rolls of thunder for me to notice that the approaching cloud was blue and grey and streaked with lightening. That's when I began to sprint home. As you can imagine, I what I generously call sprinting was more like short intervals of frantic running followed by much longer stretches of speed walking and heavy asthmatic breathing. I made it into the apartment complex just as the first heavy drops of rain began to really threaten the diploma in my cloth bag. Then, right as I sat down at my computer, it began to hail.