About and Abroad: And then the chapter ended.

I walked out of Pembroke College and didn't feel much. Just a warm, calm peace. I walked out into the street, crossed into Christ Church meadows, and took a nice long walk. The stillness didn't seem to admit I was finished with undergraduate life. You don't think that kind of thing comes quietly.

But nonetheless I've finished. Grades have all got to be sorted, and I've got a presentation blah blah but really, the true substance of my degree is finished with an essay on Gerard Hopkin's God's Grandeur for Andrew. It's a beautiful piece, something only Andrew in his absurd wisdom would assign in philosophy of religion, as we talk about God and reason and the creature-ly-ness of who we are. Eight weeks of term in Oxford have wrapped up an experience spanning more than four years, in Los Angeles and the Sierra and South Africa, filled with more remarkable people and more experiences than I could ever merit. The giftedness of it all holds me hostage -- I don't know how to respond but in a stupid, humble thanks, and I know there is no real method of repayment.

To finish college is not to finish an education. In fact, with college behind me, I can do a lot of the work on my education I've always wanted to but never found the time. This education is a constant process, a process of seeking understanding in life for its own sake, that pure motivation that so defines what I feel in my humanity.

Yet something in me cannot accept that this formal academic process is through. In all my interests, undergraduate life feels like it has opened doors of understanding that I can feel beckoning me in all directions. Who knows what the future will hold, I suppose. But what I have earned is a nice, long break, to live with my feet and not just my mind. Travels and adventures await! I live in Oxford for a while, and then take on into the great unknown that is the next few months. Ireland, France, Morocco, the possibility of climbing Denali with Killian in May.