Saturday, June 5, 2010

alumni weekend: welcome back to c'ville

I am sitting at Mudhouse, a coffeehouse downtown, doing some work. Large commotion ensues. The proprietor, a young man in his mid twenties who apparently is broke because he disappeared for two years to travel to Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina (the things you hear about people's personal lives), spied one of his sister's college friends. She, the sister's college friend, was back in Charlottesville for Alumni Weekend. She has been working in DC for the past couple of years and now she came back just for Alumni Weekend, with her boyfriend (point to eye-candy on her arm). The conversation that ensued (pretty much verbatim) was:

Proprietor: "Hey hey! Yeah you look great! You haven't aged a bit."
Alumna: "Yeah? Thank you! Thank you!"
Proprietor: "Yeah~ So do you want to go on a date with me?"
Alumna laughs and lightly punches him. Boyfriend on arm growls.

Apparently graduating college doesn't make you smoother.

But really, college graduates fascinate me. One thing is for sure, I will join their ranks very soon so I am really curious about life after college. Having had many fourth year friends as a first year, I do know a lot of college graduates, but I think they are still too fresh from college (FFC?) to be good specimens of alumni.

If they are working over 40 hours a week, how do alumni make friends? What do they do for fun? What is the dating scene like? What makes their world go round? As a college undergraduate, the word alumni is synonymous with networking, which goes under the heading of "careers." However, surely life after college is more than just work, right?