I was in the middle of packing up my study in anticipation of my move this afternoon when I happened upon the Literary Magazine for The Ulysses S. Grant Foundation. U.S. Grant was an amazing summer and afterschool program with which I was involved my entire undergraduate career, primarily in a capacity of math instructor but I also ran the program for a year. (Frankly, I prefer teaching … I love kids.)

Anyhoo, while reading through I remembered the great students that I had. We served middle schoolers in the awkward midst of puberty; kids just beginning to get stinky armpits when they sweat and the painful experience of recognizing the opposite sex. Many of our students were misfits in one way or another; the white kids stuck out like a sore thumb, the short kid was just a little bit taller than his bookpack, one shy fellow had boobies. Reading through their essays and poems and whatnot, I was warmed by the memory of their spirit and enthusiasm and energy and irrepressible life force. I love those kids.

My mind wandered a bit and I began thinking of other awkward moments. I remember the first formal dance-type thing in college. It was a dance in JE, and many of the underclassmen had flown their high school sweethearts in for the event. How exciting for these girls to see ther boyfriend in his exciting Yale life! How proud their mothers were, I’m sure, for being the girlfriend of a Yale man! You could see the way their sparkling eyes soaked it all in, the wood-panelled walls, the rich leather reading chairs, the slate entryways. Wow! they surely thought. This is so cool! What an amazing, incredible world!

I know what their eyes saw, because I remember how my eyes felt too when I first moved in.

But I was now a wisened freshman with several weeks of being a Yalie firmly under my belt, and I knew enough to know that the outfits they donned for the exciting Yale dance were entirely inappropriate. Their hairstyles were reminiscent of the Indiana flatlands I’d left behind; properly curled bangs solidly Aqua-netted into place. Poufy sleeves. Perhaps a large satiny bow innapropriately placed. Bright colors.

I felt embarrassed for their ignorance at what the appropriate attire for a proper Yale event might be. I wanted them to run and find a simple black shell and some pearls and coat them in understated elegance. Their dresses were too loud and ruffly; their hair too big and poufy. Most of them wore makeup that was obvious rather than subtle. It pained me, but at the same time, I felt superior to them. You foolish girls stealing our Yale men, what on earth are you thinking in that dress from RAVE?

It was the same feeling I had when I accompanied Jeremy to the Stony Brook Engineering Ball. The kids were wearing truly unsophisticated attire and everyone looked on the balance quite sloppy. The ball itself was held in a gymnasium-type room with — egads — cinder block walls and chairs made of metal and industrial-strength fabric. (As opposed to wood and leather.) I felt terrible at noticing the shabbiness of it all, and wished for a moment that I could erase the kind of knowledge that Yale had bequeathed me.

Sometimes I wish I did not know that there are alternate lives out there, that there are kids with trust funds and summer homes on the coast, that people do have libraries within their homes with reading lamps and $3,000 leather chairs and first editions of the classics. When you’re in Peoria and it plays well, the last thing you want is to realize that it sounds like shit everywhere else.