[custom-design]

As you all know from my previous posts, I am about to begin a new stage of my life. And with such changes, of course, come weird reflections on the past, the present and the future. Yesterday I had a strange revelation...a sort of poetic conclusion to my 3 years, 2 weeks, 3 days in this little concrete office box amidst The University Squalor.

When I first started working for The Man, one of my most annoying and important jobs was to photocopy these ugly little brochure/pamphlet thingies that we had for each concentration of study within our department. I hated the job on multiple levels: The photocopy machine was the biggest pain in the ass and I was always whispering swears under my breath - and not so under my breath - to it, constantly slamming it's ugly beige drawers, lids, etc. Oh, and p.s. It never did anything you asked it to do! The brochure originals were truly heinous, as well, and so I was constantly copying terrible-looking propaganda containing awful writing, spelling errors and just terrible layout design. So when you compound the fact that the copy machine never let me line originals up correctly, that the borders on the overpriced and very ugly paper were constantly interfering with the text, and that, in the end, there was absolutely no way for me to fix the problem - I didn't have access to the electronic copies - the job was, overall, a complete and utter failure, bordering on disaster, that I took pride in eventually dumping onto our overpaid "work-study" who just so happened to be exemplary at the "study" portion of said position while seriously disregarding the "work" portion with absolutely no consequence.

Over the course of the cream-filling portion of my career here at The University, I have happily ignored any brochure associations and have survived quite successfully, as our program began undergoing structural changes that put a stop to the reproduction of all old promotional materials, much to my delight. Of course, since the changes were made official about 6 months ago, it was brought to my attention that new brochures were absolutely essential and, utilizing all persuasive powers, They suggested I get right on it, seeing as I was the incredibly talented creative being within the program. How lovely, I thought, as I proceeded to ignore said project for a couple months. Eventually, I decided it best to get a move on and I found that, despite my strong hatred for Word most of the time, I actually really enjoyed the process of completely trashing the old brochures and coming up with my own layout, headings and stylistic choices. It was wonderful. And on top of that, I finished them in a rather timely manner and one day displayed them to my superiors to rave reviews and excitement that I had done such a fine job.

So yesterday I initiated the photocopying process and although the same terrible overpriced papers are being used, they are in no way as ugly as they once were. I did make several margin adjustments to my originals in order to accomodate the unruly borders on those fancy papers, and each adjustment, each copy, everything, perfected itself nicely, calmly, easily. There was no swearing at the copier. There was no slamming of the doors, kicking of that awful beige exterior. I behaved. The machine behaved. And most importantly, the brochures came out beautiful.

I enjoyed sitting at my desk for the first time in a while as I put on some Franz Ferdinand, took out my ruler, and started folding those all-originals. And that's when it hit me! My first days here revolved around copying those crap brochures and they were never right...never lined up....never worthy of distribution. And now, as my exit approaches with a giant smile on its face, luring me out of this world of political University b.s., petty personality differences, and tragic tasks of phoniness and filing, I am able to bask in the self-satisfaction that I am ending where I began, in similar spots, but at the same time, entirely different.

Those brochures will be what I remember.