For Real This Time?
I always joked when I was in Ann Arbor that I hoped it was my last time, and now, that this could have been my last Casino Night ever, it feels like an empty victory...
I think Nomadlife has chronicled well enough about the awesomeness that was Casino Night. After a dissapointing showing last year, they came back out of the gates and really proved that this class of Michigan AIESECers do indeed know how to party. We'll see if the next gen will continue the tradition, or if Madison will just have to go it alone....
But I want to write about something else: The Last Time. This is a concept that has always bothered me. I hate goodbyes. I hate when good things come to an end. Most of the time I relie on a fast paced intense lifestyle to obsecure the fact that time is passing by. There will always be more time, right? Another time? That wasn't really the last time, was it?
And that was the conflicting thing that struck me at Casino Night: It seemed like it was the end of an era. The funny thing is, that I wasn't hung over from drinking on Sunday, which was amazing, but I was on a different kind of hangover: An emotional hangover, signified by a deep knot in my stomach as my mind was grappling with the end of an era. In a lot of ways, Casino Night was the final big bash of my AIESEC career. A lot of great AIESECers that I have grown up with, that I have partied with, that I have shared my deepest passions with, partied together for the last time Saturday Night.
And none of this would have probably occured to me, either. Except, there was Arnaub. Arnaub is a lot like a Gate keeper for me. Seeing him has always been a symbol that times are changing. And partying this last time with the Nob, AIESEC Nob, finally conveyed that indeed time has passed and while an era is ending, there is a new one to take its place.
So, Cheers to all the good times, and even the last times. Bring on the new times, and may my memory never fail me.
I think Nomadlife has chronicled well enough about the awesomeness that was Casino Night. After a dissapointing showing last year, they came back out of the gates and really proved that this class of Michigan AIESECers do indeed know how to party. We'll see if the next gen will continue the tradition, or if Madison will just have to go it alone....
But I want to write about something else: The Last Time. This is a concept that has always bothered me. I hate goodbyes. I hate when good things come to an end. Most of the time I relie on a fast paced intense lifestyle to obsecure the fact that time is passing by. There will always be more time, right? Another time? That wasn't really the last time, was it?
And that was the conflicting thing that struck me at Casino Night: It seemed like it was the end of an era. The funny thing is, that I wasn't hung over from drinking on Sunday, which was amazing, but I was on a different kind of hangover: An emotional hangover, signified by a deep knot in my stomach as my mind was grappling with the end of an era. In a lot of ways, Casino Night was the final big bash of my AIESEC career. A lot of great AIESECers that I have grown up with, that I have partied with, that I have shared my deepest passions with, partied together for the last time Saturday Night.
And none of this would have probably occured to me, either. Except, there was Arnaub. Arnaub is a lot like a Gate keeper for me. Seeing him has always been a symbol that times are changing. And partying this last time with the Nob, AIESEC Nob, finally conveyed that indeed time has passed and while an era is ending, there is a new one to take its place.
So, Cheers to all the good times, and even the last times. Bring on the new times, and may my memory never fail me.
posted by Trent Krupp at
12:50 AM
0
4 Comments:
It's funny, I have been thinking about this same topic for a while now as well. Granted, I haven't been involved in AIESEC as long as the real troopers - the ones with 4+ years ties - but still, three years has been a while. I still remember the faces I saw at my first YES conference in the Chicago Double Tree Hotel (including yours!). Never would I have imagined the impact that they would have in the organization and in my life. Indeed, it feels weird that most of the faces I have become comfortable with, seeing them semester after semester, will be leaving and all my memories of the past three years will be nothing more than just flashes in the immense expanse of time.
But, thus is the nature of a transient organization. In the end, it's only us who will treasure those "forgotten" moments the most - and what have impacted us the most.
Hope to see you in Austin, though! Keep in touch!
By
Sheila Z., at 1:39 AM
Your post rattled me. Throughout the entirety of this semester, I've been trying to tell myself that I'm so very ready for the next step in my life. Granted, I can't wait to get out of undergrad for all of its academic hell, but as I purposely took the long way home from campus today and thought about the last four years, I realized this weekend was so much more than just a drunken revelry, but rather a reminiscence of everything we've been through.
Very well our last time. But I doubt it, not quite yet.
By
Nob, at 1:32 PM
Trent, this post reminded me that when your 'generation' graduates, it will be the last of my personal ties to AIESEC Madison. Even though I've met some of the folks that will still be around for a while through the ROKS conference, once you and Karen are gone, that's it. I still remember interviewing you guys as freshman!
Yes, it may be the 'end of an era', but those groups of friends will likely remain in some form or another...made significantly more easy now by the proliferation of nomadlife. Shit, look at what we're doing with the Rowdy Reunion. It only ends when you give up.
By
Cat, at 2:14 PM
You all couldn't sum up better what I have been going through the last 6 months.
Just 3.5 years ago, my first YES conference was Chicago Double Tree too, and now most of my best friends in the world are @ers. Had I known then how all you crazy people would turn my world on its head (exactly what I always needed, mind you), I probably wouldn't have believed it. Unexpectedly graduating early a few months ago really threw me for a loop and made me realize just how much the people in @ have changed me and my world. It was getting roasted by this gen of @ers at my last banquet that really, as Naub says so eloquently, "rattled me," and proved what I had been told once by Cat's generation not so long ago: EVERY DROP YOU PUT INTO AIESEC, YOU GET OUT OF IT.
I couldn't be more grateful, as ambiguous as the real world now is, for the opportunity to know and to continue to know you fine people. Trent, thanks for putting into words what I've been feeling for so many months now, and for opening the opportunity for me to make peace with change, to have faith that this isn't the end, but just a new kind of beginning...
I mean, hell, I'll be the first to admit that we all have some sort of deeply-rooted fantasy about an AIESEC-based secret society someday... AIESEC Masons? Not so idealistic. Keep it in mind.
Until then, keep in touch.
See you when we get there.
By
KG, at 2:43 PM
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