Finnegan Begin Again

When I was a kid, there was a song on some sing-along-song tape I had about "Michael Finnegan," and what I remember from this song is this: "There was a man named Michael Finnegan, he grew fat and then grew thin again, (something something something) poor old Micheal Finnegan, begin again," which then brought the song through another round of poor old Michael Finnegan's ups and downs, wishes and woes. (Of course, you have to say "again" as "a-ghin" not "a-gahn" so that it rhymes with Finnegan. Just so you know.)

Anyway. Here I am, about to write a post about beginning school again (ahem... a-ghin) and all I can think of is Michael Finnegan. So... I had to share.

This beginning that I'm embarking upon is the beginning of the end of my graduate school experience. My last semester. My thesis-writing semester. My semester of growing up. My semester pre-wicked-serious-overseas-internship. My semester of seriousness.

And what do I have to say about it? Finnegan begin again. That's what I have to say.

I don't know if this means that I'm awesome, or if it means my brain works in mysterious and completely arbitrary ways and will forever lead me to points of irrelevance instead of points of profound introspection. Like, the synapse maps in my brain go from, "I'm starting my last semester of grad school," to "Poor old Michael Finnegan," which I last sang while riding in the back seat of my dad's cranberry colored Volvo station wagon with tan leather interior.

The same Volvo station wagon that we got into an accident in on Christmas; my cousin Ethan got a bloody nose and the woman who's house we called the police from gave me a candy cane, which I promptly hid between her couch cushions because taking candy from strangers was wrong.

Wait - ask me what I learned during my Baroque class in undergrad. I don't fucking know. Ask me what year something was painted, or what artist painted what, or what movement came before what movement and where it originated. (All of which an art history major should know.) I have no memory of learning it. None.

But I remember the smell of the kiln in the basement of May Hall, where I had all my classes. I remember the sound of the printing press when we ran through a woodcut. I remember the smell of wood being carved, cut... metal being cast... paper mache drying. I remember the long days I spent masking slides on a light table, the warmth of the sun bleeding through the windows of the slide library, my eyes watering, my callous throbbing from gripping the X-acto knife. I remember the feeling of the wide wooden banister that my hand hugged as I flung myself down the stairs from third to first floor every day at 4:30, the hope of a mild-mannered evening commute making my feet move faster than they should have.

My brain is weird.