Year 4

I got a very unpleasant call from work today. I wasn't supposed to officially go back to work until Thursday, but now I have a meeting early tomorrow morning. Boo. I was also told that I have an other early meeting the following day, but at least that day is an official work day. Sure, my meeting tomorrow won't last more than an hour, but I'm still bummed.

Lance and I went back to school shopping today. He bought a snazzy new pair of shoes and I got myself a new backpack. I've always had a thing for bags and backpacks and I used to get new backpacks quite frequently. When I first started working, I carried my backpack from grad school but I eventually felt self-conscious about it. Everyone around me had over-the-shoulder bags that looked professional looking (or they had those plastic rolling crates but that's not a look that I want to be sporting anytime soon). The only people who had backpacks were under five feet tall. I eventually swapped my beloved backpack for an over-the-shoulder bag in order to fit in a little better with my colleagues. I was already the youngest member of the faculty and I didn't want my choice of bag to make me look even younger than I was.

When I was younger, there was a period of my life where I had over-the-shoulder bag as my school bag. I had two denim bags and one black bag and none of them lasted very long. They also weren't as easy to carry as they took a little more effort to hold on my shoulder than a backpack. The straps would occasionally fall and it was a lot harder to carry additional stuff. So I switched to Jansport backpacks. They were a lot easier to carry and to hold on to and the Jansport bags were incredibly sturdy.

Quite frequently last year, I arrived on campus with arms laden down with stuff, my over-the-shoulder bag, my lunch bag, my coffee, and my computer bag. My over-the-shoulder bag made getting to my room quite difficult, as the straps would constantly fall off my shoulder. The struggle to get to my room each morning made me cranky. In addition to this, M*Bark had discovered how much fun it was to poke her head in my bag and find something to pull out and lay in the middle of the floor. That didn't make me cranky, I actually thought it was funny but I did worry that she was pulling stuff out that I would need for the day.

And so, as I approached Year 4, I decided that I needed a new bag. I hadn't really thought about what kind of bag I wanted, but I started looking at the backpacks today while we were at Sports Authority and suddenly decided that I wanted a backpack again. So, just like the good ole days, I dragged Lance around to lovingly fondle the various backpacks. I finally decided upon this Nike backpack. It was on sale and had some good pockets and had a fun mesh pocket in the front. I thought I could maybe put my umbrella and hat in there for easy access when it rained (which, is like every other day up there), but Lance pointed out that it would make a good knitting pocket. Well, the idea of a handy pocket for taking my knitting to work pretty much sold the bag for me and now it's sitting next to me, waiting for me to fill it up.

The one thing that made me second guess this backpack was the fact that it was a backpack. If it was unprofessional of me to have it three years ago, then why did I think it was okay for me to have it now? Well, the answer to that is: I just don't care. As I enter Year 4, I realize that I don't give a damn what my colleagues may or may not think about me. I think that I have more than proven myself to be professional and to actually know what I'm doing, despite my age. And for those of my colleagues who still question me because of my age...well, I really just don't care.