Wow. Berkeley's a mob scene as thousands of freshmen (froshpeople, this is Berkeley, after all), and their parents, storm the campus and the dorms, triple-parking and driving the wrong way up one-way streets.

Now I feel a little silly for not having bought my books last week. I really should know better by now.

Anyhow, the cycle's beginning again. Football season starts in a week or two, sophomores will be trying to crash 14 units at the same time, while neglecting to drop the 8 they don't want, just in case. Juniors will 'hook up' with people they're sure are their lifelong loves, after two years of college flings, or lack thereof, and seniors will walk tall, stolidly refusing flyers from street vendors and ASUC wannabes alike, feeling like they did in high school, that they're on top and the end is near.

And somewhere, invisible in the teeming masses, I'll be flowing through the crowd, in it and of it to be sure, but more like the water, and less like the fish.

After 10 years at a school it's hard to be anything other than a part of it, an institution within an institution, as unnoticed as the inner courtyard between Hesse and McLaughlin. Berkeley is the oldest institution of higher learning in California, and I've been here for 8% of its existence.

A beurocracy that has stymied thousands each year, including myself, is now an old adversary, a teacher of strategy that prepares its students for the future through strife and conflict. I've learned all the lessons it has to teach, and I look forward to the next.

For this is my last year at Berkeley. In the Spring I'll be graduating in a major that didn't exist when I started at Cal. I already have a career, financial security, and a firmly established sense of self. While gone from Cal I discovered new sources of inspiration, and upon my return I was elated to find that there is a change to explore those interests in academia, away from the world of client deadlines and shifting requirements and expectations, where discovery is the purpose, and not just a welcomed by-product of a client engagement.

Classes start up a week from Monday, and of course I have a class to crash, a class to hold in reserve, street vendors to dodge, and a beaurocracy to keep in check. I do look forward to the challenge, to discovering the new ideas, to smile at the old ones, and forget it all and watch new episodes of Buffy once a week. Heck, it's better than being a freshman. Back then all we had was 90210, and we liked it.