Matriculation

I love the in-between times, those moments (or weeks, in this case) between one thing and another. Ever since I have closed out the fall semester, I have been gearing up for the spring one- sorting through notebooks, deciding what to keep and what to toss, comparison shopping for textbooks. In the process, I have found myself musing a great deal on the fact that this will be the last time I actually get to do this. Assuming all goes well, I will finally be graduating in May, putting an end to my 15-year love-hate relationship with institutions of higher education. I don't want to tempt fate, putting my fear on display for the world wide web, but of the 18 credits I am taking this semester, I only actually need 6 of them (or, 2 classes) to graduate. The others are really just on my schedule because they sound so interesting, and, to be honest, to run up the score a bit.

I want to write about graduation and all that jazz, but I feel that a step to far. Maybe later in the spring. Instead, I give you...

Matriculate. Verb. To admit or be admitted into a group, especially a college or university.

Matriculate is one of those words that you don't really use. It is a term of classification, separating those who are just visiting from those trying to get a degree. No one is walking around campus asking people they meet, "So, are you matriculating?" Doesn't happen. But my nugget of arcane information for the day is the origin of the word, which comes to English through the Late Latin matricula, a diminutive of the Latin matrix. Matrix has entered our language to mean a great many things (see Dictionary.com's take here), but itself came into being through the Latin root for mother, mater, which seems strange when I think about matriculate. And then the term alma mater comes to mind, and I get it again. And I want to start singing ("On a hill she stands, majestic...")