exuviae: matter out of place

This Thursday I went to the Anthropology Graduation dinner...as I sat at various tables people were talking about writing that last Buounforte (I have already forgotten how to spell his name) paper and taking that last final.  Others were talking about graduate school and where they were going to live after Thursday.  Others were just talking about the stress of finals...during all of this I felt like one thing: exuviae...which means matter out of place.  

I had the same feeling a couple of weeks ago as I entered the SWKT to watch my ward's untalent show.  The SWKT was my "home base" while in the last year of college.  It is where the TA office for Anthropology was, it was where I had some of the best classes of my life.  Yet, as I entered the building it felt wrong.  As though the person that I am today doesn't belong, or doesn't fit into that building.  

As I have contemplated that feeling that I have had for the past couple of days I realized the ironic nature of it all.    As I was trying to process my feelings I didn't think, "wow I feel weird here" or "I have moved on" no I used the word exuviea...a term I only learned in Anthropology 101 and continued to learn about in every other class that I took.  In my moment of feeling like I had moved past school and maybe anthropology, I used an anthropological term to describe it.  

While I am not planning on going to graduate school in anthropology, and I am not planning on being a professional "anthropologist" I am still an anthropologist.  I think like one, I talk like one, I look at people like one.  Anthropology has made me the person that I am today and I owe it, my professors, my anthropology friends, so much.