Tag Archives: graduation

Journey

Back From Black

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This morning, I had trouble getting up and walking. I was looking forward to it. I bought new shoes yesterday, and, while I tried them out yesterday evening, I was really looking forward to doing the just-woke-up walk and see how they feel.

But I couldn’t get moving. With any sort of expediency, anyway.

I drank more coffee than I should have. I piddled around here and there on the ‘net, and I took a long time to get dressed.

When I finally made it to the park, I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I wasn’t walking; I was trudging.  After having trudged about 20 minutes, though, I noticed my pace increasing. By the time I hit 30 I felt okay, and by the time I hit 40, I felt pretty damned good. ‘

I think that’s exactly how things are right now.  Post-graduation, I’m at about the 25 minute mark right now.

Okay, so I’m not officially here quite yet,

But I’m not falling all over myself avoiding things, either.

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college

Why Today is the Best Friday in a Long, Long Time

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1) I slept till almost 7. Woke up without an alarm.

2) I don’t have to work this weekend.

3) At approximately noon, I’ll be turning in two of my assignments, leaving me only with my paper for the Bear (which I actually sort of understand part of how Lacan and Foucoult and Freud apply, thus allowing me SOMETHING to write about with a source!) and a WHOLE WEEK TO WRITE IT IN!!!

4) My day’s plans consist of finishing up those assignments, turning it in, getting jacked up on Starbucks, and coming home to get started on The Bear’s paper. And a nap, somewhere in there.

5) I have clean sheets.

6) Did I mention I don’t have to work this weekend? Next weekened, either, for that matter.

Eight days til graduation. Good heavens, I never thought I’d be this close.

college

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

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I have one paper down, the Shakespearean thing that isn’t anywhere near as good as I wanted to be.

But it’s done.

I’m working on my paper that started out being about Kate Chopin (and, oddly, I haven’t written anything about her at all yet) and is now ass-deep in the exchange of information and relationship building.

It’s been eye-opening, for sure. I still have no understanding of Lacan or how that will play into it, but I am writing up a storm.

11 days, and I’ll be done, done, having walked across the stage, not losing my temper because I didn’t graduate magna cum laude (despite having the GPA, but that’s another rant for another time).

I’ll be done, done, and I never have to think about USM again. Except when I go to work there this summer. I’ve signed on to continue tutoring (at the abysmally low rate, stupid me) until I find a “real job.” While I don’t mind tutoring, I’d much rather be making a wage that is more than what I was making as a non-degreed.

But anyway.

Marie called, asked me if I remembered they were having a birthday party for me this weekend.

I didn’t.

Continue reading The Light at the End of the Tunnel →

Eat Pray Exercise

About Those Breasts…

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I have a presentation in 7 hours (God, being up this early makes the day seem so very, very long). I’m not sure what I’ll be talking about other than iconoclasm in the classroom. (I’ve noticed a theme to my classroom presentations, and they’re usually about overthrowing outdated, tired, and ineffectual teaching methods. Hmm).

I’m supposed to have a visual aid.  I don’t have a visual aid.  I’m not sure if I will have a visual aid.

Of course, I don’t have a speech either, so I’m right on schedule.

Two weeks of actual classroom left, of papers and stress and hair pulling and screaming and then….

…and then I don’t know. I have no idea.  Ideally, I’ll be sitting on the bow of the boat, sipping iced tea, reading something horribly trashy and getting sunburnt and swimming until my limbs revolt.

Ideally.

Continue reading About Those Breasts… →

college

Aroo?

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So, a momentary panic set in when I went to order my cap and gown. No big deal, it passed.

It wasn’t until I sat down with the Bear to meet for our independent study and tried to schedule future meetings with him so that there was none of the confusion that has seemed to plague us of late.

And, as I looked at the calender, I realized that there are officially six weeks left in the semester. Two of them are reserved for finals. I have four weeks left of school.

Four weeks. Four!

So, yeah, the panic has begun, a bit early this time, I think. But then again, there are other contributing factors.

We read Othello for Shakespeare again, and I realized that I liked Othello far better than Cymbaline (which utterly, utterly sucked in its ending, by the way) or anything else we’ve read so far this semester.

And Jenny says I’ll make it, and Jenny’s never wrong.

But right now I’m really starting to wonder.

college

Extra Days

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Today’s the 29. I can’t believe it’s the end of February already. “At least you got an extra day this semester,” my mom said. I’m guessing she meant “to do work.”

Because that makes so much difference.

In two weeks, I’ll be on Spring Break, and after blinking about three times, the semester will be over. I’ll be donning black-and-gold.

I’ll have some letters after my name.

Wow.

I have no idea what my life will be like in 60-some odd days. No idea.

But it’s Friday, and I have a long time between then and now. I finally have an idea for a paper with the Bear (20-odd pages, so-un-yay): Secrets in women’s writing. I’m not sure how it will work, but I’ve read a ton of short fiction by Kate Chopin, Sara Orne Jewett, Mary E. Dunbar Perkins (or something like that), and there are so many secrets within their stories.

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semester break

Graduation!

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I’m indulging in my first chocolate post-smoke out.

I discovered last year that Godiva chocolate ice cream, despite its high-class name, was rather sub-par chocolate ice cream.

But now I’m spooning with Blue Bell Dutch chocolate (God bless those little Dutch boys) and enjoying every single drop. It tastes like rich, rich chocolate pudding. Only better. Much better.

I don’t remember it tasting this good.

I don’t suppose it ever has.

In really, really, really good news, I found out my graduation date.

I’ll be exactly 34 years and one week old when I get my Bachelor’s.

Better late than never on both accounts, I suppose.

And class starts on Monday. I’m almost ready.

Almost.

college

Twenty Seven Weeks

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I’m feeling kind of writerly right now. It’s a good thing, considering how I have another paper due, two really, if I want to give myself a wee bit of breathing room. My latest paper is on the gender and racial constuction within James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man.” It’s a terrifically horrifying story, one that constructs one white man’s entire sexual identity as a negation of blackness.

It’s a fertile topic, anyway.

Since my lap top has gone to the Laptop Heaven in the Sky (or at least, Best Buy), I’m currently at a loss, doing most of my homework from a PC, which is a very strange feeling. Luckily for me, after the incident last year which involved my falling asleep over a fully caffeinated and sugared coke, I bought an accident protection plan which, oddly enough, expired five days after this year’s coffee incident.

Close calls, indeed.

Barring any major crisis, I have twenty seven weeks (or, more accurately twenty six weeks and 5 days) until my education as an undergraduate is over. This was the thought that kept me awake at work last night, enjoying that hour of extra pay while the rest of the world slept it away.

But for now, I’m off to write that paper before I totally lose that writin’ feeling.

It’s slipping away already.