This has been a good year.
So.
I'm done with college. Completely. Insert Furmanism here. My graduate school applications are in, I'm back at my parents' house, my final exams are taken and my final grades reported to the school. I put on my robe and wizard scholar hat on Saturday and walk across the stage. There's a bit of transition going on in the shape of me moving upstairs into Mom's old office but the bulk of my stuff is settled and I'm sleeping in my old bed again.
I don't think it's really set in for me. It still feels like winter break, or that I've got some essay to write or studying to do. My brain can't seem to acknowledge that after four years of constant mental deadlines it can finally take a rest. Four years of madness seems so short and the past one even shorter in relation to what's happened to me as a person. I'm not who I was when I went in and I'm glad of it. I think this'll be the first New Year'ss I can celebrate properly, the fulfillment of the old year and the hope of the new one--the idea that I can have some joy in myself, that I'm worth something more than my output and life's worth something more than figuring out how best to apologize to the universe for my own existence. Sure, I cracked sophmore year, did a few things I regret and a few things I can't take back. It's college. I could have done worse. Now I'm out the other side and I can finally claim worthiness of the title of "adult" they bestowed on me when I was thirteen.
It's been strange, and in places it's hurt a lot. But I like where I am and who I am now and that was worth four years of madness.
On a minor note, I'd like to note that my final grade point average, after this semester's disturbingly awesome four As (one in physics no less, by getting a baffling 98% on the final exam) and an A- (History and Systems and again only barely), my total GPA is 3.626.
The minimum for Latin honors, according to the UNCA website, is 3.6.
I'm graduating goddamn cum laude.
I'm done with college. Completely. Insert Furmanism here. My graduate school applications are in, I'm back at my parents' house, my final exams are taken and my final grades reported to the school. I put on my robe and wizard scholar hat on Saturday and walk across the stage. There's a bit of transition going on in the shape of me moving upstairs into Mom's old office but the bulk of my stuff is settled and I'm sleeping in my old bed again.
I don't think it's really set in for me. It still feels like winter break, or that I've got some essay to write or studying to do. My brain can't seem to acknowledge that after four years of constant mental deadlines it can finally take a rest. Four years of madness seems so short and the past one even shorter in relation to what's happened to me as a person. I'm not who I was when I went in and I'm glad of it. I think this'll be the first New Year'ss I can celebrate properly, the fulfillment of the old year and the hope of the new one--the idea that I can have some joy in myself, that I'm worth something more than my output and life's worth something more than figuring out how best to apologize to the universe for my own existence. Sure, I cracked sophmore year, did a few things I regret and a few things I can't take back. It's college. I could have done worse. Now I'm out the other side and I can finally claim worthiness of the title of "adult" they bestowed on me when I was thirteen.
It's been strange, and in places it's hurt a lot. But I like where I am and who I am now and that was worth four years of madness.
On a minor note, I'd like to note that my final grade point average, after this semester's disturbingly awesome four As (one in physics no less, by getting a baffling 98% on the final exam) and an A- (History and Systems and again only barely), my total GPA is 3.626.
The minimum for Latin honors, according to the UNCA website, is 3.6.
I'm graduating goddamn cum laude.