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Wow. I’m still not sure it’s over (can’t believe it’s really over).

I’ve graduated. No more school. No more assignments. No more homework. No more impending sense of doom. Well, the doom hasn’t left yet, but I suppose that’ll fade with time. Before I went back to school, I kept having these recurring nightmares. You know, the typical “public place with no clothes on” type scenario. Except with these, it was me, the last few days of school discovering “oh yeah, there’s a class you’ve been signed up for all semester that you forgot about. Now you need to take this final exam or never graduate.” Have that dream about three nights in a row and it’s going to get really kooky. Now that it’s all over, I’m having a similar problem. I keep dreaming that there’s some major assignment that I’ve missed and they’re going to take back my diploma.

This really stinks. Technically, the diploma is no big deal to me. I didn’t get palpitations of the heart when we got in line. I didn’t think “now I’m really something.” Because I got a piece of paper. But they made me really work for that thing, and for some reason, when it comes to education, it’s embarrassing to say I had to work. It felt like work, but I know so many other people who actually work for their grades. Work for them looks like a piece of well-oiled machinery. Work for me just means I managed to make myself sit down and put out content. I can’t help feeling that, next to some people, my work ethic is just a bit flighty. Nevertheless, what was intended not to be work has turned out to be a great labor. I’m so glad it’s over.

Let me see if I can give a quick synopsis of recent events and where I stand today: Everything was backed up all semester. First, I had an incredibly awful semester last fall. It was so bad that I had two (count ‘em, two) papers that I didn’t turn in until about mid-to-late February. Basically my “ethics” class kicked my butt, and I worked on it so hard that I ignored the classes that I knew I could handle relatively easily. (It had to do with differing with the faculty on what issues were actually ethical dilemmas.) I got done with the semester and spent the entire Christmas break staring at a computer screen not actually doing any writing. I got both English papers about 98% done and decided to finish them up the first week back at school.

Enter “The Problems…”

I’m sure I’ve related all this stuff before. Nevertheless, for the sake of context (and a really really long blog), I’m going to rehash most of it: Instead of flying back as my ticked designated, my parents decided to drive me back, because I was going to be moving into an apartment approximately three months ahead of schedule. Blame that on a bad economy and a few choice words my mother would like to have with the governor of the state of North Carolina. The NC budget went bad, so they went out cutting corners, and they came up with a really nifty loophole: they decided that college campuses are no longer actually part of the state. I had been receiving about $5000 per semester in state grants, which required me to be an in-state resident. No problem. I’ve been living here for six years. But the North Carolina budget boys decided that “on campus” cannot count as a permanent address. It’s just a temporary address. So, if you are living on campus, obviously your real address is where your parents live. For me that would be Oklahoma. I had no idea I lived in Oklahoma. My driver’s license says NC. So do all my taxes. But as far as North Carolina is concerned, I live in Oklahoma. I’m pretty sure the great state of Oklahoma would be willing to debate that, since they won’t give me any grant money to go to school in NC either. So apparently I’m living in limbo land.

It’s nice here in limbo land. Temperature’s always a pleasant 72 degrees… No place to sleep though. Or to put your books. My solution was to move off campus and cut all my classes to the bare 9 hours I had left to graduate. Suddenly I’m a part time student, reducing my cost by… $5000. What a coincidence. Suddenly I also have no furniture, no food, and no car. So we drove up and brought all my old stuff and threw it in the apartment. It was hectic. Anything that involves both parents driving over 1000 miles and staying just for the weekend is always hectic.

So, I spent all my spare time last semester acquiring things like lamps and a desk and a dresser and all that stuff, and walking three miles to school (up-hill both ways…)

Anyway, all of this would have been fine. Two out of three classes this semester were not only a breeze, they were really kind of fun. I loved my literary theory class. Wish I could have taken it before all my other lit classes. But this one class was coo-coo. I won’t go into details because this is too long a blog in the first place, but he kept insulting the students, he graded more on grammar than on content, and he was terrible about communicating the proper criteria for getting a good grade in the class. It put me in the exact same position as the previous semester of focusing all my energy on the crappy class and ignoring the ones I liked. I was seriously in danger of getting a D in that class—a failing grade when it’s part of your major.

I had no final exams this semester (amazingly), So I spent the entire last week of school locked in my apartment working on a single 12 page paper. I turned it in exactly 8 days late. Fortunately, that professor had heard about problems with the other guy and said he wouldn’t take off for being late.

OK. I’m going to stop here. I”ve got more to say, but I’ll say it separately. Graduation was a whirlwind, to say the least…

KB