....and I'm bored. Go figure. :p
The graduation ceremony went okay, although it was, quite frankly, the most boring waste of a Saturday afternoon ever. I stood in line for hours waiting for the staff to get their crap together alphabetizing everyone - honestly, I could have organized that shit in 30 minutes flat - and by the time we marched down to the arena floor, my feet were hurting like a son-of-a-bitch in those heels of mine. Thing is, that was nothing compared to what was to come - four hours in a folding chair, lashed to other folding chairs so that no one could move without smacking someone in the eye, listening to mind-numbing speeches and watching thousands of people I don't know walking across a stage.
(Okay, to be fair about it, the speeches actually weren't that bad.)
What added insult to injury was that by the time my name was called, nearly half of the audience had left. Fucking ingrates!
Anyway, it's all over. I'm just waiting on final grades from the last two classes (one I'm sure I aced, the other is iffy but I'm pretty sure I passed it okay), and my degree will be conferred. I won't receive the actual paper until July, though.
So the next step has already been taken - I have decided to go ahead with graduate school. What the hell? I have nothing better to do with my life.
I'm secretly amused that I'd said the exact same words 4 years ago in the throes of depression. Only this time, instead of feeling pretty hopeless about my future, I'm actually kind of excited about it now.
I have decided on Boston University Metropolitan College (or Boston MET for short) to pursue the Master's. I've already applied, and once my transcripts are sent, I'll receive a decision fairly quickly, I hope. I have recommendations, so.... we'll see. No guarantee, of course, but Greg and everyone else seems to think that I'll make it. I don't know - as usual, they have much more confidence in me than I seem to.
It's funny, but I don't really feel much different inside than I did before. Although I will confess to a moment on Saturday afternoon, after I'd walked the stage. I sat down and clutched the "fake" diploma (it's really a letter inside the diploma case saying that it's on the way) and started to watch the rest of the graduates walk.... and as I looked down at that case... I couldn't help it, but yeah - I did start to cry. Not sobbing, not wet or snotty bawling, nothing like that. Just quiet tears down the face. Because, you see, that diploma case is PROOF that I've beaten everything negative that people have tried to throw at me and make stick. Looking down at that blue folder, it just... hit home for me. I did it. I fucking MADE it. No one can take that diploma away from me. No one can say that I don't have a college education and no one can say that I didn't earn every bit of that.
In those few moments, all of the negative things that people ever said about me - physically, mentally, emotionally, my entire lifetime - went through my head like a reel-to-reel tape. I heard them, felt them, experienced them all over again. And then I looked down at that blue folder.
That blue folder is my "fuck you" to everyone that has ever messed with me, or tried to. It's the biggest "fuck you" I can ever convey.
When I receive my real diploma, it's going in the biggest, most expensive, professionally mounted frame I can find, and it's going right up on my wall.
Until the Master's degree is earned, anyway. :)
My brother called me on the phone the other night and said that he can't wait until he can see me walk the stage for my doctorate. I laughed at him at the time....
....but, hey. Why not? After all... I have nothing better to do with my life. :D
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