Is this really it?

Yesterday afternoon at approximately 2 p.m. I completed the last step of my master's degree: dropping off five copies of my thesis at the university bookstore for binding and filling out roughly two pages of paperwork. It was all quite anti-climatic, really. The clerk at the bookstore said "congratulations," and I walked back into the sunlight a completely different person, but nobody seemed to notice. Maybe I didn't even notice. All I did was get on my bike and bike home.

But when I arrived at my house some five minutes later, I found myself lacking one identity as a student as well as one certain purpose in life. It was a little disorienting. For the last four years whenever I meet somebody and they say, "what do you do?" I have always been able to answer, "I'm a grad student." It's a satisfying answer for someone of my age. It seems to fit my station in life. But now when strangers ask, what do I tell them? Unfortunately, being a "graduate," only seems to get one so far. People expect you do something more. Instead of the follow-up question of, "Oh, what's your major," now I get, "So what do you do for money?" The distress was enough to motivate me to post my resume on monster.com. Geez. I guess I'll be exploring this in subsequent posts. Also, I have to fill you in on the last month of excitement. And then there's the little issue of my top-secret, new website. More to come!

G is for Graduation

It's funny how during the most exciting and eventful times of my life I am the least likely to write. Understandably it's because we are the busiest during our most exciting moments, but it is a little sad for the pasttime of blogging.

And so I must apologize. During my absence I have been transformed from miserable grad student to near-alumnus.

To my left, is a pile of paper. It's nearly a foot high. It is five copies of my completed thesis waiting for Monday morning to roll around so that I can drop it off at the bookstore for binding. In about nine hours, I should be done forever.

Certainly, the "final days" have been fun and eventful. And I will make my best effort to recount them soon.

BTW, I have started a new blog for the new and improved chapter of my life. Sharing it with you will involve sacrificing my anonymity. I'll have to think about that one for a while.