I graduated a couple hours ago. It feels good.

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18 hours. It’s really difficult to believe that I’ll soon be walking to represent the end of my schooling. Well, difficult and awesome all the same.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

I just got back from Ocala, where I saw the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. My first reaction is that my butt hurts from sitting for over three hours; my second is that it was a great film and I enjoyed it very much. Honestly, the cinematography is so good that it almost wouldn’t matter if there wasn’t a plot, but since the plot happens to be one of the best in fantasy, the movies are quite an experience.

Rest

I’ve been sleeping in three-hour shifts for a few days now (I’m not sure how many because the past week or so seems like one big day) and I’m excited to get to sleep in tomorrow. Of course, I can’t sleep too late because my family is coming down for graduation–or “commencement”, which I think means “you get to walk across the stage, but we’re not giving you anything tangible for about six weeks”–and I need to clean the house before they get here. Regardless, I’m looking forward to eight good hours’ sleep and some time to watch the tele.

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1 day, 10 hours and change. I just dropped off the final paper of my undergraduate career. It was eerie being on campus when the only people around were the cleaning staff and the occasional professor. Yesterday, as I walked away from my last final exam, “it” began to sink in a bit. I was smilin’ like a kid on Christmas and felt a weight begin to lift off my shoulders. It’s nice to be moving on and to finally have something to show for five-and-a-half years of school.

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2 days, 16 hours. I’m in the Senior Design lab right now and making slow progress. We have 7 “units” that need to work and we’ve got maybe 3 or 4 working. Hopefully, we’ll be done in the next few hours.

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3 days, 18 hours. I’ve been told it won’t sink in until I’ve graduated, moved to Dallas and begun working. So, I guess it’ll be a while until I realize what I’m about to experience.

Things to do

• Senior Design Presentation 12/17/03, 3:42 pm
• Electromagnetic Fields final exam 12/17/03, 7:35 pm
• Turn in paper on Quantum Cellular Automata 12/18/2003, 8:30 am (Can you say “all-nighter”?)
• Graduate 12/19/2003, 10:30 pm

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4 days, 16 hours. It still isn’t sinking in.

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I graduate in 5 days, 16 hours. These words mean nothing to me yet; I’m sure they will eventually.

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Or not. I filled out my “Exit Interview” today. Basically, it was a chance for me to voice my opinion on my department (Electrical & Computer Engineering), bash some professors and laud others. I particularly enjoyed the bashing part and I hope one of the “Worst professors I ever had” cries himself to sleep tonight. That’s not entirely true: I hope both of the “worst professors I ever had” cry themselves to sleep tonight!

Twisting my evil mustache…

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Or not. I intentionally scheduled an easy semester for my last one here, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This semester has consisted largely of me being bored and laying around on the couch, watching old movies (AKA “classics”). Tonight, I got so bored that I opted to play poker, even though I wasn’t really in the mood to play. “What else am I gonna’ do?” seemed to be echoing in my mind as I tapped the clicker only to deepen my boredom.

Anyway, it’s starting to occur to me that this semester isn’t going to end with a bang as semesters usually do. Generally, the last week of classes is packed with homework assignments and leftover projects that professors feel obligated to pack in before finals week. Finals week is stressful because there’s always somebody hanging out and, regardless of what they’re doing, they have something to offer me in lieu of studying. Cramming becomes an art and acing tests becomes a luxury that only the most studious can afford.

I’m not saying I’ll be acing any tests this semester (though I did get my first un-curved 100% on an exam this term), but I won’t be stressing over them during finals week because I don’t have finals… I have a final. And that final is in the class that I earned my first ever 100% on a test in (watch out for that preposition ’cause it might get lonely there at the end of that sentence and start attacking people). I do have a research paper to write, although it’s only supposed to be ten pages and I’ve already got about five from a summary I wrote of the resources I am going to use (and the ten-page limit includes graphics and pictures, which I haven’t included yet). And my senior design project is due in nine days… but I don’t have anything else to do until then, so I see no reason why I can’t invest a good amount of time in it without feeling too much pressure. I guess I might be worried about my quiz in lab next week if the lab wasn’t a joke (I know it’s a joke because I have no idea what I’m doing and I’ve got an A so far).

The things that are stressing me lately are few and insignificant: do I drive my car out to DAL? or just have my company ship it there for me and take the free plane ticket they’re offering me so I don’t have to endure 1000 miles of driving? How should I spend the month between graduation and my report date? Did I wear this shirt yesterday or did it fall from the clean pile into the dirty pile by mistake? Is The OC a rerun tonight? Will Ross and Rachel get together before the end of the series? Should I take time to get a haircut tomorrow, or watch movies instead? Why not both?

Ope, I gotta’ run… the guys are here for poker.

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Until recently, I’ve been pretty nonchalant about moving to Dallas, starting a new life or whatever. But as the days go by, I’m realizing the drastic change my life is about to experience. I remember being pretty excited about moving out west, changing some things, shakin’ stuff up, but now I’m beginning to understand the magnitude of the transition I’m about to make. I’m not scared of it or intimidated by it, rather I am concerned that I’m just not ready for it. But then, I have to ask if I’m not ready for this, who is? I’ve been chasing graduation for over five years! And that doesn’t matter because I’m just so comfortable in Gainesville. I know all the back roads, I can tell you the best local places to eat, I know exactly how long from here to there, I remember when the movie theatre by my house was called “the new theatre” and I remember a time when there wasn’t a Starbucks on every corner. I’m realizing that all this “knowledge” isn’t really where it’s at, though. There’s an old idiom, It’s not what you know, but who you know, and while its context is understood to be some sort of means to accomplish things, I am learning that it has a completely different meaning: there’s no sense in hanging around a college town with college kids who were in middle school when I graduated high school.

When I was a freshman, I remember specifically planning to make my stay at UF as long as possible because I couldn’t imagine wanting to leave such a fun, exciting place. That was before I realized that what made it fun and exciting was my peers, experiencing all of it with me, all of us for the first time. Yeah, I have friends that are experiencing those things, but I’ve already been there and the excitement that comes with venturing into the unknown simply can’t be duplicated for me. I already have so many of the memories that they are making; I’ve already grown as a college student should.

So, I think I am ready. Not prepared, not calm, but ready. It’s my time to move on to the next phase of my life. Of course, I believe this next stage will only last long enough to get me into the next stage, but only time will tell. For now, I’ve gotten a great education and I’ve accrued a hefty bill that has to be paid. I’m fortunate enough to have a good-paying job in a big city where I know lots of people. I will hopefully be able to learn more about acting and find out if it’s something I’d like to do long-term. I have many friends all over the country who will be there for me to talk to when I look around and realize that I’m alone in a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a yuppie apartment complex that’s five minutes from everything.

That’s about all I can muster for this pep-talk. I hope it works.

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