It is done. The final paper of the final class of my heinous degree is over. I have not yet technically graduated though, as I was surprised a few weeks ago with the happy news that the university had found a little loophole whereby I was just 3 credits shy of being eligible to graduate through their institution, (I transferred), regardless of the fact that I have 4 gajillion credits through former institutions.
They apologetically told me that I could choose any, any course, from any concentration, or school that I wanted to fulfill this little technicality. They urged me to look for the cushiest most mindless course I could find, by all means, please. (They are all about getting a real solid education apparently).
ANYWAY, after briefly considering underwater basket weaving, I settled on Physiological Psychology, a class that I had better enjoy the heck out of, because it starts tomorrow (today really) and I am a tad burned out. I figure it is the perfect course, combining the two fields I cannot choose between as I contemplate forging ahead with my studies and figuring out what I am going to be when I grow up. It will be sad if I hate it because then I will have to accept that it is not the subject, I am perhaps just incredibly lazy.
BUT back to the momentous, anti-climatic moment at hand. The many arduous years of toiling through my tremendously ill-suited, much detested business degree, have come to an end. Hard to contemplate.
After submitting the final paper a few moments ago I had a small panic attack. That was just too easy. It should have been more dramatic, I should have been endlessly WW> right? It was not enough that I had sat in one spot for 16 hours. No exaggeration-maybe 5 minutes for cumulative bathroom breaks and a shower at around 7pm because I love my family and they should not have to suffer.
I edited, and re-edited, had Aaron edit. Tweaked and read through one last time, still tweaking along the way. I always feel though, that then one should be able to read through the paper one last, LAST time, tweak free. But that never happens because by that stage I am seeing double and thinking that I have been incredibly redundant because I can't differentiate the beginning of the paper from the time I read it before. So I rashly submit and then I panic.
In other news, the closer I got to fulfilling my page requirement, the more my appetite increased.At about 10:30pm , during one of the final edits ,a friend directed me a very appetising looking French speaking hamburger, and I do believe I fell in love. Aaron was promptly dispatched to Wendy's and my starved body literally inhaled that thing, even though my mind was quietly repulsed. It was like there was a vacuum in my stomach, (which I guess there technically was), because I did not even get to chew, I was trying to, but there was some sort of suction going on and the food was just shooting down my throat. Do you suppose I needed some protein? After subsisting mainly on the occasional bite of sugar cookies and clementines for a over a week, (with the exception of a couple of solid, friend-assisted meals (which probably kept me from needing to be nourished by way of IV. I get by survive with a little help from my friends. More on them later. Aaron stayed home ostensibly feeling under the weather, but I think , his malaise was helped along by the fact that it was a snow day and mommy was on the brink, having not yet begun her paper. And since mommy has been on the brink (and well beyond the brink yesterday-good times) quite a bit this week, she might need a little supervision. Any good father would fear for his children under those circumstances. He did what he had to do, y'know? Good guy that. I may not have mentioned that before, but he is.
This evening on the way to my shower, I pondered that although the week had been incredibly stressful/horrible in a rather creative variety of ways, at least the kids had remained healthy. And then I bashed my head violently against a wall, because I knew I had invoked the curse. When Finny came downstairs a few hours later looking peaked, I flatly instructed Aaron to grab a puke bowl because I had rashly allowed the "our kids have been so healthy" thought to pass through my mind. He was kind enough not to bash my head against the wall again. He now knows that I am psychic, (which I am, by the way,) because within 10 minutes, Finny was barfing his brains out. Po Finny. Sorry baby, it is all mommy's fault. Perhaps I can learn occlumency (was that the thing Harry Potter was supposed to master in order to keep his mind inpenetrable?) So no fear that tomorrow (or later tonight/this morning) will be boring.
I feel like I've been subsisting on clementines and chocolate at work. It is the season, indeed. We have free-for-all chocolate in the break room of my lab right now, so half the time when I go in there to drink some water or whatever, I eat chocolate, and then the next time I go in there I try to make up for the chocolate by eating clementines (or tangerines... naartjies, or close to them!). [I'm actually eating a lot more than just chocolates and clementines when I'm not at work, which has put me in the phase where I wish I wouldn't eat and would lose 5 pounds a month]
The whole being-3-credits-short thing sounds like a bad dream--the finish line was moved! And I know 100% what you mean about never not finding something to change in a paper you're going over, and also the part where you can't remember if you wrote something twice, or just read it twice. Been there.
Posted by: Samantha | December 18, 2007 at 01:06 AM
YAY!!! Glad you're done. Hope Finny is feeling better soon!
Posted by: Julie | December 18, 2007 at 09:03 AM
Congratulations Frog!! I didn't know you were hating your degree so much.
Posted by: Toad | December 18, 2007 at 01:14 PM