Surreal.

I had my Last Real Class tonight -- Spanish 201, the only not-capstone-related class I'm taking this semester. Thursday is our oral exam, next Tuesday is the final.

And then that's it. I'm finally done.

It's a strange feeling. I graduated high school in 1982. For more than half my life, I've been in and out of college, chasing that Bachelor's degree. The times I haven't been in school, I've felt like I should have been -- every May and November, I'd have anxiety dreams about finals--finals in classes that I forgot I'd signed up for.

It's almost done. That diploma is almost in hand. And then, maybe, I'll finally be able to relax.

And I know what you're going to say: "Now you get to go to work. Now it gets really hard."

Well, bullshit. I've worked before, full time, 40 hours a week sometimes more, supporting myself. I've just plain worked, and I've worked while going to school.

And you know what?

Those Spring Breaks when I "only" had to work 40 hours, and didn't have to go to class, were far more relaxing than the ones where I didn't have to go to work, but had major assignments due.

Work ends. You go in, you put in your hours, you go home. You don't have "homework". You don't have to feel guilty about taking a couple of hours in the evening to draw something or write a story or work on a costume. You don't have to feel that you can't do anything productive and fun when you should be directing your productive efforts to your term paper or your Spanish homework or your never-ending capstone.

I've joked that I want to actually have a career before I'm old enough to retire... but honestly, after 21 years of college, simply holding down a regular job will feel like retirement.

And it's probably as close as anyone in our generation is going to get to it, anyway.

Surreal.

I had my Last Real Class tonight -- Spanish 201, the only not-capstone-related class I'm taking this semester. Thursday is our oral exam, next Tuesday is the final.

And then that's it. I'm finally done.

It's a strange feeling. I graduated high school in 1982. For more than half my life, I've been in and out of college, chasing that Bachelor's degree. The times I haven't been in school, I've felt like I should have been -- every May and November, I'd have anxiety dreams about finals--finals in classes that I forgot I'd signed up for.

It's almost done. That diploma is almost in hand. And then, maybe, I'll finally be able to relax.

And I know what you're going to say: "Now you get to go to work. Now it gets really hard."

Well, bullshit. I've worked before, full time, 40 hours a week sometimes more, supporting myself. I've just plain worked, and I've worked while going to school.

And you know what?

Those Spring Breaks when I "only" had to work 40 hours, and didn't have to go to class, were far more relaxing than the ones where I didn't have to go to work, but had major assignments due.

Work ends. You go in, you put in your hours, you go home. You don't have "homework". You don't have to feel guilty about taking a couple of hours in the evening to draw something or write a story or work on a costume. You don't have to feel that you can't do anything productive and fun when you should be directing your productive efforts to your term paper or your Spanish homework or your never-ending capstone.

I've joked that I want to actually have a career before I'm old enough to retire... but honestly, after 21 years of college, simply holding down a regular job will feel like retirement.

And it's probably as close as anyone in our generation is going to get to it, anyway.

stormdancer.net update

Gang, give up on trying to use any of the stormdancer.net e-mails until we can find a new domain host.

quelonzia knows more about the situation than I do, but, as far as I can gather, the owner of Feature*Price, our current domain host, had a nervous breakdown or something, and just... walked away. Told the employees to take what they wanted, and just... left. Closed up shop. Shut the doors.

The stormdancer.net web site is still up and running for the time being, but from the reports, that appears to be because the servers are locked up in the old Feature*Price building, just waiting for the power company to shut the electricity off....

We're two weeks without mail, and there's nobody there to fix it. And, of course, we're about to move -- given our druthers, we'd ruther get a connection that will let us run our own servers out of our own home. Still, the move is almost a month away -- we can't just sit around for a month with no private e-mail.

Especially not when I'll be job-hunting! Ack.

stormdancer.net update

Gang, give up on trying to use any of the stormdancer.net e-mails until we can find a new domain host.

quelonzia knows more about the situation than I do, but, as far as I can gather, the owner of Feature*Price, our current domain host, had a nervous breakdown or something, and just... walked away. Told the employees to take what they wanted, and just... left. Closed up shop. Shut the doors.

The stormdancer.net web site is still up and running for the time being, but from the reports, that appears to be because the servers are locked up in the old Feature*Price building, just waiting for the power company to shut the electricity off....

We're two weeks without mail, and there's nobody there to fix it. And, of course, we're about to move -- given our druthers, we'd ruther get a connection that will let us run our own servers out of our own home. Still, the move is almost a month away -- we can't just sit around for a month with no private e-mail.

Especially not when I'll be job-hunting! Ack.