It's (Almost) Over

Fall semester: day seventy-eight

I taught my last classes of my last fall semester as a grad student yesterday morning.


This is a good thing.

On Monday I give them their exams, return their papers to them (which, between now and then, I will be grading like crazy, as the stack is thicker than a large phone book -- not kidding) and I will be done completely by a week from today.

Now begins the slow crawl to the finish line before I can limp over it and finally crash for a few days before I leave to visit West Virginia. I have eliminated most distractions from my life already; I turned my phone off Monday afternoon -- or, rather, I let it die, as the last of the battery's life petered out sometime around then anyhow. I don't really have any minutes on it (nor can I afford them) right now anyway, so eh. It will remain off probably until long after finals week. I never use the damned thing more than once a week anyway. I don't like phones. Never have. I wonder how long I can go without using it for anything at all, especially since I have no minutes. I'm hoping until after my birthday, since I hate getting slews of happy birthday texts and calls. Tell me on Facebook, yo. Better yet, just leave me alone. Or just send me money. That works too.

Today is a weird day for me. Not only are my office hours finished, but my Playwriting class is canceled (as we're done for the semester now). This means that all I have to be on campus for is my hour in the Writing Center, which has been swamped as of late, and the last Surrealism class of the semester at 7. The problem here is that my Writing Center hour is at 1, and my class is at 7. From 2PM to 7PM I have nothing to do but basically sit around my office. While I could take some papers with me to grade, I'm going to be doing that from Thursday forward anyhow. This may be the only on-campus downtime I have from now until spring semester starts, so I plan to spend it with friends who are actually around -- before I come home and go to sleep.

And believe me, when I sleep tonight, it will be the sleep of the dead -- because I've ended my classes and have nothing else going on tomorrow, I will be sleeping in as late as possible in morning. I need to rest up and prepare myself for the grading of all of those papers, and a rested Brandon means that Brandon's students will more than likely get better grades on those papers. As Daisy isn't coming down this weekend (more than likely next weekend instead), I will be burying myself in grading, coffee-drinking, and cigarette-smoking. I'd live-blog said grades, but I'm pretty sure that violates a number of privacy laws. What I will say is that all of my students but one uploaded their papers on SafeAssign, and the only one who didn't was absent from today's class and didn't turn one in. I've not gotten any emails from said student, either -- usually I'll get a panicked "I was sick, please take my paper" email or something like that, but I haven't.

My advisor got back to me with an email saying that I have to file an exception form with the graduate school in order to be approved for the lesser number of hours and not lose any of my financial aid, and those are kept in the office. Said email was also CC'ed to the office administrators of the department, so they know I'll be going down there soon to take care of that. This is a plus; it's one less thing to worry about, once I get it done. Most graduate students, again, have to do this, especially those who get aid. I've also learned that our last paycheck for the fall semester is on January 4th, so there should be very little gap between that check and when my loans drop. This provides a bit of cushion, thankfully, during the break. Translation: it means I'll be able to eat. This is good; I have a ton of bills to pay this month, with most of them needing to be paid over the course of the next week -- water, electric, and my car insurance first and foremost.

I signed up, in June (the last time I paid it) for the "four payments per year" plan of car insurance. This does exist, but they still bill you the full amount every six months -- only 1/4 of your payment is due, though, on the first due date. It's complicated and I don't like it; it's just easier to pay it all at once. My car insurance has actually gone down a bit, really -- it dropped by about six or seven bucks this time around. I believe that only the first quarter of it ($77 or something like that) is due at the end of the month, though I'll probably just put it all on my Citi card again like I did in the summer and pay it off once I get those loans to drop. Doing that builds my credit, too, and it won't create a huge monetary punch to the gut right at the end of the year.

Today, really, is my last day of classes. I just realized this a while ago. Everything else after today is just finals week stuff. It feels like it should be a momentous occasion of some sort, but it's really not. I'm just glad it'll be over. Everything's slowly falling into place at the end of the semester, and this weekend (after I finish grading) I will finally feel quite free. Hopefully.

I say "hopefully" because I have heard nothing back about my big project for Surrealism. Remember, I gave my professor the option -- if he doesn't like said project -- of just doing the standard 5-8 page paper. If he doesn't like it, I'll be forced to churn one of those out between now and next Wednesday night, which is the due date for said paper. He's had a week and a half to read through my project, so hopefully I get it back tonight. I had a dream last night that I got it back and he gave it a B, so maybe my dreams are prophetic.

In the dream I was pissed off that I'd gotten a B, but eh. In real life I'd be slightly miffed, but overall I probably wouldn't care. Yes, it would mean I'd have a B as the final grade in the class, more than likely, but that doesn't really concern me even if it would be the only B I've gotten in grad school. I've busted my ass for that class, on that project, on the presentation in that class, everything. I've earned an A, but I really don't care. As I told Parker last night, after I turned in my project I entered into total "FUCK IT" mode.

On that note, I must gather my things and make my way to campus. I have to be at work in the Writing Center in an hour, and depending on traffic it may take most of that hour to get to school.

Fare thee well, my friends.