The Results, Part II

Spring semester: day sixty-seven

I received my letter yesterday morning; it was waiting in my mailbox at school when I got there, though I told Parker before leaving the house that I wasn't going to open it until he got to campus as well, so (if necessary) we could cry together if for some reason I had failed. In the interim I'd also found out that two of my friends and fellow GTAs who had taken the comps with me had gotten a "high pass" on them, including Jay. So, I waited for Parker to arrive.

"Well?" he asked when stepping out of the elevator.

"Oh, I've got the letter," I said. "I told you I wasn't going to open it until you got here."

I opened the letter, and it said (I'm paraphrasing here, since it's still on my desk at work) Congratulations, you have passed your comprehensive exams with a score of "PASS." Something like that, anyway.

Well, I'm done now. Barely 24 hours later, and I am totally checked out for the rest of the semester.

I don't even care that I didn't get a high pass or anything like that -- I don't give a flying fuck, in fact. The fact is that I've already basically graduated, and everything from this point forward is just going through the motions until the semester ends. That letter, to me, is as good as an actual diploma. It basically tells me hey, you're done, you've survived grad school and you'll get another degree for it in, oh, three weeks. We just have to print it up first.

Honestly, I feel somewhat invincible now. Academically speaking, of course. Over the course of the next three weeks, all I have to deal with is tying up all the loose ends with my students' work -- grading their final papers and exit exams and the like. None of that is particularly fun, of course, but I no longer have the stress of dealing with anything but those little things. I have relative freedom in mind and spirit.

In the overnight hours, after talking to Daisy for a little while, I tried to go back to sleep but could not; I had a massive, pounding headache that would not go away no matter what I did, and it lasted for hours. Instead, after laying in bed for over an hour as it gradually got lighter outside, I got back up, came upstairs, and finalized the design of my graduation announcements -- I printed out fifteen of them on ivory linen paper (with envelopes to match), addressed them, and sealed them. I have to get stamps before I can send them out, as I only have one stamp left right now -- and that will more than likely go to the rent check this weekend. I also need about five or six more addresses from some extended family members and family friends, especially the ones who may not know offhand that I'm graduating. Most of them are people I haven't spoken to since Christmas or beforehand, or people I shoot emails back and forth with maybe once a year. Over the years, as I so rarely send out any mail to friends and family anymore, my address book has become outdated in some places -- I have at least three addresses for my friend April, for example, which have been crossed out and marked "outdated." Eh, it happens. I think I sent out maybe six Christmas cards total last year, and two of those were to my parents and Daisy's parents, despite the fact that I spent several days with each of them over the span of about two weeks.

Regardless, those will go out next week, more than likely. I also ordered my mother a set of Mother's Day gifts off of Amazon (they'll ship tomorrow) and told her that she'll need to go to the mailbox to pick those up over the weekend or on Monday. It's so rare that I can do anything for my parents that, when I have the chance or ability, I like to do so. They've certainly done enough for me over the years.

Several friends and colleagues are holding an end-of-year graduation party on graduation night; Daisy and I are planning to attend. There's about fifteen of us who will be there (so far), including some of us who are not graduating yet but who want to see us all off properly. Daisy and I may be a little worse for wear by the time that weekend rolls around; she will have worked seven days straight in order to get that weekend off for my graduation, and I will have been grading exams and hurriedly trying to get everything put into the system for my students, as well as moving as much of my stuff out of my office as I can do myself in the interim. That includes all of my desk drawer's contents, my coffee pot, laser printer and laptop, boombox, books, papers, energy bars, etc. It's a lot of stuff. And that doesn't count whatever else I acquire when everyone else moves their stuff out and wants to get rid of everything they possibly can -- if you know me well, you know I'm a sucker for stuff like that. I'm hoping to score a free TV or something like that from somebody.

Anyway, graduation's that Friday afternoon (the 17th), with the party following directly afterwards in the evening. Let me tell you one thing -- I'm very glad Daisy doesn't drink, because this means I'll have a designated driver all set 'n ready to go. This is the figurative last blast with my friends and colleagues I've known for the past three years, and after this party I may not see some of them ever again -- people like Rae and Jay are leaving town for good shortly after graduation, and a few others are doing the same. I've already told Daisy that since I don't ever drink at any other time, I plan to get pretty sloshed with my friends there. She realizes this and certainly understands it -- it's a celebration, after all. As she knows most of my friends at this point anyway, including the majority of the people who will be attending, this isn't really a problem. For one night only, she gets to see happy, drunk Brandon make a comeback, and finally I get a chance to actually loosen up and, well, act like a normal grad student does on any other given weekend.

The next morning, Daisy and I are going back up to Omaha for a few days to spend time with her family before she has to resume her normal work schedule. This also includes showing me around parts of Omaha I haven't seen yet, as it was nut-numbingly cold and snowy the last time I was there for New Year's, and her parents also want to do a celebratory dinner (or something akin to that) while I'm there as well. She has to work one of the nights I'll be there -- I believe it's Sunday -- but we'll stay there until Wednesday or so. And after that? My schedule is...well, wide open. I should continue to be paid through at least the first half of June, but I will be doing little but looking for stable, livable employment somewhere and refining my writing. As mentioned before, I'd like to write a chronicle of graduate school, as well as do a scathing re-edit of my first book to re-release it for publication on the Kindle service and/or somewhere in print. Those things will be back-burner, though, to paying the bills and eventually getting out of Kansas -- however long that may take.

As for the rest of this week? There's not a lot else going on. I had conferences with my students all day yesterday, a trend that will continue tomorrow. Yesterday I also had to deal with some of the most horrible April weather I've ever seen -- a mix of rain, sleet, and snow with high (30-40mph) sustained winds all day long, bad enough to where it was so cold I couldn't feel my ears, and once more had to dress in layers in order to be able to stay warm. This was capped off by me going to bed last night around 6 or so, only to wake up about eight hours later with a good bit of snow on the ground here in Newton, and my car covered. Dusting to an inch, something like that. It melted off by 11AM.

I will remind you that it is April 24. And by Monday, it's supposed to be almost 80. It's ridiculous to get snow this late. Bullshit there's no such thing as climate change.

I finally brought home my old Dell laptop yesterday afternoon, after it sat in my desk drawer at school for four months, unused. I have new RAM to install in it so that I can make it a portable DVD player downstairs in my bedroom -- that will be part of my weekend activities while Daisy is at work on her normal night shifts. I also have to edit through a bunch of student workshop copies this weekend, as next week is workshop week for my students as they prepare their final papers for me. My schedule tomorrow will be somewhat strange -- normally I get home around 1PM or so, but since I've got conferences, it's all up in the air. Students are emailing me to change around their times, I don't know who's going to come in and when, etc. Once everyone's done, I can come home -- at which point I will more than likely go straight to bed, since my sleeping schedule is all sorts of screwy (as is evidenced by the fact that I'm awake at noon and have been awake since last night due to that aforementioned headache, despite trying to sleep early this morning again).

The plumbing situation is, well, okay I suppose. I drained the tub yesterday just fine and without incident, and aside from flushing the toilets and washing my hands/running some water over dirty dishes in the sink, I've not run any water at all since Monday night. I'll have to shower tonight, but other than that I don't really plan to use any large amount of water over the next several days. I do, however, need to do some big-time cleaning around the house, including scrubbing down the toilets, bathrooms, and kitchen/counters/stove. I'll probably do that over the weekend as well. I've made a new shopping list (as there are things I'm out of) and when I go take care of that, I'll get more decloggers and foamers just in case I end up needing them, but as it will be rapidly getting warmer during the foreseeable future, I won't need to be doing as much laundry because I won't be wearing layers every day anymore. I will, however, need to wash the blankets and sheets soon, though. That should be a pleasant experience if the clog isn't completely dissolved or pushed out of the system. Heavy sarcasm is, of course, intended there.

For now, as Daisy is asleep for the day, I'm going to do the same -- as I have no responsibilities for the rest of the day, I'm going to take a sleeping pill and pass out, in order to regain some of my lost rest from my headache last night that I so desperately need in order to be able to function tomorrow. Without the pill, I'll be awake all day with, ahem, reverse insomnia. I know, it's weird. Again, my sleep schedules are fucked when it comes to the majority of the week.