And my current job is to unpack my college life and fit it into my home life. So, of course, I'm blogging instead of working... and this is I after taking a break to read through the instructions and start charging my new cell phone (!!!) and spending most of the afternoon throwing out stuff that I've been saving since high school to make room for all the stuff I've accumulated since then.

I've pitched approximately 50 old programs from the Muny, and discovered all the signed programs from my high school thespian days... so of course, I had to read through all the little notes and silly inside jokes that no longer make any sense. Found notes from Jessa written during Calculus senior year, and remembered that I haven't heard from her in a year or two... Found a letter from Mike dating from sophomore or junior year, and realized that we've both grown up quite a bit since then... Neither of us knew what we were doing, and well, what else is new? Threw out packets of workbook pages from Algebra II/Trig that were well past their expiration date, especially since I probably never planned on looking at them again the first time I squirreled them away, five years ago.

In five more years, will I feel the same way about my honors thesis as I do about my 11th grade history paper on Henry Ford's contributions to industrialization? Will I see my comps in the same light as the cutesy essays I wrote for English Comp? If I save the cards Mike sent for four years of Valentine's Days, will I be astounded by how much we've changed since then? It's hard to predict. Of course it will be different. Will it be better? That's up to me, supposes my internal optimist.

At 22 I'm really just learning what a "decade" feels like. Give me a score or so longer and I might get the hang of it.

I refuse to unpack...

...within 48 hours of packing all my belongings up in the first place. It's such an insult-to-injury situation; not only am I emotionally and physically exhausted, but now I have to undo the most recent productive thing I've done?

Yeah, walking across the stage, hearing Professor Baumann intone "Alaina Therese Baker, Artium Baccalaurei, magna cum laude et magnis cum honoribus in Neurologia," and pressing palms with the Nuge was 100 kinds of snazzy, but I refuse to call it productive in and of itself. The actual work was long done at that point.

So I'll have plenty to do tomorrow. I've realized that the luxury of this double-life includes some costs. Now that I'm moving my college stuff in, the belongings that got left behind must be compressed, moved around, or otherwise disposed of. Plus I've got to be mindful of which items will be coming with me in August, and what I want to have at home to bring to Chicago when I get back from Germany. It's quite a bit to ponder, and I'm worried that preparing for the next steps will involve buying even more stuff. Accumulation never ceases. Was it Thoreau who enjoined his readers to "simplify?" Unless I'm going to go live by a pond and eat bark, not bloody likely.

I got to see the cousins today. Ran around the yard with Justin, 5, and engaged in multifarious advetures with Kailyn, 2. She is a humdinger. She drank half my lemonade at dinner and ate a third of my corn, but barely touched her dumplings. She even tried the lemon-pepper trout. The pepper was too strong for her, but she apparently loves sour stuff and was completely enthralled by the process of extracting juice from a lemon wedge, and lemons in general. She's already mastered the "put a citrus fruit wedge in your mouth and smile" trick. Prodigious.

Hopefully the phone will ring in the next hour and Mike will tell me all about his graduation and other fun stories. I'd love for him to tell me that he's on his way home tonight and I'll see him tomorrow... sadly, I've probably got a week to wait. Let the countdown begin, again...

in 24 hours...

I will be a college graduate.

That is so amazingly weird.

Seriously.

I should SO be packing right now

But instead, I'm blogging. At least I've already started... barely. I've got one box half-full of miscellany and many more random items strewn about. Maybe the right music will get me motivated.

No one is good enough
To save himself.
Awake my soul tonight
To boast nothing else.
~Derek Webb

Oh, that is so very happy.

And now some old-school Madonna ("Holiday") to get me pumped for tonight's 80's-themed Senior Prom, the last official Senior Week event. Too bad I don't have a date for this one... My Young Man doesn't like the idea of a transporter ("How do you know you come out at the other end with the same soul?" or somesuch) but MAN would I appreciate the possibility. Sometimes it's just nice to get a hug in person. Ah well... two weeks. Only two more weeks.

*****

And then tomorrow morning, I get to give someone 55 hard-earned dollars to join their silly club. Okay, the club is Phi Beta Kappa (Beta of Ohio, thankyouverymuch) and it's nifty to have on my CV, but at least Sigma Xi came with a magazine subscription and didn't cost me anything. I could've had a free dinner out of it, even!

And what's this, it's $60 if I want a certificate? You must be joking.

The upside? I get to see my roomate perform the function of "Mystagogue." I hope it involves incantations. I just love incantations.

full frontal on campus

This "running the naked mile" is supposedly a senior week tradition... but I thought it only happened at, like, 4 in the morning. I just saw a naked guy walk out of Old Kenyon. It's not even 1am yet.

I'm going to bed.

So little time left...

And so much to pack!

I haven't really started yet. I'm enjoying the whole "senior week" ethos, which seems to revolve around alcaho - I mean, friends and fun activites! The canoe trip tomorrow should be fun. Tonight there are ghost stories, games, and a big kegg - um, "gathering" on south quad...

It's such a weird time. I like not having work, although that's slightly surreal after everything I've done this year. I enjoy spending time with friends, although it's all tinged with a bittersweetness that seems more powerful with each passing day. The activities are fun, but part of me knows that they're just a distraction, and it would make more sense to pack and graduate and have that sense of completion RIGHT NOW, as opposed to a week after fulfilling my obligations.

That's the logical side of me, the side that would like to believe that to circumvent this extra week of goodbyes I'd also somehow avoid the nostalgia, the regrets (though few), the loss of this place that has come to represent so much to me... I think that side of me is in denial. Probably will be until it comes down to it and I'm loaded up and ready to drive away. I don't really know how to deal with it, so I think I'll go with the flow and see how it works itself out.

Not exactly a plan, but it might do.

and today

I'm done with college.

Okay, graduation is next weekend, but I'm done with classes and exams and tests and projects... Technically, I have to edit my honors thesis and get the archive copies printed, but the credits are IN.

I 'm going to go ride my bike and get some ice cream.

...and try to avoid thinking about leaving...

tomorrow

I have one final left, and absolutely no willpower to study any more... which is a shame, because now I actually have the time to devote to hard-core studying. My take home exams were no problem, and I have a theory. Let's call it the "Panic Effect." Basically, it states that my ability to crack down and do work is directly proportional to the extent to which I've overextended myself. This principle comes in handy when I've got 80 billion things to do, which has been the normal state of affairs for the past... oh, year or so.

But now...

Now I just have this one final, and I don't have the gumption to take a couple of hours for review. Maybe if I remind myself of all the errands and closing accounts and packing and goodbyes that this "graduation" thing entails, I can shock myself back into desperate work mode.

I sure wish there was a happy medium, though. Enjoying this last week should be scheduled in there somewhere too.

Ich muss studieren! Time to enforce.

Yesterday

...was a landmark day! For one, I turned in my neurobio paper. Okay, maybe it still wasn't quite up to my normal standard, but it's pretty good and it's DONE. And then, of course, I gave my oral defense.

High honors.

Whew.

All that work, just so they can say "B.A. in Neuroscience, with honors" when I get up on that stage the weekend after next. I sure hope they italicize it when they say it. In Latin. Silly school.

Okay, so it's down to two take-home finals for Anth and Neurobio, a German exam on Friday, and one more revision/reformatting of my honors paper before they lock it in the archive vault. I've got four days... yup, I can do that.

so close I can smell it

My neurobio paper is DONE. Maybe not fabulous, but 100% I-ain't-gonna-work-on-it-any-more finished.

My oral defense is TOMORROW at 10am. By 1pm I'll know for sure if I'm going to get a snazzy appendation to my B.A., or obscure independent study credit on my transcript. Still hoping for the former... I've got 10 minutes to present my data (which will be tricky, since I've added significantly to the 10-minute powerpoint presentation I gave at the undergrad conference... and didn't take much out!) and then I get to survive an hour of grilling. I think I know my stuff. I hope I know my stuff. We'll see...

I think I'm taking tomorrow night off. It will be well-deserved. I'll save my anth and neurobio take home finals for tuesday and wednesday, and fit in some study for my friday German final between now and then, but Monday night is for me. Me and my phone. Me and my phone and a certain someone in Kansas... Now that's something to look forward to!

Oh, and some useful information for academic pursuits can be found here.

Almost there

I've presented my data at my first professional conference... and managed to meet my external evaluator for my oral defense. She seems really nice, so I'm not nearly as worried about MONDAY (dun dun daaaaaaa!) as I was earlier in the week. I even had time before we left to print a new version of my poster, so I didn't have to present with the crappy 4th-grade-science-fair version with the sharpie marker graphs that I spent an hour and a half coloring on Tuesday night. If only I had remembered to bring all of my references for my neurobio paper so I could take a bigger chunk out of this final draft, which is also due MONDAY (dun dun DAAAAAAA!)

I can't wait for Monday to be over.

(DUN DUN DAAAAAAA!!)

At least then I can lose the annoying soundtrack.

oh, and just for fun: can you imagine what happens when you get both together??? Woo hoo!
(substitute "neuroscience" for "psychology" and it makes more sense, or at least becomes applicable)

Sigh of relief

Whew...

Now to get ready for another long day!

(and of course obsess over whether my paper is going to be good enough...)

That thing I said about not doing this again...

That was apparently a lie. It's 5am, and I'm hoping that I'm within a couple of hours of completing my honors write-up... especially since the paper is due at 9, I have a meeting about my MPA poster at 10, and a German test AND oral exam to prep for tomorrow afternoon. Eh, sleep is overrated anyway.

Just a couple more weeks, and I'll be through. That's all it will take. Present my data at the conference, finish my neurobio paper, survive my oral defense, complete my anth and neurobio take home finals, and sit my German final.

I think when I've finally graduated I'll sleep for a week straight. Just the thought might be enough to get me through...