#9: it's really happening...

The realization has just struck me. Browsing through the Spring 2006 schedule of classes for the English Department searching for some minute clerical detail I needed, I realized that this is the last time I will be looking at a document like this. Never again will I greedily lap up the pages of CRN numbers that have faithfully promised wild intellectual adventures that were new every ten weeks for the last four years. Never again will I crouch with my newsprint paper schedule of classes and a ball point pen, scratching out asterisks next to enticing Russian literature seminars that hold the promise of profound revelation buried in pages of patronymics and philosophies, underlining ponderously titled upper division English classes based on book lists 99% of the world has never even seen, or circling the graduation requirement classes that would bring me one step closer to leaving the College of Letters and Sciences forever. I am graduating, and I haven't felt nostalgic about it until just now.
Three years ago, by some precocious awareness that was quick to leave, I gave some advice to an acquaintance who was in the place I find myself in now. As I sat on the green lawn of the quad, waiting to go take the last final of my freshman year, I told him not to worry about the goodbyes he would say to the details of this college scene, not to grieve too much for the academic environment he was leaving. I told him it was part of life to learn to make graceful partings. Mastering gracious goodbyes was included in the curriculum of a four-year university. I only hope I can take my own advice well enough to check off that degree requirement. I've done everything else I was supposed to do to be given the distinction of a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English with an emphasis in teaching. Now only the test of my ability to move on boldly, with aplomb and courage, remains to be passed, so that I can say I have truly completed my education.
with love, thanks, and pomp and circumstance,
Allison