Countdown

So in a couple hours, my first final begins. It’s only 25% of my grade, and half of it will be performed in my team, so I’m not sure I can really count this is a “final,” in the traditional sense. After that, though, there will be just a little less than 7 hours of test-taking between me and my degree.

Whatever part of my brain that is assigned to sending the “EVERYBODY PANIC!” message has apparently unionized and gone on strike, because I’ve reached that point where it feels like it’s already over. I’m just going through the last couple of motions. Still, I can’t wait to just be done with it.

I went to get my cap and gown today, and I should have expected this to be the school flashing me one final fiscal finger before my departure when I learned that I had to buy my robes from the bookstore. I walk in, and the cashier is in the middle of a diatribe about how everybody from the business school is just trained to be “cubicle workers,” and is extolling the great virtues of the magnanimous policital science majors, who are taught how to think freely and are better prepared for the “real world.” Sometimes I forget that most of the people I run into on this campus are freshman and sophomores, not graduate students.

Over the phone, a college representative cheerfully told me that the robes were “only about twenty dollars,” which elated me to no end after all the money I’d already spent on this education. To the gentleman’s credit, the robes indeed were only $21.99, but then the “hood” to the robe was another $25, the cap was $5, and somehow these three things added up to just over sixty dollars. The cashier didn’t seem too keen on explaining it to me, and frankly I was too eager to move on with my day to waste time arguing with somebody that wouldn’t have the authority to fix the situation even if I was in the right, so I handed over my money, and bought an 89 cent piece of fudge to ease my frustration. The cashier then proceeded to try and toss the fudge into the bag WITH the sixty dollar robes I’d just bought. It’s 80 degrees outside!

In a superhuman display of patience, I ask the cashier if I could please just carry the bite-size piece of chocolate, and departed post-haste, hopefully never to set another foot in a campus bookstore for the rest of my days.

Contrary to my initial oaths, I’ve taken more than a couple extended breaks, mostly when I just can’t bear to stare at a textbook for another hour. Still, I’ve made steady progress each day, and starting tomorrow I’ve got four straight days with nothing but me and the books. I’m almost halfway done preparing for my systems exam, my tax research test isn’t something that can really be crammed for anyway (and I only need like a 67 to get a B, so yeah) so that just leaves the big ugly: Independent Tax Problems. This class is probably one of the most difficult I’ve ever had, and I’ll be doing my absolute best to land a C. Still, I’ve got more than enough time to prepare, so I’m not too worried.

Now, the big question is how should I celebrate my inevitable victory? I can't leave town, because I have to be at graduation on Friday night, and then Sunday is Mother's Day. I want to celebrate the end of my academic career, but I'm going to be stuck in Kansas. Although, I haven't played The Passing yet...

The Finale.

And so it begins. 10 days, 2 hours, and 59 minutes from the time of this post, I will be told, for the last time, to put my pencil down and hand in my exam. For that amount of time, my life has one and only one purpose

The Passing came out this week. That's nice, I'm sure everybody's having fun with it. Big Planet arrived in the mail a couple days ago from ebay. That's nice too, I hope it's comfy still in its brown package. The weather outside, although a bit rainy, is beautiful. Perhaps I'll glance out the window on occasion and take notice.

As I've written about in the past, this semester has been particularly hard on me. Part of it's that I'm taking two advanced tax courses, and I hate taxes with a fiery passion. Part of it's that I've been holding down a job while still going to school full time. But mostly, it's that I've just hit a wall. I'm sick and tired of schoolwork and classes, and I don't wanna do it anymore. I'm constantly tired, I don't sleep well, and when I sit down to something productive, my energy just isn't there. Doing a given amount of work takes at least twice the amount of time and effort that it did in previous semesters. I frequently find myself to be irate, withdrawn, and lethargic. In a nutshell, I'm freaking burned out.

But now, with so little time left, I must rally for one final push. The grade requirements for my graduation are strict, and I quite frankly hover on the brink. In at least one class, I'll be fighting just to achieve the passing grade of a C. In my other classes, I need B's and an A to counteract that C. I've run the numbers a couple of times, and what I need is most assuredly within my reach. I don't need a miracle, I just need to do well. Truly, the next week and a half will either see me concluding the grand endeavor towards which I have striven for nearly two years, or behold my spectacular, agonizing downfall. Needless to say, I have no intention of permitting the latter.

And when it's finally over, then comes that familiar feeling of a great weight being lifted from my shoulders, this time made all the greater by the fact that it marks the very end of my time at UMKC. Countless other challenges may lie ahead, but for a time, I will be permitted to simply revel in my victory, and I plan to enjoy that time to the fullest.

So wish me luck, and I'll see you on the other side.


ps: If the latter really did occur, I would of course pick myself up, dust myself off, and have another go. But it won't, so the point is moot.