On Monday I took my last midterm! Woot! Graduation is becoming a more and more realistic thing! I looked up my colors last evening. I will graduate in a blue cap and gown that is a cross between royal and navy. My tassel and hood will be peacock.
Unlike Marshall, I do not believe I have the option to return the hood and not pay for it. I think I have to buy cap/gown/tassel/hood as a combination and will then own them forever. I have not a clue what I will do with these things once the ceremony is over, but whatever! I somewhat regret not buying at least my tassel when I graduated from Iowa State... I think it would be neat to put my high school, undergrad, and graduate tassels together in some sort of keepsake book. Maybe the Iowa State bookstore kept some tassels from each year and I can go back and get one. I will have to check that out.
Anyway, back to the original topic! The midterm went relatively well. I know I aced the multiple choice and fill-in-the-blanks, and the essays we will just have to see. Really, I do not care that much anymore. I am very over this phase of my life and anxiously looking forward to the next.
On that note, I received a flush email from Government X in California. "Thank you very much... many qualified candidates... difficult decision... regret to inform you..." I am very OK with this decision. I knew I was not a good fit for them. I do think my voice gave away too much of that, however, and will need to work on this in future interviews. And there is the learning experience that makes interviewing with Government X not a total waste! Go me with finding the positive and the lesson.
My capstone group and I are continuing to do well with our project. Our client is happy with us, and our teacher's advice is not anything we had not already thought of or are not already doing. While I am stuggling a bit with writing the sections I was assigned, I am kicking some major butt in designing the actual guide, making it user-friendly, easy to read, and visually appealing. I would say 1/3 of the content is written and inserted into the guide, and we are already at 27 pages. That's before appendicies, etc. This is going to be a mamouth thing before we are done. We would be at less pages if things were not spaced out so much, but then it would be less attractive and the likelihood the eventual users would actually utilize the guide much less. Hopefully I will have the moment soon when everything clicks in my head so I can write my sections, but if not I trust my team has my back. Perhaps I will do less writing than them but all of the formatting, which is a chore in itself.
I have found a potential subletor (ter?) for my apartment, beginning the middle of May. Since I have no desire to stay in the city and am subsequently not seeking employment in Chicago, I do not want to spend the money to stay through the summer. My landlord is checking the credit of the candidate now, and we will go from there. One nice thing for both the candidate and myself is that he wants a furnished room and I was not planning on taking my Chicago furniture with me when I left. I was going to take it out to the alley and let the scavengers have a go at it. If everything works out with the subletor, though, I don't have to move anything but my personal possessions!
I cannot believe how quickly the last few years have gone buy. I am a bit more intelligent, a heck of a lot more confident, and overall grateful for the experience. I will leave with few regrets.
I was talking to Dad today about my frustration that I have not yet found that thing that I am passionate about doing and that I want to pursue. I was hoping graduate school would reveal it to me, but that has not been the case. I cannot continue to hide out in academia for eternity, and so I will graduate and find a job and start the process of finding my bliss. This is a scary prospect but I am trying to be open to it.
I do wonder if my work is meant to be with animals. I desperately miss the time when I was volunteering at a shelter on a regular basis. I walked by a shelter last week when in a new part of downtown, and my heart physically ached. I could see an obviously wise older grey cat through the window and I wanted to go in and adopt him and give him the life he is meant to have. When I could not stand to meet his gaze any longer, I moved down the widows and was confronted by a Husky and a Great Dane in side-by-side kennels. I am a fan of both breeds, which made it very difficult to look at them together and know I wasn't doing anything to make their life better.
I am self-aware enough to know that I have a natural affinity for animals and for children. I believe it is because both are incapable of controlling their circumstances and therefore incredibly vulnerable to the mercy of others. I am a bit ashamed to admit I find it much harder to have the same empathy for adults, even those whom I know are incapable of controlling their situation. As a person and as a public servant, this is something I feel I need to work on, but I find it very difficult. Having been surrounded by capable adults my entire life, it is a struggle for me to come to terms with and tolerate someone in an adult body who is not in control of themselves or their immediate life.
These are some of the thoughts that have been rattling around in my head as I update the resume and look for that fresh-out-of-school job.
On a much less introspective note, work is really starting to wind down. My one and only program of the semester will close in two weeks, and after spring break I will be in a strict information-gathering and planning for next year situation. Our office is packed to near bursting point with staff as we just added another Associate Director and needed somewhere for her to work. More than ever I am grateful I work on the days that have fewer people in the office.
Winter is losing its grip here, although March did come in like a lion with lake effect snow falling a few days ago. We are up in the 40s and 50s now and, although there will continue to be cooler days for awhile, it is definitely coming on spring. When we move the clocks ahead this weekend it will seem even more like spring since it will be lighter longer into the evening.
Time for me to wrap this up and get off to one of several meetings I have this evening. I say again, this is the busiest semester of all!
Love!
~g
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