April 26, 2007

Drawing to an End

As far as schoolwork is concerned, today was really my final day as an undergraduate. I still have two classes to attend tomorrow because of attendance policies, but I no longer have any work to do for my classes. I do not have to take any finals.

I spent my final day of work appropriately, in my opinion.

I woke up a tad later than I had intended and almost immediately went to work. I needed to read and respond to two stories for my short story class as well as categorize every single story we read in class any way I wanted. Completing these two tasks took me almost two hours. I had to skip lunch to finish them before class. Thankfully, the teacher had announced her intent to serve us lunch this day.

As class started, my mother called my cell phone to tell me she and my grandmother were coming to Longview to deliver a bed frame and a few other items to my new apartment. Because I was in class, I didn't answer. She called again before class was over. She was in Longview by the time I listened to my messages. I called and told her she would have to wait until I was out of my next class.

Fortunately for her, I had a test in Personality Theory immediately following Short Story. Unfortunately for me, completing my assignment this morning left me almost no time for last-minute studying. I crammed as much as I could in the ten-minute break between classes. This study time was also cramped, however, when the professor offered us chocolate cake prior to the test. With my usual amount of willpower, I wolfed down a piece with a ludicrous amount of rich icing. The cake was great, and I think I did alright on the test.

With my usual tact for scheduling, I had signed up for an oral exam in Spanish shortly after Personality Theory ended. Once I completed the personality test, I practically jogged back to my current apartment and drove quickly across town to my new one. I had planned on using the extra hour between finishing the test and meeting the Spanish professor to refresh myself on conjugation and vocabulary, but my mother was waiting for me. I had about an hour to drive to my new apartment, unload a truck filled with my belongings, return to campus, and walk to the professor's office. When my mother told me she was bringing "a bed frame and a few things," she really meant was "a bed frame, a computer desk and chair, a nightstand, a bookshelf, numerous drawers to my now-emptied dresser, a good amount of my clothing from home, and a few other miscellaneous items." We unloaded as quickly as we could, spoke briefly, and went our separate ways.

I returned to campus with ten minutes to spare. I paused at my apartment long enough to look up a single word ("mudarse," or "to move") in case I was asked what I had been doing. The oral "exam" was really just holding a spontaneous conversation with the professor. He asked me questions about journalism and newspapers and what I wanted to do and where I would like to work, and I was able to stammer out decent responses. After completing the "exam," he informed me that I could have skipped it because I was graduating. I don't recall him saying this in class, but I apparently worried myself over something I could have simply not done.

Like so many other days since I started college, my final day of schoolwork was full of last-minute completions, frantic scrambling, and close calls. I can't imagine having it any other way.

Posted by Randy at April 26, 2007 11:56 PM | TrackBack