And now ladies & gentlemen…the main attraction….

…Graduation, at last!
It’s been nearly two weeks since the event commemorating the end of the 18 years of my education has come and gone.
It was an exciting moment, one I could not believe to be real until the very moment I stepped on to the arena at the Don Haskins Center in my black cap and gown. There, surrounded by about 700 other graduates’ family and friends (as well as a few of my own), it finally hit me. The entire ordeal since I started college, with the hassles, studying, and tedious writing assignments plus work with its own set of problems which I will refrain from mentioning, all came down to the very moment when I walked onstage and shook UTEP President Natalicio’s hand and my faux-diploma was finally in my possession.
A memory that stuck with me since I was in 8th grade continually came to mind throughout all of this. It was my public-speaking teacher when I was 13 that told my class in all our 8th-grade Graduation garb that although the numbers of us graduating from junior high were large, they would slowly dwindle until our high school graduation for one reason or another. She finished this scary little dialogue by asking us which graduation ceremony would be the most important in our lives. By the tune of her riff, I supposed all that teen pregnancy, alcohol, and drug talk meant the high school graduation was supposed to be the most important. Wrong! My teacher in all her 4’11” glory reminded us that it would be 0ur college graduation. I don’t recall what was said after that moment, but she planted a seed in my brain. I now looked forward to the day when I’d have proof of a college education and everything symbolic of that.
I made it to that moment, and in one piece. It was pretty emotional, I must confess. But, although I am happy, I am experiencing a bit of regret and taking a bit of inventory due to the feeling that I could have done more. But that’s me; I cannot help but ruin something good without looking at the other angle of it and forcing myself into feeling some type of anxiety. I am glad that this gives me the opportunity to reflect on these last few years, providing something to actually compare and go back to when I’m in a new place in my life and see the “hits and misses” for what they are. If you can’t learn from your mistakes, why dwell on them? That’s why I dwell I suppose.
So now I move forward, still feeling like a student, because in all reality, in one way or another, we are all life-long students. This is what will carry me to Washington D.C. next week, to continue my intake of knowledge. So now I pack my bag and a part of my life to head east with the highest of expectations for myself, the college graduate. [insert smile emoticon here times a million]

What’s Done is Done.

With the last essay printed, neatly stapled and placed in a messy stack of about 60 other essays of the same subject, I was done. Done with school. No longer an undergrad, no longer welcome to all the benefits and perks that come with it, yet no longer plagued with worry about menial things like 100-dollar textbooks, turning in assignments more attune to being labeled “busy work,” and being on time to countless lectures (The latter is questionable when you see others getting to class 30 minutes into lectures. so annoying).
What will I do now? Immediately after turning what would be the last paper of my undergrad education, and chit-chatting about my future with my professor, a filmmaker and journalism-major herself, I ran out of that building and drove myself home. The most logical move that came to me was sleep. I am looking forward to not being so sleep-deprived. That will be nice. And I know from here forward it will not be about nice nap times and 8-hour-long restful nights; we’re living in tough times, and I will simultaneously be hitting the ground running (but well rested, you know).
I thought about cleaning up. I no longer have the excuse of homework or study groups to prevent me from cleaning up the books and papers that have accumulated over the years all over my desk and (ironically enough) my entertainment center. It’s pretty strange, the thought of replacing my current book bag, in all it’s Betsey Johnson- girly glory, for a briefcase or none at all. Eventually, when it feels right, I suppose, I will put most of the books I couldn’t sell back and notebooks filled with doodles and words that were once important into boxes.
Today I will get pinned by the Liberal Arts College and Saturday I will walk on a stage and once I step off, be a college graduate. I don’t know what to say…

***

Nine Days

A week and a few days to go and I will be walking onstage to receive my congratulatory handshake and fake diploma (since graduation is before final grades are posted, grads wait up to two months to get the real thing), and never has anything seemed more obscure and blurry than it does to me now. 
Of course an update on Facebook from NPR today didn’t pr0vide me much to be optimistic about. I’m worried, there’s no reason to lie, but again as usual something in me says “Head up, shoulders back.” 
Graduation is something I’ve been working towards, and to stay longer would be just to keep my dear crutch that I, more often than not,  complained and whined about these past years. UTEP wasn’t the original plan, but I’m not disappointed I didn’t go elsewhere. The relationships I have built with my classmates and professors have provided me with more opportunity than I could imagine ever to have expected to receive from a larger university. Sure I may not have been on staff at the school paper, but my initiative and quick wit is what made me the intern for the spanish daily, El Diario de El Paso. I was published in Spanish on various occasions thanks to that, and although it was only a semester, it helped change the way I saw the news and how I reported it. This, of course, led to my stint in D.C. rolling with the big timers/ old timers. They understood what a mess I was getting myself into with the pursuit of a career in journalism, because they were living the downfall of the once-triumphant newspaper machine.
A year ago the plan for me was the Peace Corps., but with everything going on around in foreign travel right now, not to mention me being lame and making excuses, it is not in the plans right now.
I’ll have to wait to take my GRE as well as apply for grad school in fall ’10. Maybe by then I will have a clearer path as well as know exactly what I want to do for the greater part of my life until I can lounge around my mansion in South Beach playing scrabble and drinking mojitos.
As for immediately after graduation, now that I let my employer know, I am heading back east for an internship! This is my last opportunity to be considered for this particular internship program at least until I am in grad school. So I will spend another two and a half months in our nation’s capitol but this time as a video production assistant. This is something new, involving new people, and new organizations…I can’t wait!
Though I may not know what to expect both in the summer, or for fall, I am experiencing mixed emotions. Literally, the end of an era, if you can pardon the cliche. There’s an unfathomably large fear in regards to what’s next, but then there’s this overwhelming feeling of suspense and joy as the days pass. 
I am ready to turn to the next page in the next chapter now.