s. t. t. p.

It's the end of fall semester. It couldn't be easily categorized as a "bumpy ride" but it hasn't been all smooth or happy sailing. It's winter break. It's the time in between. It's the time to sit down and realize what all went down this semester and why.

I was a senior in college this year and it felt pretty much right on target. Going out with friends, frequenting the local bars, getting to know what happy hours were where. Of course me being me throughout school I would constantly be asking myself in my inner dialogue "Is this right? What should I do? Should I do this? Should I do that?" Someone's gotta do something about this line of questioning. Obviously that someone needs to be me. Anyway, in that sense, this semester was like all the others. Never fully fitting into the college framework--I enjoy it, a lot, don't get me wrong--but never quite fitting in the hole for the peg. I didn't have a lot of time to myself, but I can't say it was all happy socializing either. School took a huge toll on me, but mostly my work outside of schoolwork did. It took me quite awhile to get used to my new job, and it ate up quite a bit of time.

We can't get better at ourselves without mistakes, so even though I've proven the conclusion again and again that its better to commit to less, do less, but with more quality (quality, not quantity in activity) I still apparently piled on the load for the fall. But you learn with age and with mistake.

It's weird thinking that soon I'll be done with this school. This is where I've spent four years, growing, embarrassing myself, learning, getting better or worse at being a student, enjoying, and all the other stuff. I think I feel pretty average about it. Not overly sentimental or weeping, but not booking the first train outta here either. Just a healthy kind of departure. I don't know where I'm heading next but I know that I'm okay with it.

My heart will win. That's what I really want to say. I guess to the outsider it sounds vague and sentimental in a bad way, but to me it means something a bit more specific. Maybe it's not the heart that I intend to say. Maybe it's the soul. My soul guides my career, it guides my reason for being in college, it guides my need for reflection and my need for new food for the soul. ....This is starting to sound like I'm writing this for Hallmark.

onward.

Every year up until this one, I've written a "special" (as i've deemed it) Christmas Eve entry in my blog. This year I didn't. This year's Christmas was different. Not bad different. Definitely not. Just different. I feel like I'm constantly learning these days. I think I needed a break somewhere in between all the intensity of this semester and never got one. It was constant work, and mostly constant stress. Now I'm finally destressing and its like I have to learn, literally, how to kick back and enjoy myself over a prolonged period of time. To be honest, I didn't do as well in school as I would have liked, but I think this was largely because I discovered a hindrance: i can't stand research. Like can't stand. I know there are some who just get a big hoot from it, and could sit and read and write all day--and maybe occasionally I feel this way. But I didn't feel that way at all this time around. It was like one giant chore where every page was a stretch haha. And there were quite. a few. pages.

I'm glad to have those courses behind me and to release myself from them. You have no idea how good it feels just to know I don't have to take those classes anymore. Anyway, enough talk about school, its really gotten boring. Sometime it just seems being a student takes over--especially being a student in this dang major. Something exciting that is coming up is the deadline for FEM. We are collecting submissions up until January 1st. Hopefully by then, we'll have enough submissions abound to print our issue. I'm excited to see what was submitted this year.