The End and Beginning

It's come to a close but
It's close to my heart
It feels like the end but
It's only the start

So wow. That's it. Kind of anti-climatic feeling. Hard to believe, still a couple of days later and everything, but that's it, that's a wrap. Undergrad is done. Closed, finished. And the next adventure, after a brief hiatus, I suppose, is on the verge of starting up. And it's all scary and wonderful all at the same time.

So where to begin my reminiscence on the end? I suppose the moving out will do. So moving out was started a week ago, on Friday, even though half of my roommates were in the middle of exams still. We were lucky enough to find someone to take over our lease, but that meant moving out in the middle of exams. Which was sort of okay for Mabel and I, I guess, because we both had a fair bit of time until our next exam. It was on Saturday that I moved out for good. It was really sad, watching the apartment go from totally full on Friday to rooms emptying, slowly, one by one on Saturday as we left. First Mabel, then me, then Peggy and lastly Ada on Sunday. I suppose it's appropriate; we never did anything quickly over the last four years. Decisions were slow (and usually dumped on me -- "Mom"), walking was slower, and our minds slowest. Slow honey...

I went home for a night to help unpack the cars that I had sent home with boxes and furniture, and was rewarded with my Mom's incredible baking...and then it was back downtown where I roomed with John and Calgary for a couple of days leading up to and following my last exam.

It was a stupid exam, The Canadian Short Story, and while my English skills have sort of sucked over the last few years due to lack of use, I guess the exam went as well as it could have. I'm pulling a seventy-something in this class (and trying as hard as I possibly can) and hopefully the exam can bump me up to a pretty eighty. We'll see. It didn't really matter at the time, though, because when I put my pen down at 10 pm on Tuesday night after writing two essays on six stories in three exam booklets, all I could think about was how my hand hurt. And then a passing thought about being done undergrad. And then I realized that I bruised my pinky; I guess I was pressing too hard on my pen.

Spent the next couple of days just bumming around. Worked my last shift at the hospital, tried to convince a first year not to switch out of engsci, and went for a walk with John around town. We got our last Greg's Ice Cream as students (me: Roasted Marshmallow and Coffee Toffee; John: Coffee Toffee and Peanut Butter Banana) and made a trip to Indigo where we spent a few hours reading. I splurged and bought a great travel book on China -- it's incredible: it's published by the Eyewitness people who write those children's books about everything, so it's full of pictures, history, how-do-they-do-that's, and of course travel stuff like maps, sights, and descriptions. It's a gorgeous book and I had to drop a lot of cash on it (for a book anyway) but I decided that it would be my grad gift to myself, and anyways, it's for the trip and there's no way I'm skimping on that.

And then I came back home yesterday. And while it's nice to be home, my slavedriver parents are forcing me to unpack everything before I leave for China. Fine. And I started today. It's extremely slow going, but that's partly because I'm going through things one by one. It's funny to see your life packed up in boxes. Sad and pathetic and makes you feel small. Makes your life feel kind of small. To be able to pack up everything you are, everything you own, all the proof that you've ever been in the past in boxes and seal them away and close them off with packing tape makes me feel replaceable and unimportant. Until I open them up and start going through everything. And them I'm reminded of who I am and where I've been.

I'm currently struggling to knit. It was a bit ambitious, I admit, but then again, I've always been ambitious, and perhaps to a fault. Either way, I'm trying hard to finish knitting a blanket to bring for John's parents as a gift when we get to China. I'd hate to go empty handed, and I'd hate even more to bring something I didn't make myself, because I'm stupid and pigheaded like that.

But I'm not sad, which, for anyone who knows me even remotely, may seem strange. I'm not even feeling too nostalgic. I'm feeling satisfied, hopeful, excited, and determined to do all things that the future holds. I'm okay.

And while I'm ready to leave U of T behind for good this time, unfortunately, it seems I have to go back one last time. I received an email today notifying me that I have $3 is library fines I need to pay otherwise my degree will get withheld.

And we wouldn't want that, now would we?