My last final was Wednesday evening, and after breezing through it I wandered out to my car and drove home, wondering what now. I'm done, finished my degree, B.A. in Humanities, and yeah, I should probably be more emotional at this point. I had a semi-hysterical breakdown Monday night, but in a good way, after making it through 2 finals that day, after having been up all night finishing my senior project and getting it printed up and bound at a 24 hour Kinkos. The senior project was an insane rush to finish, thanks to my procrastinating on it, and my primary reader was too busy last week to look over it. He was supposed to get on it over the weekend and get comments to me over the weekend, and when Sunday night came and went without any word from him, I was a little panicked. I went ahead and finished a last edit/draft, and took the 34 pages to Kinkos to get it printed up in two copies on good paper and bounded (spiral folder type thing), and sent him a late night email with the final .doc attached, saying I'd drop off the hard copies at his office in the morning and that they were due that day, and I needed his signature on both copies.
I got to sleep around 5, set my alarm for 10, and at 7:45 when my alarm clock/cell phone singing, I picked it up with no idea who it was. It was helpful that I was too asleep to speak or think, since it was the man I'd been so eager to contact, and he had good news. He'd read (well, skimmed) my paper and thought it was very good, and would be happy to sign off on it, and would meet me in his office early that afternoon. So that was that, worries over with, but I was too relieved to get back to sleep. So I laid in bed for 3 hours, sort of dozing but mostly thinking about everything, then got up and took a long shower and spent an hour studying for my first final of the day, then headed out to get his damn thing so I could be rid of it.
That went smoothly, and I went from his office hither and yon, getting the other required signatures and turning the two copies in at last. From there I went right to my first final, making it through a ridiculously long and overdone exam (for a stupid GE requirement Speech/Rhetoric class that hadn't taught me a thing all term) writing with a pen that might as well have used liquid manure for ink, as much bullshit as I wrote on that test. From there it was over to the library for 2 hours studying for my second final of the day, and then another Pepsi with a bag of sour cream and onion baked potato chips, before the World Religions final.
I usually am very careful on exams. I always force myself to read all the multiple choices to be sure there aren't any tricks, on the test or in my mind, and I check over my answers, etc. Not this time. I'd done all the readings and paid attention in lectures and gone over the material so much that I knew the answers at once when I read the question, and my unblinking eyes were soon scanning the ABCDE options not to read them all and evaluate, but to find the one correct one as quickly as possible. Sometimes before I even finished reading the question. I'm sure I missed a few Qs because of that, but it won't matter, since I didn't miss much, and I knew all the 6 extra credit map questions. Besides, I'd gotten an A on the first paper in that class, and the midterm, and I never got less than an A on any full-length paper I did in my 3 semesters, and I knew my research paper was good too. I could have gotten a B on the final and still had an A in the class, what with the various extra credit options I'd fulfilled.
It's funny; I had a horrible GPA in high school, since I didn't care at all. I had several Fs in classes I just chose not to participate in or attend at all, and ended up with the minimum units required to graduate. No idea what my GPA was. Literally, no idea. I couldn't name 2 classes I had my senior year, and don't know my grade in any of them. Probably 2.2 or something like that, since I did get As in classes that were hard/interested me, and those averaged out the Fs and Ds in boring classes I did nothing in for 8 months.
In my first swing through college back when I was 19, 20, etc, I got something like a 3.6 GPA, without really trying. I didn't not try, but I didn't really care about my grades. I did the work in college since it was interesting and sometimes challenging, but mostly since I had about 12 hours of class a week, each class only met once or twice for a total of 3 hours, and I could take classes at times I wanted to take them at, instead of being trapped in the busywork hell of high school from 7-2:30 M-F.
This time I've not really worried about grades either, but the classes have been largely interesting to me, and since the work is all reading and writing and thinking, and I do that for fun, my GPA is enviable. I think I had a 3.96 over my first 2 semesters, (There are no A+s, honors classes are still just worth 4.0, which you get for an A, 3.7 for an A-, and so on down.) and I'll be surprised if I don't do a 4.0 this time, for my 20 units. I don't really feel any pride in this, since I just expect to get an A. I feel bad when I get less. And I should feel bad, since it's not a stretch to say that I'm smarter than most of fellow students, especially when I consider that few of them can write, plus they're like 20 and are still pretty much 13th-grading their way along on mommy and daddy's $32k a year.
Well that's invidious of me to mention, since the other students don't matter, since almost nothing is graded on a curve. So forget that. I should get As since the work I'm doing is all squarely in my skill set. I'm gifted/skilled at reading comprehension and especially at writing. Earning less than A means I didn't apply myself. I'm sure it would (will?) be different in a grad school level class, with higher standards and other students who are also very skilled at this pursuit, but at the undergrad level I've been able to breeze to an A in almost every class I've taken. Not that I'm uniquely talented; I'd have to work much harder for a C in biology or comp sci or calculus than I do to get As in English or History or Humanities. I'm not unable to do hard science or math; I actually scored higher on the Math than the English of my SAT lo those many years ago, but since I haven't spent most of my semi-adult life working with numbers or in the sciences, I'd have to do a lot of relearning and thinking in areas that are not second nature to me.
While I'm on the topic, I had an email asking me why I did Humanities rather than English or Writing. Logistics, mostly. I chose to major in Humanities rather than English since my transferred units went further towards the Humanities degree. Well, that's not entirely true; they were so old that they only counted as lower division/electives, so I had all my electives finished when I enrolled, but had to take all my core major courses, and needed to finish other GE reqs and needed everything upper division. An English degree required something like 42 units, while Humanities was a bit less at about 36, and there was a much wider array of possible classes in Humanities. Stuff like world religions, art history, musical theory, ethics, Anthropology, sexual morality, great books seminar, Asian culture, Italian Renaissance art/history, and so forth. I've taken all of those, and more.
I do not think I could have done the 64 units I needed to graduate in 3 semesters of English, and not just because of boredom and being forced to take all the elementary writing classes I knew enough not to need, but would have had to take anyway since you can only test out of so much stuff, when you need X number of UD units to graduate. Worse yet, as English majors frequently told me, the University had real problems offering enough English programs for the major, especially for those taking "English with an emphasis in writing," which is what I'd have wanted to take. Required classes were only being offered every other semester, or every third, and they were always filled up instantly, with others who had to take that class for their degree not able to enroll.
Naturally, the guidance/placement counselor didn't mention that, but fortunately I was steered to Humanities anyway, and now I'm done. It's kind of sad; as I look at how well I've done in the intellectually-challenging, non-time-wasting college classes, I can't help but remember the utter waste of 4 years that was my high school experience. I've blogged on it before, but how I wish I could somehow tell my 15 y/o self that if I really wanted to I could apply myself and take equivalence exams and graduate at 16, and move onto college with classes in subjects I was actually interested in, and not full of other disruptive idiot 16 y/o's forcing the teachers to spend more time controlling them than instructing us in the 6 weeks of material and 6 months of busy work that was stretched to fill an entire school year.
Anyway, lengthy, "I'm a good writer" disproving digression aside, let's return to Monday evening. I had my soda and chips and got ready for the World Religions final, and knew I was going to do well. I had it all in my head, I'd done the readings and read over the lecture notes, and as other students around me were spending time on their last minute cramming and asking each other about reading questions they hadn't gotten around to answering (since they hadn't done the reading in the first place) I knew them all. Five Pillars of Islam. Giblah is the direction one must face towards Mecca during the five daily prayers, dhikr is the endless "Allah" chanting the Islamic sufi mystics engage in, shirk is idolatry, the worst sin for a Muslim, etc.
And then test time came... and I went through it like Michael Vick's pet shop through a kindergarten class on rub-yourself-in-ham-day. Six pages of T/F and multiple choice with a few fill in the blanks, and I was done in about 12 minutes. Finished it just about as fast as I could turn the pages and write in the correct letters. I was the first one done, and as I got up I saw that the woman next to me was on page two. But almost halfway through page two! I laughed, more in glee at myself than at her, but a little of both, since I was giddy with relief and caffeine, and because I'm kind of an asshole who thinks he's better than other people, all real life evidence to the contrary.
The prof looked kind of shocked that anyone was done yet, but he took my exam and when I went back to my seat to get my jacket and bag, he got up and met me at the door, opening it and proceeding me outside. Where he stopped me in the hallway and said how much he'd enjoyed my final paper and how it was a really interesting topic and very well researched and presented. I enjoyed hearing it, since, unlike most of my research papers, I'd actually put in a fair amount of thought and analysis into that one. I thanked him and we talked for a moment and than we shook hands and I was off -- thinking once again that he'll be one of the profs I ask for a recommendation letter if I do continue to grad school, since he's a nice guy, speaks well, and is actually quite well known in the field, with several books that are often used to teach various comparative religion courses.
After that I began laughing. Walking to my car I was like Dr. Fucking Evil. Just manic cackling, mostly at how completely I'd been on top of that final, and how the senior project thing had turned from "ohshitI'mfucked" to "no problem," and how I was all done but for an Art History final on Wednesday that I knew I'd blow through since I knew the material very well. The whole drive home, mad cackling laughter, clapping hands, shouting like a football fan watching the home team rock one home, and shedding actual tears of joy; something I don't think I'd ever done since (or before) the time several years ago when I realized that I was actually in love with Malaya. That was a bigger deal than being all-but-done with my BA, but this was pretty good too, and I wasn't nearly done laughing by the time I finished the short drive to my apartment, so I rolled around the block a few times, with the windows rolled up so I could scream in relief and happiness without causing anyone to call the cops or throw a rotting pumpkin at me.
Compared to that, Wednesday night was nothing. I finished the art history final, which was about as easy as I'd expected it would be, walked to my car, drove home, threw off my jeans and jacket, and hopped into bed beside Jinxie where I could warm up under the covers and pet kitty and enjoy the 70 points of blue light coming from the two $2.25 strings of Xmas lights I'd bought the day before. Before I got lost in, "What now?" thoughts I traded texts with a few friends, read sixty pages of a book on male/female sexual psychology I checked out for a final paper but kept to read for personal interest (after it was useless for said paper), and eventually got up and made food, ate while surfing, and then wrote this.
One thought I had Monday, when I was bubbling with relief and happiness, was how this was but a dim reflection of what Malaya must have felt when she got her PhD last summer. I just finished 3 semesters of fairly easy university work, more than a decade after my first 3 years of desultory undergrad work. To get her PhD she did what most people do. Four years of undergrad, several more years of grad school, 2 years of research and field work to prep for her thesis, and then more years to write a nonfiction book on her research, while working full time. So yeah, as happy as I was on Monday, after 3 semesters of work, I can imagine why she was grinning like a well-battered pinata, about to disgorge its load of cheap candy, after a decade of far more intensive labor.
Wow, bad
metaphor simile.
Speaking of (Malaya, not bad similies) it seems just months ago that I was scoffing at her suggestion that I return to college to finish my degree. She mentioned that several times to me during our first couple of years together, but I never gave it any serious thought until early 2006, when she was finishing her thesis and approaching her PhD graduation. Watching Malaya receive her PhD in the summer of 2006, seeing how happy she was, and seeing all of the others there to receive their masters and doctorates, and how many of them were in their sixties or seventies, I got motivated. I kept thinking how long they must have worked at it; how many late nights and long hours they'd put in after working and raising families, and it seemed an interesting pursuit. I was also interested in learning more; I felt my mind fully engaged sometimes during conversation, and also when writing fiction, but like most people, I was pretty much coasting through the rest of life, in terms of how often I had to work my hardest and think my best.
I have indeed gotten to read and think and work, though I have to admit that very little during the past 3 semesters has actually been a challenge. This semester was insane, but only because I was taking 20 units (usual full time student is 12), and thanks to procrastination during October and early November, I rolled into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend with 5 research papers to finish, plus my senior thesis. From Wednesday the 21st through the day my last paper was due, Thursday the 29th, I worked at least 10 hours every day researching and writing papers. Then put in another 20 hours Thursday night and over the weekend to finish up my senior project/thesis.
The craziest one was a psych paper on hypersexuality that was due Thursday night. I'd done nothing on it as of Wednesday at midnight. I started then, after my Wednesday night class, and did nothing but search out and read psych journal articles for about 8 hours straight. Cutting and pasting the good bits and bibliography info into one word document, adding in notes from other online sources, general info from wikipedia, etc. I went to bed at 7, with no idea how I was going to get a 12 page, 10 source paper out of that, since I had shit for info. The 7 books I'd checked out were useless, and the vast majority of online papers were crap too. Lots of mentions of hypersexuality occurring after brain surgery to correct severe epileptic seizures, historical info about the old days of nymphomania diagnoses, etc, but almost nothing about the actual condition itself, why it isn't listed in the current DSM, treatment options other than drugs, etc. Worse, the paper was supposed to be about treatment, not just info. How I'd handle a patient with that if I were a shrink, insurance coverage for the disorder, etc. Not to worry though, it was only 40% of my class grade.
I woke up at 10 for a morning class, talked to a female friend for a while after class to chill out, drove home for lunch, and then set to work furiously condensing my endless quotes and notes into a paper. The psych class was at 6, and I was willing to get there at 7:55 and meet the prof in the hallway after class if I had to, to finish the paper. I purposely didn't look at the clock all afternoon, just worked as fast as I could, and when I finished quoting and writing bullshit to fill the gaps and boiled the whole thing down to 11.5 pages, with a bloated 27 cited sources in hate-you-so-much, no-one-fucking-cares-about-page-numbers
APA style, I was astonished to see that the time was 5:40, and that I might only be a few minutes late if I hurried. So I did, since after all, proofreading is for the weak. I changed clothing while the document printed, grabbed it and an apple, and was out the door.
I laughed Thursday night while driving to class, even though I knew I had 8 hours of senior thesis ahead of me that night, just out of exhilaration at having finished that paper in 18 hours, including sleeping (about 4 hours) and attending a day class. It was inarguably the worst paper I'd done during my 3 semesters back to college, but it covered the topic, more of less, and it was probably deserving of an A just for the abundant, steaming masses of research I'd done for it, and made very evident by almost entirely constructing it from generous quotes from said research.
And no, that's not what I mean about paying attention in class and making the work easy. I'm sure everyone else in the class, even the 19 y/o's, did a far better job at managing their time and putting in coherent hours on their psych papers. It is what I mean about reading and analyzing and writing being my skill set, though. If I tried that on an assignment in a fact-based class, one in which I had to work out problems or memorize things, or conduct experiments, I'd have failed miserably. But since it's in a writing/reading type class, I can pull it off even when I'm writing on a topic I didn't (and still don't) know that much about. It's actually something I've been trying to get over, since I last minute flashed through a number of papers that way in my first two semesters, when I was procrastinating really badly. The fact that I can do it that way and get away with it doesn't mean that I want to keep doing it that way. Though, obviously, it's a nice luxury to have.
Not that I need to worry about that problem for a while, with no more papers, or classes, or finals in my immediate future. There might be come the fall, since I'm seriously thinking about grad school. No idea where yet, since from what I've been told, graduate school is mostly where they do your field of study, and to find that out you've got to conduct some research. I want to study literature and creative writing, but also analysis and criticism and research in nonfiction too. Not really journalism; I don't want to be a reporter or work in a newsroom, but I do want to write articles and maybe even books on subject that interest me enough to research them. And no, I don't really *need* graduate school to do that. I could do it now, but I've gotten a lot better at writing nonfiction and analyzing material and making coherent arguments (not that this blog post is evidence of that) during my 3 semesters at college, even though none of my classes have explicitly taught those skills, other than by forcing me to practice them to do term papers.
I would like a class that really drilled down into the science of organizing long works of fiction; with techniques to keep things organized and keep the plot moving while working in character info and interesting scenes and such. I don't know if anyone really teaches that, most lit programs I've read about are very artsy-fartsy and non-commercial, and while I'd like to write better fantasy and horror than most of what's on the market (which isn't saying much) I do want to produce work that's commercially successful and accessible to the masses. Ignorant and lacking in elite academic credentials though they are. *cough*
So maybe grad school come the fall, but lots of work on my novel(s) in the meantime, and if I have success pursuing publication... I'd probably still want grad school, for self improvement and knowledge. It would just be more fun if I weren't starving and living on loans and grants while attending. Plus it's fun to imagine the bitterness and jealousy the serious, emo, artsy college "literature" writer types would manifest towards me if I were a successful, published author of something so plebeian and common as horror or fantasy, while studying in the same classes as they were in their pursuit of higher values of literature, none of which would ever hope to sell more than 500 copies through some pseudo-vanity press.
What's that you say? Have I given this particular fantasy any thought? No, not so much.
Another thing about grad school; connections. Most of life, especially in regards to a career, if who you know. What you can do helps, but if you know someone to give you a chance to do it for $, or in a good place, that's a huge leg up, and that's why people major in fields related to their career. Or post-grad in those fields. In my case I'd meet agents and editors, my profs would know people in the industry to recommend me to, there are internships and other ways to get into the industry, etc. I hope I don't require that, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
As to where... no idea. As I said, it's all about the university and the program they offer for grad schools, and while there are any number of fine institutions in the Bay Area, including USF, Berkeley, and Stanford, I don't know if any of them have the sorts of profs/programs I'd be interested in. And even if they did, there's no guarantee I'd be accepted. I assume I'd be applying to a lot of programs all through the US and maybe even internationally (Oxford and Cambridge keep popping up in my life lately; meeting people who attended or meant to, who lived nearby, etc...) and seeing who was interested in me.
I like this part of the country, but if I have to move (for a few years, at least) to pursue higher life goals, I would be willing to do so. If I don't do it now, while I'm still relatively young and unhindered by a job I can't give up or a house I have to pay for, when will I? And if you're wondering about another long term attachment I've not mentioned... there isn't one. As I've hinted at and alluded to (on this blog), but never actually stated thus far, Malaya and I are no more. We broke up last December, and in January 2007 I moved to North Bay to be nearer my university.
I've lived alone in a small apartment a very short commute to school for the past 11 months, and while I was planning on moving down to East Bay or somewhere else in the Bay Area once I graduated and my 12 month lease ran out in December, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. I'm paying a bit over $1000 now, but there's nothing too
much cheaper in the Bay Area other than tiny studios, and I can't tolerate that. You can get down to $800 or so if you're willing to live in the projects in Oakland or parts of Emeryville, but in either case you'll probably spend more repairing your broken car windows and replacing your stolen property than you're saving by living there. Although, learning to sleep through the sounds of sirens and gunshots and drunken brawls at 3am might be a handy talent later in life. Anywhere else is as or more remote than the North Bay where I live now, and it's not worth the trouble to pack and move and unpack, along with all the associated fees, just to save $150 a month, when I'm probably going to move in 6 months for grad school.
I sort of skimmed over the real news there to get to pointless apartment rental talk, so let me double back. I am single now. Malaya and I split up last December, and I didn't post it on this blog since she didn't want all of our mutual acquaintances (in real life) to know and ask questions. I told various people I knew online, and our relatives found out, and our real life friends have long since been told, so I really have no idea why I didn't mention here. I guess I was just waiting to talk about that and college at the same time; when I graduated. And since that time is now (well, I'm done, but I won't actually graduate until paperwork and more is completed) I'm talking about it.
I do not want to get into why we split up, but it was a painful experience for us both, though we were committed to remaining friends. I've never lied about it on this blog, though I obviously didn't tell the whole truth. Malaya and I have been hanging out at times; we've gone to dinner semi-regularly, seen some movies together, and she drove up here several times to play HGL on my computer during the alpha and beta test. I mentioned many of those events, I just didn't say that was the first time I'd seen her in 2 weeks, or whatever. Not that anyone really cares anyway.
I'm not going to speak about Malaya's personal life, but I can say that I've not found anyone else, nor have a I really looked. I have made a few friends at college but even if I were actively looking for a GF, the age range isn't good for me there. I'm too old (or they're too young) for the 20 y/o undergrads who make up most of the students. In addition to those kids there are a fair number of adult students, who are almost all 45+. Which makes them too old for me. I'm the oldest student in most of my day classes, and the youngest in most of my night classes, and no, I can't really say why I'm not pursuing some cute little 20 y/o coeds for sex. I guess after 4 years in a LTR with love and cohabitation and all of that, casual sex doesn't really hold any appeal to me, and the 20 y/o who was mature and interesting enough to be worth considering something more LTR with would be quite a rare and lovely creature. And even more so if she were interested in that with me.
I have gotten to know a few girls in that age range, and the results were not real pleasing. They were flaky and superficial and flighty, and not worth the trouble to try and get to know or spend time with. I could probably have gotten one or two to hang out, or taken them out to drink beers or something, but I don't enjoy that sort of time-wasting bullshit with a person who isn't interesting to me. I love spending time talking with and hanging out with an interesting person, but for that TV and alcohol aren't required or desired. Dumb, boring people hang out endlessly with time killing crap, since they can't find anything better to do with their time, but I don't want to be one of those people, or be with them. I don't think anyone really does, but most guys are horny enough that they'll sit through hours of bullshit and cheap beer if it means they might get some pussy. I won't, so I don't, and I haven't.
I guess that's another potential benefit of grad school. Intelligent women older than 20?
So, that's a rambling catch up on what's been up. I'll probably blog on the issue some more in the days/weeks to come, especially as I spend December decompressing and figuring out what I want to do with the next six-eight months of my life, while preparing for what I do with the decades after that.
Labels: college, dating
