final plan of study

When I registered for a class this semester, my advisor sent me an email to let me know which classes I needed to complete my degree. Requirements had changed since I began, and because I haven't been attending on a continuous basis I needed to conform to the current guidelines for graduation. Although I had enough credits, they need to be in the right combination as well. This meant that I would need six courses to finish.

I was planning to take two now and two in the summer, but hearing this news I was overcome by temporary insanity. Smelling the finish line, I decided to go full throttle and take four classes now. This means that I work full-time and go to school full time. I leave everyday from work and head straight to class, getting home late in the evening.

Six weeks in, I am starting to wonder what in the hell I was thinking. That wave of insanity must surely have been powerful. The good news is that I am just taking the leftover crap that I have managed to avoid thus far, which means that these courses are much less intense than some that I have taken previously. The bad news, it seems, is that I am not a carefree eighteen year old with no responsibilities. Someone should have sat me down and explained this to me six weeks ago.

My advisor submitted my final plan of study to degree auditing last week, which means I am in the home stretch. She let me know that I can walk in the May graduation ceremony. I have been chipping away at this and working on it so slowly, piece by piece, that it hardly seems real that the end is here. I'm not sure I have let myself see to the next level for so long. I have spent the last decade with my loving DH struggling and working and finding our way. As we've entered the next decade I feel as though we may finally get to relax a bit and enjoy ourselves and what we have accomplished. I am proud of us.