I've been marking these milestones, for the last week or so now. I'm so close... today was the last class I sat in, the last lecture for the degree, the last exam review. Molecular techniques, if you were wondering about the topic, and he told us about how gene manipulation is carried out real-world (something I have actually done in another lab). It was a moment, there at the end, gathering my things, thinking about the weekend, where I realized that next week is not like this week. Nor will there be another week like this one. From here on out, when I study, it will be for living, not to cram for an exam. Ok, from a week from today it will be for living - I do still have four exams to do, and the cumulative BioChem exam will be a killer.
I'm poised on the brink and I don't know what the next step is. It's a bit alarming to know I don't have a routine, anymore. I do have things that need to be done, and there's enough going on until Dec 26th to keep me maddeningly busy. But after that? this next year of 2017 is officially still the Great Unknown. I can tentatively say that certain things will happen. I will write. My children will drive me nuts, and my First Reader will hug me and tell me we can do this, stop stressing.
I will write. I will even write some of the planned books, but right at the moment I'm working on a story that mugged me yesterday afternoon and wouldn't let me alone until I'd started on it. So I did 1000 words while waiting on the Otaku Princess to appear on stage, and another 500 this morning while the kids were getting ready for school. I'm scattered, but writing. I'll take it. Hopefully I've appeased the muse for a week. I really do need to study!
This makes it very real, somehow. One more week and I put it on.
So what comes next? Well, this coming week I'm focused on exams, and family. A month from now, I'll get the official paper. But before that, I'll be applying for jobs. I don't expect much before Christmas - this is a crummy time of year to be applying - but as I'm not alone, I can take my time and do this right. And I can be writing, which is not immediate income, to keep me busy. It will all fall into place in the long run, with some persistence. I think I've shown I've got the persistence.
The last class. I'm going to miss this. Will I go back? Yes, in time. I'll eventually go after a master's (five year plan) and a PhD (ten to twelve year plan). I don't want to go into academia but I do want to keep learning. The professor asked at the end of class today: so what is the meaning of life? And what makes us human? To think and to learn, he answered himself. If you don't learn, you're not fully living.