With Pomp and Circumstance...

Only a few more days!! Tomorrow is *officially* my last class ever at UNT. The day after that is *officially* the last final I will ever take at UNT. My final final. Finale Ultimo. You get the picture. Am I excited? You could say so...

But I'm also a little nostalgic. Today as I was leaving class I started thinking about how weird it is that I'm not going to be walking this campus again in the fall, running into people right before class and having them persuade you to skip class and go eat lunch at Mr. Chopstix or Cool Beans. I'm not going to sneak into choir rehearsal and be overjoyed when everyone goes "Hey Frecklehead!" and the choir director lets me sing along with the altos as if I never changed majors.

I'm not going to curse the parking situation anymore as I try to flag down the damn UNT E-Trans bus system (already late for class, of course). There will be no more emails to professors explaining why I overslept...again. There will be no more walking through the "Free Speech" area on a beautiful spring day and seeing the local religious fanatic surrounded by a group of very vocal liberals.

But the good things are, there will be no more all-nighters trying to study for the five midterms I have in two days. There will be no more trying to find a part-time job (or two) that not only works around my class schedule but also pays the bills. There will be no more waiting hours and hours to be able to log onto my.unt.edu to register for classes. There will be no more professors who hold strictly to an attendance policy for an 8am megasection class.

Yes, it's going to be very different. I always pictured myself as the type of college grad who would turn cartwheels across the stage after receiving her diploma. However, I'm thinking I might just be the girl who solemnly shakes hands with the President of the University while my family whoops and hollers in the background, then slowly turns to look around the beloved Coliseum where I spent many a drunken basketball game, where I sang Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as part of the Presidential Inauguration; the Murchison where I spent many tears over asshole employees, but where I also could sneak into opera rehearsal and listen to strains of "Un Bel Di" from Butterfly and "O Soave Fanciulla" from Boheme, and where I could get into any concert for free. I will look across the sea of faces and be very glad to have come this far, yes...but also very nostalgic and grateful for the abundance of memories I"ll be taking with me.

*sigh*