This week follows the conclusion of my penultimate undergraduate semester. This week I have no more assignments due or meetings to go to or classes to attend. And this time, the break will be more substantial than just winter break.
According to my plans, I was supposed to have graduated yesterday. Things don’t often go according to plan, however, so I still have one more semester and just a handful of classes. I have run out of English classes to take at my university so I’ll be taking a women’s lit course online at a community college. I’m taking ASL. I have online history. That’s it.
It may be arrogant of me but I don’t expect this upcoming semester to be challenging. Last semester I figured out how online classes work and everything I’m taking is a 100 or 200 level course. The volume of work alone should be much less than I’m used to. Worst of all, I won’t be in the English building at m
y university with my professors. I am a little heartbroken about it honestly.
Last week, I had to take home the coffeepot I’ve kept in the upstairs hallway for two years and I cried a little bit as I collected my stash of filters and carried it out of the building. (I don’t handle change particularly well.)
I’m trying to be optimistic.
- The coffeepot lives in my room now.
- I’m getting married in March.
- I’ll have time to read the “for fun” books I’ve been accumulating since I started school—probably close to a hundred of them.
- I get to work on refining some of my undergraduate work for graduate application writing samples.
- I get to do my own research for fun.
- I’ll have time to write more.
- I’ll have time to pick my German lessons up again.
- I can focus hard on grad school research.
These are big changes in my life. Before, I worked part-time, I hung out with my friends and my fiancé, and I did school. I went to school, read for school, researched for school, thought about school, wrote for school. Most of my time was tied up in school things. As much as I love that, I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t need a break.
I’ve been making a few adjustments ahead of the big change because I’m a conscientious and intentional planner. For example, I write to-do lists on my mirror to keep me productive. I’ve rearranged my room to give it a different energy than my school-time homework and vegging out space. Now, there’s a chair by the window to encourage writing. I’m writing this post from that chair so it must be working.
All of these changes are good things, but scary things. They are potentially very lonely things. In the real world, people don’t get excited about Chaucer or sit around and chat about sci-fi novels. Fortunately, a little independence never hurt anyone. I’m excited to do independent work, to refine my identity as a scholar and an academic in my time away from university English buildings. Maybe I’ll become a window-side sf scholar for the people in the next three months…
I’ll be keeping you posted!
Lindsey Grundyson 