Change Is Hard

I attended my school graduation yesterday afternoon, and the massive general graduation this morning.  I think by going through two ceremonies I have convinced myself that I am truly finished with school; truly a graduate, and what’s even more strange, a Michigan alumni!  Who would have thought that a Spartan from way back, one whose blood runs green, could actually get excited and even a little tearful at becoming a “Michigan Woman!”  Go figure.

Bob Woodruff, the keynote speaker at this morning’s commencement made the point that we graduates shouldn’t fear change.  He used himself as an example.  He was a lawyer making big money in San Fransisco when he knew for sure he wanted to be a journalist.  He left that high paying job for one that paid $12,000 a year to do something he loved.  And even though he “got blown up” doing it (his words) I think he has no regrets.  I don’t have any regrets either, (though I do hope that librarianship will not get me blown up);  it’s a wonderful thing to feel like you are doing what you were meant to be doing.

Now I just have to find somewhere that will hire me to do it!

Today was really the “last day” in Ann Arbor; the last day of being there as a student and Public Librarian Associate.  I worked the reference desk from 9-1…well from 9-12:20 when they held a little impromtu party for me in the back and other people covered the desk for me.  Then I turned in my badge and walked away.  Some people had tears in their eyes, which surprised me, I’ve only been there a year, and though I guess it was sort of sad, I was happy to move on in my life.

I walked back toward campus with my camera, stopping by the construction site of the new School of Information, then on to the center of campus where the big graduation will occur on Saturday.  It’s pretty amazing what they have done to the place, completly covered more than an acre with plastic flooring and wall to wall chairs.  Then I wandered over to the cemetary on Observatory where I have some family buried, said “hi” to them, and moved on to the Arboretum.  It was a beautiful day for a walk through the woods.  The “mile of daffodils” is in bloom.  It’s a simple line of daffodils a mile long, zigzagging through the woods and open pastures of green grass.  People were playing frisbee and ball, and enjoying the sun.  It felt good to be enjoying the sun myself without papers, tests or work hanging over my head.

Down by the river I stopped at the stone with Mom and Dad’s poem.  I placed a small smooth black rock, shaped like an arrowhead on top of their stone and said “hi” to them.  I thought how Dad would like the small arrowhead stone.  I’ve only stopped by their rock a couple of times in these past two years and this time it didn’t hurt as much, which I suppose is a good thing.   I won’t be back there anytime soon, so I sat on a bench and watched the river flow by for awhile, and thought about my parents.  Then I climbed back up the hill heading back toward the hospital and a bus for the ride to the car.  At the top of the hill I happened to glance back toward the river, and realized I could see, directly across the valley, the house Dad grew up in.  I was looking straight at what was probably his bedroom window.  And I knew in that instance that he had certainly played in these hills, just as his kids played in the woods near our home.  It was a comforting feeling, and with a nod and a smile toward him I went and caught the bus.  Later in the evening I stopped by an open house in Ann Arbor for a friend, also graduating this weekend.  A bit of good food and good conversation and then I slipped away to come home. 

Tonight I am no longer a student, no longer an employee.  I’m just me.   And it feels pretty good. 

Tonight I spent a lot of time working up a job application. Maybe these will begin to take less time once I do a few more of them, but it reminded me of all the paperwork and coordination I had to manage when I was applying for grad school. Next week I won’t have to go to work OR to school, and I’ll have more time to consider where I should be looking for work, so I guess I should feel OK about getting one application done, and worry about doing more later.

I haven’t beaten the exhaustion yet. Today I got home from work ready to tackle cleaning up and organizing the school stuff. But I sat on the sofa and suddenly everything hurt, legs, arms, head, hands. So I took a nap. Wonderful things, naps. A reference librarian at work told me it took her a week after she graduated with her MLS to get back on her feet. I am still astounded at the physical toll going to school apparently has had on me!  It has similar effects to running a marathon, and a similar sense of satisfaction as well.

Graduation is Friday!

Friday afternoon after my last ever final I thought I’d get home and start working on all the stuff I’ve put off for two years, mostly cleaning and sorting, yardwork and shrub pruning.  But the oddest thing occured, I pulled into the driveway, walked in the house and felt overwhelmingly tired.  I couldn’t get myself to move off of the sofa and actually went to bed really early.  I’m surprised by this, I really thought I’d dive right into fun nonschool stuff, but the truth is I haven’t done anything but sleep and go to work.  I guess I’m waiting till the work ends to move on and start my new life!  But tonight, after a full weekend of work, I’m going to sleep!

I wrote my final final this morning; the written theory exam about web development. It was OK, there was one question that I couldn’t answer, just because I didn’t happen to concentrate on that particular topic when I was studying, and there were a few other answers I provided that may or may not be exactly correct. But the good news is that it wasn’t terrible, and I’m sure I passed it.

After I turned it in I left classroom 311 for the last time, a room I’ve been in pretty consistantly for the duration of the 2 year program. I wandered past my mailbox that won’t be mine anymore, down the West Hall connector to the UGLI(undergrad library) for the last time, and over to the Hatcher Graduate Library where I spent some time in the reading room, (which is beautiful) flipping through a reference book that listed Broadway musicals including when the musical opened and where, how many shows on Broadway, whether it closed before it got to Broadway, who was in the original show and more. Some of the shows were from the late 1800’s! It was fun to sit in a beautiful room and rifle though a book that had nothing to do with anything. Then I walked across campus, past the workers who are preparing the graduation area, stopped to smell the starburst magnolia trees in full bloom, and met a friend for a celebratory lunch, complete with a lovely glass of wine. Then we wandered around downtown AA, the normal people’s part of the city vs the student infested areas near campus, stopped and had ice cream out in the sun, and caught the bus back out to the car.

All in all a very nice day. I’d say I was free, except I have to work tomorrow 9-6 and Sunday 12-6, and then all next week as well. But after THAT I’ll be free! It’s a very nice feeling!

Very last and final final tomorrow a.m. at 9:30.  Web design of course.

I’m home from my morning shift at the library, where I kept notes about the various things that were asked of me, to share with you. I find the variety of things people wonder about fascinating, and thought you might too on occasion. But as I sat down to write about my morning experiences a great blue heron flew low across the yard outside my window, then swooped steeply up so that I saw the underbelly, legs outstretched. “Heck,” I thought, that bird just landed on my roof! So I tiptoed out the front door, and sure enough there he was, up on my roof, a big gangly bird staring down at me. He slowly spread his wings and glided off the roof, back toward the pond across the road. How cool. And of course, no camera on me. So…maybe Ann Arbor isn’t the only odd place in the world. We just have odd wildlife, rather than people out here.

Speaking of odd wildlife, did I tell you that earlier this week the dog was going bonkers because of four deer in the back yard, so I went out to shoo the deer away, and one of them stood his ground and then charged me? I ducked behind the dog pen and kicked it, the sound made him leap the other way and back into the woods. Guess it’s the wrong time of year to mess with deer.

So I guess I’ll tell you about the things people ask a reference librarian in another post on another day. Tomorrow is my last final. I should really go study now. Even though it is beautiful outside and Katie and I would rather go for a walk. Well. I want to go for a walk, Katie is taking a nap. Lucky me.

The practical final was awful.  Probably the worst final I’ve ever taken, it was just like the nightmares everyone gets about school and tests.  I had no idea what to do, so I played with it for about 20 minutes, did what I could and then messed around for an hour so it wouldn’t look like I gave up, which in fact I did, and then electronically turned it in and slipped out of the room.  If I were the professor I’d give me about 10 points for showing up, maybe five points for what I turned in.  Out of a hundred mind you.  the only good thing is that it’s over!  Now I am supposedly getting my notes together for the web theory final exam which is this Friday at 9 a.m.  I am hoping to do much better on that, but I won’t if I don’t get myself in gear and study some!  I have tonight and tomorrow afternoon/evening.  But Friday at noon I will be officially finished!

I turned in my last paper today, dropping it in a professor’s mailbox, then let the spring winds blow me across campus and into town for my shift at the public library.  The shift was somewhat odd in that collections management was recataloging the cd collection and refiling them all around me.  For some reason IT people were connecting another computer to the desk so for periods of time I had no connection to our catalog or anything else.  Just an odd shift.

I was starving when I left work at 5, so I walked back toward campus and stopped to have dinner at a restaurant on State Street.  As I approached the restaurant I could hear bagpipes.  There was a piper playing outside a bookstore across the street.  Crossing the street right in front of me were two people in mime outfits, white faces, dancing their way across the street to the beat of the piper.  During dinner I watched lots of people go by, including a woman with scarlet and black hair, the top was long and deep red, the bottom was cut very short and was black.  She wore army boots and tights and a pink skirt.  She rode off on her bike, nearly colliding with another woman with normal hair who was riding her bike with a base fiddle strapped to her back.   They both nearly ran down the piping Scotsman in full kilt.

I just have to say that as I walk Katie in my rural neighborhood I  don’t get to see stuff like this. 

So.  Two more days until my last ever final is finished, whatever the outcome I will be glad to be done, and sad to be leaving the oddness that is AA.

So I’m sitting in the computer lab, notes ready, laptop warming up, waiting for my practical exam for the web class.  I was thinking as I was trudging over here that today is the last time I have to lug my laptop around anywhere!  (I’m looking for good things about an April 15 final exam in a class I have only a vague understanding of.)  It’s sunny out, sort of warm.  There are groups of students in shorts and flip flops everywhere.  The two behind me are talking about how it sucks to go shoe shopping with your mother.  I had two thoughts about that;  one they were lucky to have a mother, two shoe shopping has to beat out web exams.

So anyway, here I am, waiting.  Thirty more minutes and I’ll at least know what I should know, instead of wondering about what I don’t know.

Winter returned during the night, snuck in and smacked us up the side of the head with snow when we weren’t looking.  Katie and I didn’t appreciate getting our feet cold and wet so early in the morning, but I guess we weren’t surprised.  Is is, after all, Michigan.

It was sort of pretty though, and tolerable because you just KNOW it’s not going to last.  By noon it was gone, and I have only these pictures to prove to my sleeping husband that we had any snow at all.