Done

I'm finished then, with it all. I turned in my thesis this morning. I don't even want to explain why I turned it in on the last day possible in order to officially graduate this semester. Really, I'm not that bad of a procrastinator. But there I was yesterday night, like the slacker college kid the night before the term paper is due, adding more data, another graph, more explanations, trying to convert a file to PDF, wondering how I was going to burn a CD to submit to the grad school when my CD drive is broken. No, I really don't want to explain how I got into that situation. But I will say that it is all over.

I got to the Grad School office about 10:30 this morning, CD case and signed papers in hand and said, "I'm here to turn in my thesis." A woman who looked to be in her 50s glanced at everything and stamped one of the papers, and that was all. "Is that it?" I asked. How could it be that simple? I was expecting her to tell me something was missing, creating another crisis for me to resolve, or maybe for her to tell me to sign something to make it official, or even an interrogation on why I waited so long to turn it in. But nothing. Just like that it was finished.

I don't even want to think how many hours of work went into the contents of that CD. I feel like the last two months of my life are burned onto that disc, and now it will sit on a shelf somewhere, possibly never to be viewed again. The sacrifices were great. Was it worth it? I have to believe it was.