i'm coming to the end of my undergraduate career. after many bumps along the road (most of them self inflicted), i am finally going to graduate. my plans for myself through and after college have changed so much in the last six years that i am hardly the same person that i was when i started. i went from being a very mathy geek who wanted to be an actuary and eventually teach college level math, to being an englishy geek with the unfounded notion that i could write noteworthy fiction. that is quite a change i think. i tell people that going from math to english was no big deal, that the skill set is much the same (those are the exact words that i use), but really it was a huge deal. i had spent so much time doing just math, and then i had to take all my prereqs for english in just one semester in order to be able to graduate "on time." i always had a lingering fascination with literature and writing on the tip of my tongue, but i had always figured that writing plays and short stories was a waste of time for someone who should have been figuring eigenspaces of various vectors in the 6th dimension of R. there was of course the resistance from my parents, specifically my father. even now he doesn't really support this "little hobby" of mine as he puts it. and then there's taekwondo. my taekwondo career has been hardly ideal. though i must say, i have made rather grand strides since the summer of 2003. testing for my black belt this semester will be a perfect ending to my undergraduateness.
but now that i'm nearing the end, i'm realizing that it is far from over. i still have to apply to grad schools and teaching programs. nyctf is still high on my list of course, but denial is forcing me to forget that i already failed to get in through the first round of applications and that i will most likely not get in this time around. i am of course very behind the application process, having not done the necessary tests in order to apply to grad school. so what i'm thinking is that i'll take the following year off, find a job, and bum at home until i can get everything in order that needs to be. i already started getting letters of rec, albeit very late (yesterday), so that is one less thing to worry about. so really it's just the tests, the CSET and CBEST, that i need to take. and then i'm most likely in. my expectations for grad school are pretty low. i'm setting the bar at sf state, since i know i can get in. i'll still apply to a few others, but i won't get my hopes up. the lesson i learned through the last year is this: no, i am not awesome, and no one really thinks you are. because really, everyone else is at least just as if not more awesome than me.
i wonder what i will be doing in 5 years. teaching? writing a play? or blogging in the dark like i am now. half of me is eager to get there, but the other half is afraid to turn the lights on.
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