Photo Week #21

I graduated!

What a crazy two years it’s been. I am still trying to fully process what it means to be graduated – what the last two years have taught me, how I am different from who I was back in 2016 – but so far I sort of just feel blank when I think about the last two years. I know I’ve learned a lot, but without the prospect of a job or a career it doesn’t feel like it’s led to anything. I know that a job isn’t the mark of anything significant (except, you know, financial responsibility) but it still makes me feel like running and hiding every time someone asks me what is next. It took me a full year to get used to saying I was a grad student. And probably another six months to getting used to saying what I actually was a grad student in and vocalizing that I didn’t want to be a software engineer anymore. I really wish I could have more pride in what I’ve accomplished, but that will just have to come later, I guess.

In between graduation ceremonies (congratulations to all my other friends who also graduated this past week!) I did manage to clean my bathroom and my room and do several loads of laundry, so it was still a very productive week. Now that school is over I have to start applying to more jobs… taking the advice I’ve heard so often that applying to jobs is basically like a full time job in itself.

And so I’m glad that this will be a short week! I hope everyone had a relaxing three day weekend (I enjoyed mine, although allergies unfortunately became much worse over this past weekend) and gets through the rest of this week with success.