It's the end of the semester once again and, as usual, all I can think about are my grades. Professors in the past have told me that grades are just an "inconvenience" that we need to put up with, and what we should really focus on is what we are learning in our classes. I try to look back and think about what I've learned and how much each class has increased my expertise in its respective field, but that's not what I see. I instead see individual assignments and think if I had just spent fifteen more minutes here or their the assignment grade would be higher and possibly my final semester grade would be higher. I go back every few hours to SIO and check to see if a new class grade has been posted. Will I get an A? Will it be a B? Did I bomb the final and potentially get a C? The suspense kills me. It's time to forget this semester and look forward.
This summer I will be working in Massachusetts at a startup company. I enjoy working much more than school because I get to relax on the weekend knowing that I don't have any work to do on Sunday. During the school year Sunday becomes my most hated day of the week. I consider it a weekday that is cleverly disguised in the weekend. Sure, you get to relax some, but most of the day is spent working on projects and homework due Monday. Saturday even becomes less fun because of it's proximity to Sunday. I can't wait for Sunday to once again be a day of complete relaxation.
On another note, this will be my last "summer vacation." A year from now I will be graduating, and going on to try my hand at living in the real world. It's amazing how the prospect of "real life" seems to always be right around the next corner. I remember being in middle school and thinking, "high school is just around the corner, that's when life really starts." Then "college is coming fast, that's the real world". Now as I look forward and see a permanent full time job a year in the future, I wonder if I will still be looking for that next step after joining the work force, if I will still believe that I'm not in the real world and that life won't really start until my next promotion, or my next job, or I'm married, or I have kids, or I retire. Does we ever really make it to the real world? Regardless, I think I'll try to make the most of this last stint before I go on to find my next definition of what the real world really is.
