It's a minor milestone but realising I'm half done the program (already) has put me in a sort of philosophical mood. I often find myself thinking about my classmates - where they'll end up, what their careers will be, what it'll be like if we get together at an alumni reception at a CLA conference in ten or twenty or thirty years except we're the grizzled old veterans telling the new recruits about the "good ol' days."
I know that day will come soon enough. I can't believe how fast the last six months have gone, how much I've learned, how many fun and memorable experiences I've had, how many cool people I've met. It's funny to think back to getting that acceptance letter in November and how excited I was, arriving at the end of December and how nervous I was, starting in January and how gung ho I was (that exhuberance dropped off a bit, I have to admit). The program's both as tough as I heard it was but also easier in some ways. I think I have a pretty big advantage having worked with books/authors/publlishers (and often by extension, librarians) for the past ten years but I also have some big weaknesses - my writing style isn't always the most scholarly technique being a big one. Another thing that's both a strength and a weakness - I tend to be very opinionated about, well, pretty much everything, and I'm usually not shy about sharing those opinions (this blog being a prime example - there's been one or three minor flare-ups about things I've written here.) Sometimes I wish I was more of a person who just kinda kept my head down and did my work and didn't make waves. But then I think "what fun would that be?"
I guess that's it for now. This semester has also been incredibly top heavy and I think things will be (a bit) calmer for the next seven weeks. Then Shea and I already have our summer break pretty much filled with plans. Then it's final semester (nice to see the class list for fall is up already - perhaps some of those opinionated musings had some effect?) and then we'll see what's out there for me when I'm done.
