Cozy by the Fire

After a few weeks of up and down temperatures, today finally feels like one of those cold, beginning to get wintry days. I came home with a headache and sat with ice to get rid of that. After becoming cold from the ice, I decided to see if I had any dry wood so I could attempt to make the first fire of the year. I must have actually been thinking ahead last year, because there was one piece of wood in the fireplace. I grabbed some others from outside.
Now, the making of the fire wasn't as easy as I had remembered, so I must have had wet wood. I used these fire starters that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago, and I used 5 of those, and about an hour later I finally had something decent going. The problem is that I have to sit directly by it to actually feel the warmth...so I grabbed the mail, a magazine, some hot tea and snuggled in for the night next to the fire. I love the smell of a fire! I think a rearranging of the furniture might be in order to get a comfy seat close to the warmth.

Whew! (big sigh!!)

Today, November 3, 2007, is a day that I thought would never get here!  And now here it is, come and (almost) gone.  I am officially finished with my course work for my masters degree and am a grad school graduate!!  Wow!  

Today at our last class we reminisced about that first day and how intimidating it all seemed to us.  We saw some people at our break who were just finishing up and we were asking them all kinds of questions.  And now...a short 18 months later, that group finishing up is us.  Who would have thought we'd ever get here?!  

So, unfortunately today was pretty anti-climactic.  We had presentations and did a short group assignment.  Then we watched two videos and that was it.  No big finale.  No hoopla.  Just a whoop and a holler from us as we exited room 202 for the last time.  Luckily we had planned to go have a fun celebratory lunch at Bandido's.  We have already planned to get together for breakfast in about 8 weeks to keep in touch.  

So, here's the kind of dorky part...I'm actually going to miss it.  Not just the people, but the schooling.  I don't know if I discovered that I love learning, if I was happy to have something to keep me busy, or what, but I am a little sad that we're done. (Don't let the other cohort members know that!)  I think that I have enjoyed knowing that I had something to do, except during the extremely busy periods, and that I enjoyed the social aspect of it.  

So, who knows what's in store next for this graduate.  First things first...I've got to figure out how to change everything on this blog that says "grad student".     : )