Oh the molehills I climb...

I am having a big all-about-me sort of pout this week. Let's see, I'll start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. =)

I didn't do very well in my undergrad and graduated with less than a 3.0. Having changed majors twice and schools once, there was not one soul in my class who I knew. I worked in a research lab and all my friends were graduate students. So I went to the graduation ceremonies but managed dissociate through the entire thing because I have no recollection of it at all, and the only pictures were videos taken by my dad, who accidentally taped over them a short while later (typical of him). No thrill in graduating from High School either, and no awards there... we had SIX validictorians and while my scores were good, they weren't stellar.

This time around I managed better than a 3.9. Yep only one B and all the rest As (Dont' even talk to me about the bitch who gave me that B...). The university where I got my Masters has five terms per year and rolling enrollment, so there is really no such thing as a 'class' per se. They have just one graduation ceremony per year; in May. Since I graduated in October I would have been just a hint premature if I'd walked in May and I'm one of those anal retentive people who instists that celebrating an accomplishment entails actually accomplishing the thing first, so I did not join the two classmates I knew of who walked early. I have all kinds of obnoxious issues surrounding never being good enough, no matter how well I do, so my therapist urged me strongly to make a big deal out of my accomplishments and suggested I invite only people who were really seriously supportive of my career move and appreciative of how hard I'd worked. Um... short list, that would be my husband (who abhors events like this), one sister and two local friends. There are a couple of others who would happily support me, but they live on the other side of the country.

Fine... now it's May again and graduation is coming up in two weeks. I checked around a few months back to see who might be going and a whole bunch of classmates were all onboard so I decided to take my therapist's advice and really get into it. I actually managed to get myself excited before the first shoe fell. First I learned that Latin honors are not awarded to graduate students at my university, only undergrads. The only way I can have anything that says Suma Cum Laude on it is if I spend $100 to get 25 graduation announcements all so that I can frame one for myself (more $$) and memorialize my own words. Um... nope, somehow that's just a teensy bit hollow, ya know? Next I learned that because I didn't walk in 2006 I cannot have a sash with that year on it, they only have 2007. Sigh. I got a 2007 tassle too, but fortunately they had ONE 2006 floating around from last year, so I got to pay extra to have that. It's not here yet.

Now I have discovered that NOT ONE of the people who told me they would walk in the ceremony is going to do it. Even the one who said she didn't want to participate but would be in the audience is flaking on me. My sister planned to come, but she just got hit with a wave of work and tax stuff and I know it will be a major struggle for her.

I'm mad. I'm sad. I'm feeling reeeeeeeealy stupid, too. If I were inclined to believe in higher powers about now I'd think he or she or it was saying "Get over yourself already girl!" So it will be me and a bunch of people whom I may or may not have seen around campus. At least my hubby and two friends will come; I think. Still haven't had a confirm from them. I stopped seeing my therapist too, because I couldn't afford it anymore, so I can't go cry on her shoulder. Pooh.

Yeah I know, I'm just finishing up the first year of my doctorate, doing fabulously and the Masters is long gone water under the bridge, but I really wanted to earnestly celebrate something I did, just once in my life.

Double pooh.

MB