The Calm Before The Norm

It's very strange, but I feel pretty calm about the whole situation. Normally this time of the year I am freaking out about finals, but this being the last semester of my undergrad career I am feeling a lot more relaxed. Now don't get me wrong...I am still maintaining a healthy level of anxiety and studying my balls off, but I don't feel the madness that once was finals week. I wish I can say that all this calmness is due to the cushy schedule I swung for myself for the final semester, but that just isn't the case. Like a moron I didn't plan out my schedules the way I should have across the semesters so of course I get screwed at the end.

Most of the reason this semester has been such a biddy is due to the degree requirements at UTA. Because they require 8 hours of the same science and all of their sciences are only offered during the day I got screwed into taking the 2nd half of Chemistry (took the first half at SFASU, Axe 'Em Jacks!) at a Community College. The beauty of this was it forced me to goto school 4 nights a week since I couldn't commute between the two schools on the same night. This further compounded the biddyness of the semester by putting tight limitations on what nights and times I could take classes. Because this 2nd part of Chemistry was only being offered on Monday/Wednesday nights at one school in the whole Metroplex I was forced to make all my classes at UTA fit on Tuesday/Thursday night. Since I work 40 hours a week, all my classes had to be at night. This left me with some tough decisions on what to take since I only had Advanced Business electives left in my degree along with the Chemistry requirement. After visiting with a advisor in the summer I had a list of classes that would fulfill my advanced business electives and I set off to register for my final run at the degree! I soon realized this was going to be messy. All the electives I could take WERE ONLY OFFERED ON MONDAY/WEDNESDAY NIGHTS!! Oh crap, what do I do? Am I going to have to shoot this semester to the wind and graduate in May '05? Then I spotted it...my ugly, ray of hope. I call it ugly because it came by way of a managerial accounting class and I suck at accounting. I am way too interesting a person to be a bean counting, pencil pusher and that shat just don't jive in my head. I mean, I get the whole inflow/outflow, but then you throw in time value of money and depreciation tax savings and it all gets a bit hazy. After all, it is math and I suck at math so it goes hand in hand. I know what you're thinking right now..."but Mike, you are a technical guy...a nerd even. How are you not good at math?" Well that's just the way I'm built ok? When they were putting me together the math software was on back-order so it didn't get loaded in my brain. So deal with it and stop judging me! Besides, being a computer nerd has allowed me to find tons of software and tools that can complete any of the tasks thrown at me by accounting. But can I bring my laptop into the test and use my nifty Excel spreadsheets that would figure everything in a snap....noooooooooo. That would be way too easy and using technology way too efficiently. All this to say, I was forced to sign up for a grinder of an accounting course and shot my easy last semester right to h3ll. My only saving grace was my e-Commerce Principles course, which still turned out to be a hassle with the implementation of a new rule that all Business courses at UTA are required to have group project! Argh! To sum it all up, this last couple of months have not been a cake walk and I've got the scars to prove it.

The one thing I'm sure about in this whole mess is Ally. She has been by me through the thick and the thin, steady cheering me on and providing lots of encouragement. For the first time in my life I've felt something that is very new to me. The feeling that I'm not alone in this whole thing. That this degree isn't just for me. I feel an internal drive to excel and achieve to make a great life for us in the future. She makes me want to be a better man! A lot of it stems from this BIG landmark in my life where I am realizing this is it...the moment I've been waiting for since I graduated high school. To walk across that stage and get my degree (well not my degree, but a little paper that says they will mail it to me). Then I'm set loose on the big bad world to sink or swim.

Final finals here I come...finally!