The Last Step On This Road

Today was the first day of my final semester. My degree seems far closer now than it did yesterday, and I'm beginning to wonder where I'm headed. The last few years have gone quicker than I expected and, even though lots of people told me they would, I find myself caught by surprise. It's not like I wasn't prepared for this day, but I didn't think it would come as soon as it did. When I went to bed last night I thought today would be just another day.

It caught me by surprise, everyone's conversation was about Christmas today. To me Christmas was a million years ago (its presence trumped by the recent visit to Malta), but that was the only thing on everyone's lips; well, apart from FYPs. 

In that department I'm actually shocked to find that a lot of people I know haven't done all that much. Half of them have false-started and are now developing something completely new (this was actually a process I went through myself way back in the summer holidays, probably on the other trip to Malta that I took (thankfully the same thing didn't happen this time, that would be a nightmare)). 

On the FYP subject too, it seems that my tutor is taking a sabbatical until September which means that our communications will be limited to email. I'm not sure whether this is a good or bad thing, I mean I feel more comfortable online anyway, I mean I live a great part of my life there. On the other hand, his office was always full of things to discover, like a giant dessert for the eyes, full of substance and flavour. The music in there was good too, it was like stepping out of the normal world and into some kind of alternate place. The chair in the corner was cool too. 

Despite dreading the idea of finishing Uni and having to go out into the real world (for once), I'm actually quite looking forward to bits of these coming months. Writing For Display looks particularly fun, especially since it opens up a new reason to visit museums. I was also pleased to discover, upon mentioning this, that Mark is also a museum junky. I guess that's Easter's visit sorted. 

This semester looks brighter than before too as I discovered that I didn't just have Julian Stannard for Creative Voice III and that it will, in fact, be cycled between teachers. The fact that only two weeks will be spent with each one does also mean that there will be much more work to be done to prepare for these classes. To me this is a small price to pay for the not-having-Julian-Stannard-all-the-time thing.

This academic road, which I happened to alight on around three years ago, is coming to an end I guess. It feels like an optical illusion, or perhaps like a conveyor belt that moves faster than it looks. It reminds me of the conveyor belts at Heathrow that leave you almost falling over once you get off them. 

I hope I don't fall over.