Graduation, Grad School, and Applications, OH MY!

Well as of this past week, after years of part time in many colleges across the U.S. I am finally looking straight in the eyes of that lovely graduation.

I thought that I may be able to pull off only one more semester, but you have to love those classes with all of the lovely prerequisites! So, only 6 more classes, yet 2 semesters and that self designed B.A. is mine, all mine.

I have thought about this time for so long. What's next? I have thought of working as a photojournalist exploring the vast corners of the world.... Going to grad school and teaching at a pristine University.... But mainly my dream for the past few years has been the peace corps and all of the adventures and possibilities that the world has to offer me.

It has only been the past year that I have been able to afford to go to school full time, and that is only after moving back in with my mother to do just that. But, 10 years of school and the ripe 'ol age of 29, that degree is finally within my grasp.

But, as I said earlier, though I have planned for this time for so long, I am really a bit overwhelmed and confused. I finished my peace corps application today, references and all, now just the next year of classes and waiting for one of the longest and most drawn out application proccesses in the states. But, along with that I have been combing the web. Which graduate school would really fit my needs? What is it that I really want to do? What do I truly want to spend the rest of my life studying? Is it journalism? or, is it just learning so in depth about one of my other vast, yet relative, interests that I can one day write and photograph them with journalistic depth and literal interest?

All I can say is that thank god I am spending the summer in Shangri-la.... I can take a little time to clear my head, and prepare to fill it with the next large gush of information that I have craved to soak into my little naive pea brain for the next 10 years. God, please let me make some money at some point to pay off all of these hellacious student loans, or should I say loads, that I have racked up in this past decade. And, I really just pray that I will be able to make a little bit of money, other than bartending, before I am 40. Because after 10 years of this kind of work, my knees are shot, and with them, my patience for dealing with drunks has bailed as well.....

Ahhh, the struggles of education.... What is this thing they call persuit of knowledge really about anyway? Other than debt that is.....