I'm sitting in the airport on my way home from Las Vegas. Yes, Vegas, home of everything ridiculous and unnecessary. Here, it is just too flashy and noisy and expensive, and the people are all drunk and annoying and badly dressed. The streets would feel huge except for the fact that the buildings are even huger. I was here for a conference, though I didn't go to many sessions because I've been in the process of unwinding. On Monday, I finished and submitted the very last paper of my graduate school career, and then I promptly sat by the pool and drank an overpriced beer from a plastic bottle and foolishly minorly sunburned my skin. Yesterday I hiked through Sloan Canyon, which was fantastic until the tour guide tried to blame climate change solely on the sun. It took a while to let that one slide. This was definitely a different world, which made me laugh and groan at the same time.
Before this Vegas trip, I was in Washington DC with the black-suited graduate student cohorts who are all applying for the same jobs with the federal government. I ate Thai food with some new people, relearned the Metro system, and daydreamed about my new professional endeavors.
So among all this jet-setting, it still hasn't hit me that I'm done with school. Maybe some time in the woods will help me get it all into perspective. That's next week. My cat will surely be sore at me for leaving her all alone for days at a time, except for the very kind folks who agreed to look after her. Fear not, dear kitty. In a couple of weeks, all we will do is sit on the couch and watch The West Wing reruns and try to put some space between what was and what will be.
