Soap and Bubbles

It's been ages. You can tell it's been ages. I don't know if anyone's reading anymore, but I feel the need to keep blogging.

It's summer now, and I dream of writing poems and playing the flute and having endless amounts of time in which to do these things. Instead, I'm taking the last class of my degree and doing poorly in it (possibly because I am dreaming of writing poems and playing the flute) and I'm working full time, and all of this... Well, you know. That's life.

I recently defended my undergraduate thesis. I wonder if this is what I should expect for the rest of my academic career? It was a tremendous amount of work. Like, 8 months worth of research and writing, it was nearly 50 pages, and then I defended it, and a couple of hours later its worth had been determined and I had a mark, and all I could think was... "That's it? That's all I get. 8 months of my life, and that's the end?" Well, that just happened. So anti-climactic. I don't know what I was expecting, to be honest, but it involved some sort of hoopla, some sort of celebration, some sort of acknowledgement that I just bloody well did this. No one even bought me a beer. *Sigh*

Sometimes I don't know if I'll keep writing, now that I have to enter the world and get a real job and pay my rent all by myself and pay back all of these loans. How do I reconcile the fact that the only thing I've even been semi-good at in my whole life will not in any way help me pay the bills? I'm 2.5 weeks away from having a degree in literature and then I'll keep selling shoe polish and soap to cadets for $12 an hour. What's my next step? Will I fall into that bubble that everyone seems to fall into and find a job that leaves me feeling unsatisfied and wearing khaki pants and collared shirts?

Oh, god.