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Yes! I officially hold an MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. We did it! We graduated and we’re still alive and everything is OK. For the most part, the cohort is staying is Chicago. A few people are headed home, but so far, the summer’s been full of my poetry friends.

Grad weekend was great: Manifest and post-Manifest parties (I took my twin brother and my dad to the Dollhouse reading series–my Dad got an applause when he walked in). Then Saturday was all about hanging out with family and Sunday was breakfast in our neighborhood along with Graduation festivities.

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Graduation was OK. A little long. Though, it was nice to be in the same place with everyone, celebrating our accomplishment. It’s just funny that the ceremony is a lot of pandering to the parents of the undergrads. So many times the speakers would say, “Parents you invested well” or something like that. And I wanted to say, “Uh, most of us are paying for this ourselves–or taking out loans!” That said, we did get “hooded” and that seemed to be more time devoted to the Graduate Degrees. I mean, it’s not about that, but really, it’s more funny than anything else. I mean, the graduate students–a lot of us–put our lives on hold for this degree. OK. OK. I’m not complaining, I’m just thinking out loud.

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I have to say, when the speeches were finally over and we got to rise and shake everyone’s hands, it was a huge relief. One, because I had to pee really bad, but two, because that was it. We were done. When I walked across the stage, I shook hands with Ken Daley from the Department of English (he’s my boss).  He smiled and said, “See you Monday.”

After Graduation, my mom and I had dinner and she took a cab to the airport. I took the train home and went to sleep, then woke up and went right into work. Crazy. I’m done with school. FOREVER. That is a good feeling.