The Beginning of the End

Wednesday
I just submitted my last ever undergraduate piece of work.

I just submitted my last ever undergraduate piece of work. 

Three years of essays and practical reports have come to an end. I have no idea how many words I've written. 30,000? More? I could count them if I looked it up but I don't have time and even so, they wouldn't reveal how many hours I spent working on it all. How many textbooks, journal articles, and books I've read. How many hours sat at my desk or in the library. I could probably count the amount of all-nighters I've pulled (almost the same as my amount of assignments) but not the amount of hours lost from late nights and early mornings.

I've got three more hours of lectures and two more exams and then that's it. The last three years of my life all wrapped up nicely in my little graduation bow.

It's weird, I was expecting some grand final burst of emotion as I pressed submit but really, it's was just like any other time I've submitted a piece of work. No confetti from the ceiling, no overwhelming feeling of sadness or happiness or relief.

Just the feeling of my attention turn towards my next deadline (well, to Netflix anyway).

Friday
Aaaaaand there we have it. My last ever undergraduate lecture was yesterday at 2pm. I was 10 minutes late, there was 5 of us in there and the end was simply signing my name on the register and leaving to meet Meryn.

No fanfare, no big announcement from the lecturer, nothing really to mark it as anything other than a normal lecture on a normal Friday.

I don't actually know what to say, it just doesn't feel real? It doesn't feel like the last 3 years are 2 exams away from being over, that I won't have another lecture in Swansea University ever again, that Tom is packing up his room or that I will be moving out of Swansea in two months.

It's weird, scary and surreal as hell so I did what any other student would do.

I celebrated with cider, and this morning woke up with a banging headache and a newly developed aversion to sunshine...

At least some things never change.