Graduation Day

Karim graduated with his Masters of Arts Degree on Saturday. We went to the ceremony as his family, and were treated to an exciting list of mispronounced names, and horn-equipped fans. I choose not to walk in my undergrad graduation ceremony. I just didn't care enough to spend sixty dollars, or what ever it was, for the silly black dress and hat. Maybe it would have been good however. Just one last chunk of academic bureaucracy to cram down before we get kicked into the cruel world. Karim doesn't really know what he is going to do now that he is done learning everything he ever needed to know in order to succeed. Seeing him accept the fake leather folder without a degree on the stage made me quake in my bones for the day I would do the same. Going to grad school was, to be completely honest, a way to run back into the comforting arms of academia. Here are people who are ideal and pure. We can talk about indy-rock and classic art in the same conversation. They aren't up at 6:30 in the morning unless they never went to bed. People judge each other on grades, not who got fifty verses thirty cent raises once a year. The only problem is that it ends.

This freaks me out.

I will have to make a living again. This time in something I really want to do, which is ironically even more scary than the dumb job routine. I will have to work my way out of debt again. Only this time, it is a much bigger debt. I will have to make babies. There will be no more excuses to not make babies, and plenty of reasons to get to it sooner rather than later. I will have to start getting rich so that I can buy an island (with attached castle and harbor for the boat) and then forget about money all together. This grad school hiatus was a successful way to avoid all that and still feel like I am accomplishing something.

One more year and I will either start being what I always wanted, an artist who makes his living making art, or I will have to pursue a MFA in film.