Lots of People Go To College for Seven Years

Many of the posts over the next few weeks and months will be graduation related. Just go with it.

Last night, the schedule for presentations was delayed because the professor was ripping apart each presentation.

But by 7:25 or so, we were done. I said goodbye to the group I had spent countless hours with, and after pausing alone inside the doorway, I left the business building for the last time as a student.

Surprisingly, there weren't any people around campus. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that it was the evening before a holiday break, but it seemed like everyone knew that I just needed a few minutes on my own.

I share so many of the details of my life here, but those few minutes I'm keeping just for me.

Later, after I walked through the crazy, sidewalk-watering sprinklers, I stepped off of campus and stepped into something new.

Over the years, I've played that moment over and over in my mind. How would it feel to be done? What would it be like?

It was the way I imagined in many ways, and different in many others.

For about a year, I have known one of the things that would tell you all for this moment. It's a quote from a movie. (In fact, it's one of the two things that ran through my head all year, both from movies--the other is found in the subject line.) This movie not a particularly remarkable piece of cinema, but it's funny, and this is one of my favorite quotes:

"I graduated. It's over. I did it. I know most of you are saying, any idiot can do that, but it was tough for me, so BACK OFF!"

-Billy Madison