Of caps and papers and graduation things...

Today was one of those days where you get a million useful things done but not the most essential item on your "to do" list. Today I turned in forms and took a final and returned books, met with my mentor and paid a parking ticket from Campus Safety. But as of yet, have not written that last paper of my undergraduate career...the one that once I reach the required word count of 2,400 words, college will be over.

In the meeting with my mentor I went over the outline for the paper I have been working on all weekend and her response was the exact opposite of what I was expecting. "Melissa," she says as she looks at me with a laughing look in her eyes, "why are you freaking out about this? Sit down and just start writing." She was right. It isn't the most important paper I've ever written. It isn't the longest paper I have ever written. But it is the LAST paper I will write for Biola. The last paper I will write and submit to the Torrey Honors Institute. After I write this paper, it's over. Finally I realized that the freaking out I was not doing about graduation, I had projected all onto this one little paper. Boy does my mentor know me. So instead of analyzing my theory on Plato or talking about the way I want to apply his structure of learning onto business environments, we talked. We talked about the last few years she has been my mentor, the progress I have made, the things I am proud of and then she gave me some words of advice in my career, prayed a blessing over me and sent me on my way.

What a relief. So here I am at 10:17pm on Tuesday, May 24th just 4 days from graduating and I am not freaking out about my paper. On the contrary, I just returned from an adventure of graduation-cap-decorating-craziness with my roommate Mallorey and girlfriend Chelsea. It took half the time to actually decorate the caps as it did to decide what we wanted them to look like but we are quite pleased with the results.

So now that I have accomplished many things, acknowledged the source of my panic, and created the cutest little "2011" graduation cap you have ever seen, I am going to write my paper. The last one. And then be done with college forever.

Well, until I go back for an MBA.