I have never...

I have never before cried with relief when I finished a semester. Just now, not ten minutes ago, I finished my Statistics final. Earlier today I finished my Qualitative paper. Earlier this week, I successfully proposed my thesis. Ten minutes ago, I flipped off my stats book and exam, declaring with great joy various anatomically impossible (seeing as how they have no anatomy) things they could go do with themselves and each other. And then I laughed. And then I cried.

I made it. I FUCKING MADE IT!!!

This semester has actually been a really great semester in a whole lot of ways. I loved my Qualitative Methods class. I learned so much. I got to practice things I've been dying to learn how to do. And despite how much I now hate statistics, I did learn a lot in that class as well. I learned to hate statistics in that class. I used to enjoy it. But I learned other, more useful things too.

I proposed, was accepted, and presented at my very first professional conference. I got partially funded to go to the mainland to do this. I got to visit my family, meet my nephew, speak at a high school, and then present at a conference. I started a new job that I love. It's a busy job a lot of times but I get to do cool stuff, and this job, over the next two and a half years, will train me in every step of culturally responsive school intervention. That may not mean anything to you, but I'm still thrilled about it. I had an opportunity to go to Thailand fall into my lap. I got to attend a workshop of smart people sitting around trying to figure out how to solve the roadside air pollution problem. I got a bonus trek into Japan. I made new friends. I wrote 4/5ths of a nano novel. I got my thesis proposal together. I got my thesis committee together. I got my thesis committee to approve my thesis proposal. I did oogabs of IRB paperwork stuffs, and got my IRB proposal in as well (coming soon: how that went). This has been a great semester.

But that's a whole hell of a lot of stuff to cram into four months. I feel triumphant. I feel relieved. I feel beat. Absolutely beat. But damn it, I made it. Four days early, I made it. Oh man. I think I'm going to cry again.