I start my classes tommorrow. Man. It's been a wild week...

Wednesday, I hung out with my friends from college- my buddy

Steve and all his former residents that are now entering junior year.

Kinda weird- those kids are now the same year me and Steve were when we

met during their freshman year. It was a pretty chill, laidback night-

we sat around drinking and watching Netflix while they smoked and I

watched. It was basically like any other time I've hung out with these

guys- which was a good thing. I wanted to have some big emotional

goodbye with Steve, but it's a good thing I didn't. He wished me good

luck with grad school, and I said, "I'll see you when I see you', and we

shook hands and I walked out.

Friday my family and I journeyed to the wilds of western PA.

Man, it was such a nice day out, and the scenery was just breathtaking.

As a boy from the flat coastal plain area, it was so neat seeing all

those rounded hills and small mountains!

Today, or I guess Sunday, I finally met my roomate. He's not

all that physically attractive and he's somewhat of a geek, but he's a

nice guy if a bit on the conservative side. Most importantly, he's a

grad rep so he understands the inn's and outs of grad school. He gave me

a lot of really good advice, and leveled with me about how things like

my undergrad GPA will effect me, and what I can do

to ameliorate it all. He basically said, "You need to get a 4.0 here."

He's right, of course, and I'm going to go after it the best I can.

I'm scared pretty shitless, of course. If this doesn't go

well, I'm looking at being 38k in debt with little job prospects, a

failed attempt at an M.A., and a basically worthless B.A. His advice to

me was basically, "Try your hardest. If you wind up failing, you won't

be disapointed because you know that you did your best." Which is a

pretty true statement, and one I'm going to keep in mind.

The stakes are pretty high, and I could wind up losing

horribly. Or it could go great, and I'll do well. Or somewhere

in-between. What I do know is I'm one scrappy fellow, and I can take

what life has to throw at me. So I'll try my hardest, roll with the

punches, and make do with what I have. That's all I can really from here

on out- sitting around and pouting about the fact that my 2,75 means I

got no grant funding at all and have to take out a massive loan isn't

going to change anything or make my situation better. What I have is a

new start, and a chance to prove myself. I got in because they figured

they'd get the most money out of me since I'm not scholarship material.

What I need to do, and want to do, is prove both to myself and to the

school that I'm a good asset, and hopefully in two years I can say this

was a great experience.

I need to prepare myself for the worst- flunking out- but

also visualize myself doing the best- hitting that 4.0, getting that

assistantship, and doing well. Now I need to see what I can do to make

the latter a reality, and try my damndest to do so.