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I got 2 A's and a B. That brings my grad school GPA to a 3.66. (IUP does not do A- or B+ grades like UD, so there's a little less inflation here.) I was really hoping I could pull off a 4.0, but eh...I'll live. I have some mixed emotions here- I really did work my ass off in all the classes. I really was hoping for a 4.0. And the B kills it, and makes it impossible for me to ever have a 4.0 accumulative in grad school. I'm pretty disapointed, but I also know that I really did all I could do. The funny thing is that I got the B in the class I thought I'd get an A in, and the A in a class I was sure I was getting a B in. I think if it had been the other way around I could handle this better. Still, it's a good semester, and a 3.66 GPA is pretty good, considering the grading scale at IUP, so I am pleased with myself. I made it through that first semester.

I pulled off a 4.0 this semester. Yes! Now my grad school GPA stands at a 3.83. I'm pretty happy, since getting a 4.0 was on my bucket list. I came close to that with winter session '10, and I was disapointed when it didn't happen. But now I can say I had a 4.0 semester. It gives me some wiggle room to deal with the third semester, which is going to be a bitch. I'm taking a seminar with a professor who is a notable badass. Plus I have a 10 a.m. for the first time in a year, and I don't have a single day off from class. But now I'm just going to enjoy summer. I think I'll go and hang out at the pool or something. In other good news, UD nixed their plans for the totally unneeded law school. Thank god that in one case, common sense prevailed! UD Nixes Law School Plan Thank god.

I had a good weekend. I didn't go crazy and rage- I just had a couple of drinks with my friend Seth at this nice little bar on Philly Street. Sang some karoke and all that fun stuff. The next night I went out to Wolfie's and danced. Friday night I got to see the Plain White T's, and that was fun. But the best part about this weekend was the sense of utter contentment I had. I've made some choices that have left me satisified about where my life is headed, and I just feel good. Sunday afternoon, it was beautiful day out...I walked around IUP, marveling at this rare nice weather day. I stopped at the Oak Grove, which is the campus quad full of big old oak trees. I saw all these people out, enjoying their own day...friends lying out on towels and blankets, enjoy each other's company. I saw little kids playing with one another, next to what I'm assuming would be their parents. I saw people sitting on benches, quietly reading. It was all ordinary, yet extraordinarily beautiful. So here I was, observing this beautiful day. I sat down over by a bench, and I was just overcome by the beauty of everything that surrounded me...I started crying tears of joy. At how wonderful the world can really be, when you stop to really look at it, and how lucky I am that I'm still alive and able to experience it. And this sense...this sense of "I was right to come here" just came over me. Yes, it would have been cheaper to have gone to Del State, yes I might have been better served by getting a degree from Wilm U, but yeah....I really do feel like I made the right choice in coming to IUP. This place just feels like home, and that's the first time I ever truly felt that, deep down in my gut. And realizing that I moved on; that I can be happy in a life outside of being a University of Delaware guy...well, I really did need to learn that. Because when I was a senior in college I thought the best part of my life was over when I finished UD. And I realize now that I was wrong; that I still have a lot great moments of happiness left even though I'm no longer a crazy UD college kid. I hope of all you get that kind of experience every once in a while...the only I can best describe how it feels would be the words of Louis Armstrong: I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom, for me and you And I think to myself What a wonderful world I see skies of blue, and clouds of white The bright blessed day, dark sacred night And I think to myself What a wonderful world The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces, of people going by I see friends shaking hands, sayin', "How do you do?" They're really sayin', "I love you" I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow They'll learn much more, than I'll ever know And I think to myself What a wonderful world Yes, I think to myself What a wonderful world Oh yeah

I had my talk with my advisor with my proposed plan for the second year of grad school. Some things came clear. I won't be doing a thesis. I might work on some publications, but it's not really where I want to go. I also don't want to go into a PhD program, at least for a few years. Which pretty much means I really don't have a chance of working in the community college scene because the job market is so bad that PhD's are fighting over jobs in that field. I want to work in a museum, or I want to try consulting. And it might turn out that I'll get into something that I never would have thought I'd get into. Another thing that became clear is that I really won't be able to keep sleeping in until 11. I'm taking a 10 a.m. class next semester, which means I'll have to wake up at 9:30 a.m. or earlier. Ugh. I haven't had a class before 11 a.m. since fall semester of senior year. I told my professor this, and she pretty much ripped me for not wanting to wake up at 10 a.m. She had a good point, and I will take that class. It's scary to think I'm almost done. It's scary to think that I'm graduating in a dismal economy with a hefty student loan debt. And it's scary to admit that I'm 25 years old and I don't really know exactly what I want to do in my life. What I do know is that I'm interested in a lot, and I want to be a guy who can do a variety of things in a variety of fields. It's just weird. I came into grad school thinking I'd have all the questions figured out at the end, but I'm finding out that I pretty much don't know. I have no clue. Which is why I'm pulling back from trying the PhD track, because I think I need to have a better clue of what I want out of life before committing myself to 7 more years of school. Part of me thinks that I need to embrace the fact that I'm going to run out into adulthood with no clue about where I'll end up. The other part just wishes I could go back to my junior year of college where my biggest concern was whether or not I'd find a good party. I'll try and stay optimistic, but god. It's really hard to be, with this economy and with the knowledge that I'm in a field that's getting clobbered.

I started my second semester of grad school this week. The workload is pretty intimidating, but I think I got it down by this point. I hope, anyway. One thing that struck me is how much more relaxed I feel as opposed to that first week of grad school. Everything- god I just felt like I couldn't breate. I spent the night before my first classes that semester reading the reflections of a woman who dropped out of her PhD program. I was positive that I would flunk out. And I did pretty well. I think that's given me a confidence going forward. Now I just have to recalibrate and figure out how to balance this new semester schedule.