...Work in Progress

Also known as "the sh*t has hit the fan" or "the eagle has landed."

Definition: Angeline has officially finished her Master's Degree, changing status from "student" to "unemployed." A never-before-seen phenomenon that will (hopefully) never recur in my lifetime (well, i guess it's sort of impossible to re-graduate, but at least the unemployed part).

And thus ends my New York story. I'm sitting here in my tiny little Upper East Side room surrounded by boxes and suitcases. I've coiled up my mesh hampers (your typical Bed, Bath and Beyond fare), and thrown away my hole-y socks. My Franklin Covey organizer is zipped and in my giant airplane purse ready for flight. I've been eating leftover pasta carbonara from my Happy Hour snack break - you know, the kind that turns more into pure oil than sauce when you reheat it?

Just two days ago, a little more if you're counting in hours, I sent out my last two final papers. The culmination of a year and a third (if you're counting months) of pain, depression, agony and little bits of hope. At the end of it all, I think I came out on top (if only by a smidge - not to be confused with Barbie's friend Midge).

I wish (just a little) that I could sit here and tap out a 2,000 word reflective essay on closing a chapter of my life that was, to be cliche, both the best of times and the worst of times. I've found my career niche (well, at least figured out how to do it), lived my dream NYC life, and have everything in the world to go home to after it's all done and over with.

But I can't. It is closed. I am finished, and that's that. I've never really been one to dwell on the past, and I'm not about to start now.

So to the present. I am presently feeling a large gap in my brain where "worry about homework," "writer's block" and "reporting anxiety" once was. it's not that they don't exist (I'm fairly certain that the last two will rear their ugly heads for decades to come), but they are not part of my present.

Presently, I am waiting for my uncle to come in from Jersey with his car to move my boxes and suitcases to his house near Princeton. There I will commence unpacking and repacking more boxes to ship, some to the parents' house good ol' El Pizzle, some to the future abode in Davis aka BikeTown (really, there are no cows. I'm a little - but only a little - bummed). Then I will hop on the plane for the last time this year (I've averaged one trip a month), thus ending my jet-setting bi-coastal everybody-should-be-jealous life. No longer can I say I live in New York and California, two of the most glamorized locales on modern television.

I go back to a slew of vendor meetings, holiday parties and job interviews (just one so far but I'm sure the slew will follow eventually). I have not even started thinking about Christmas presents or what I'm making for the Carpenter family Christmas party (Kev's mom's side). This will be my last Christmas as Angeline Huang, a member of the Huang family and Huang family only. My last seven months as an OC resident. Oh how things will change.

Since we're still not looking at the past, let's look to the future. The next year is one of the most insane years I will probably have. I'm moving back to OC this Wednesday. Looking for a job. Planning up a storm. Watching my baby bro graduate college and enter the real world. Tying the figurative knot (unless someone brings a giant rope to the wedding). Moving my re-tanned OC self up to Davis. Looking for a job. Cooking for Kevin through his comprehensive exams in the fall. Heading back to So Cal to spend holidays with both families. I'm exhausted and sweaty just thinking about it (but of course I'm really not sweaty).

Darn. There goes the fingers again. Let's keep this short and sweet:

I'm done with school. Where is my pat on the back?

# posted by ange : 2:28 PM