Almost Mastered

I just turned in my thesis.

There was no explosion of banners swaying, or confetti falling, or brass band blowout like I had expected (in my head the band is the band from the 1962 movie The Music Man, and everyone is sort of sherbet orange-looking the way technicolor makes people in movies look like oompa loompas). The girl we're supposed to hand them in to wasn't there so I just dropped it in her box and then looked around smiling, hoping I could at least high five someone, but no one was around, and I kinda felt like when teachers used to post grades outside of their doors and you would go with your friend to check and you stand there surrounded by people running your finger down til you find your name, and then scan over to see it's not just a B, it's a B+, and you thought for sure you were going to get a D, and you turn around already mid-scream, "Chels, I got a B mother fucking plus!" and realize your friend is gone and you're screaming your grade right into the face of your professor who is waiting for you to move so he can unlock his room and get in there for office hours; and then you get all mad at your friend and say something irrational like, "Don't walk away from me when my back is turned to you", or something and she's all, "Uh, I told you I was gonna go stand by the vending machine", and then you're all, "Whatever," because you were embarrassed but you don't really want to ruin the good feelings you just had about passing so you ignore the fact she just made you look like a fool, and decide not telling her she has a leaf and part of a spider web in her hair will make things even, and you say, "I got a B+! Whoo!" and she high fives you and you're happy again.

Anyway, that's how I was feeling standing there with my thesis all turned in and no one around me. I turned back and stared at it for a moment, almost as if I was waiting for it to burst into flames. Or start to glitter. Something, anything, and then I would say, "Ah, this is it. This is what I've been waiting for. Two years of hard work, and sixty thousand dollars of debt, this thing better glow in the dark too."

After a while I realized nothing was really going to happen, so I gave my thesis a little love tap and walked down the hall. On the way out I passed by a man who was carrying a bucket of something and said, "I just turned in my thesis." Nothing. "For my master's."

Without stopping he said, "Oh well, I got a bucket of cream cheese I'm taking to the second floor."

"Well, congratulations!"

He did not like me.

At least he has a job. I just have lots of debt. Well, lots of debt and a thesis. And pretty soon I'm going to have a burger and a few pitchers of beer and that, THAT, is going to make it seem totally worth it.