The End, or, March to May in one post

I know this is late - after Spring Break I got all caught up in the job search and staying focused to finish up the semester's classes, which I'm sure I don't have to tell you was a Herculean effort. I haven't mentioned it here, but the academic side of our semester in DC was less than ideal. We had some issues with the timeliness of assignments (sending guidelines the night before it is due, etc), we had some motivation issues (what we felt were arbitrary assignments), we had a marked lack of empathy for our stress levels (I can't stand when people tell me that when it's all over I'll appreciate the fact that I cried on the phone to my parents on a weekly basis), and the problem of our housing problems and our academic life interwoven (we felt like we couldn't complain to the director about her not fixing a problem because she had a say in our grades).

Despite all these negatives, I loved my internship, and that kept me going. I was lucky to make great friends with two other interns, and we had a lot of fun at work and on Thursday girl's nights. The other students in the program were also awesome, and we ate lots of ice cream and watched the West Wing to cope with the stress we were under. And since I resent being told that I would see it all as worth it at the end, I just want to be clear: The academics wasn't worth it, the rest of it was.

On the redeeming side, BUDC did spring for some DC events when the weather got nice. Unfortunately, that was also the part of the semester when we had more and more academic responsibilities...

Piece of the World Trade Center at the Newseum

Presidents Race at the Nats Game

Sadly, I didn't get a job lined up by the time I left DC, not for lack of trying I can assure you. Timing and other things didn't work out, so I'm still looking. That doesn't mean that I didn't have a great time in Boston for graduation, though. I was lucky to have two weeks to enjoy Boston, BU, and my friends again before we all left. We took advantage of some good weather to watch Dean Elmore jump in the Charles, to enjoy the city, and to go on a couple pub crawls.

Dean Elmore, taking the plunge

Katie Couric spilled the beans to Tufts' newspaper that she was going to be our commencement speaker. I can just see President Brown shaking his fist and yelling "Damn you, Katie Couric!" when he found out.

Katie was ok - funnier than I was expecting but also a bit heavy on the quotes. My favorite line was that, upon her takeover of the anchor job for CBS, critics said she lacked gravitas. Gravitas, she decided, must be Latin for testicles. My feminist side cheered.

The History Department Commencement was nice, but it came at the end of kind of a long day. Professor Keylor was the faculty speaker. I love Professor Keylor, but I will never know what possessed him to spend our commencement talking about the high costs of education and how universities use adjunct professors and online classes to cut costs. Interesting thoughts, but not exactly pertinent to the occasion, right?

My mama is such a good photographer, right? Gotta give the camera some credit, too...

Unfortunately, this is the next photo she got.

And my obligatory photo of me standing on the BU seal (which you are not supposed to stand on or walk across or you will not graduate BU in four years). Instead of saying its crooked, I think I'll go with Mom was trying to be artsy.

So is that it for this blog? Probably, considering I was not exactly diligent about updating it for the past couple of months. Maybe I'll do something else equally exciting someday that warrants another blog. Thanks for reading!