The Final Countdown

I'm graduating in three days! And I found out today that I got my 4.0! Like I said, nobody will really ever know that since I can't imagine it coming up much in casual conversation, ("So, what was YOUR GPA in your masters program? Oh, really? That's so interesting!") but it makes me feel proud.

Life has been fantastic lately, which is why I haven't posted in a whole week. I get pretty neglectful of the blog when I'm busy having fun. Thursday night was grad student dinner #1, where we invited some of our profs to have dinner and drinks with us at the local Irish pub. The other grad students gave little going away presents to the graduates. Kelly got a ponytail holder with our mascot on it, Amanda got earrings featuring our mascot (called "spirit ears", humorously enough) and I got a shot glass with the school name on the front and lines on the back labeled Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, and Grad. Richie helpfully pointed out that there's not a line for Ph.D. and therefore I'll have to fill the shot glass to the very brim. Let's not think too much about what the fact that the other girls got accessories and I got a SHOT GLASS says about me. Hahaha.
On Friday Mandi, Richie, Debbie and I took off for the weekend and spent a couple of days in Galveston. It was basically the most perfect weekend ever. I laughed from the car ride on Friday afternoon (where I literally cried with laughter--real tears, running down my face!) until 9:30 on Sunday night when we were fifteen miles from home playing MASH in the car and I determined that Debbbie's future pet is going to be a hammerhead shark. I think Galveston is more than worthy of its own entry, so as soon as I get a good stretch of free time I'll tell you all about it, although frankly I think only about 1/10th of the fun of the weekend is actually going to come across in writing.
Last night we had grad student dinner #2, where we all went up to Austin and had dinner at a nice Vietnamese/Indian restaurant and then we came back down here and hung out at John's house for a few hours. I had to say goodbye to the guys that live in Austin since I doubt I'll see them again before I move.
Tonight I'm going out for dinner and drinks with Debbie, Richie, and hopefully some of the rest of the group since Richie is leaving tomorrow to go home to Canada for the summer. I'm going to miss him so much. Luckily he and his fiancee are supposed to be in New York at the beginning of August for a concert, and since I'll (hopefully) have moved by then I'm hoping that I'll be able to make a trip to the city and see him then and meet his boyfriend for the first time.
I know I'm going to cross paths again with all of my grad school friends, hopefully many times. The world of academic theatre is pretty small. Still, I'm going to miss us all being in the same place. I'm going to miss it a lot.

There are still a few more fun things planned. Friday I think I'm going to throw some sort of graduation party/sleepover (since we graduate at 9:30 AM, ugh!), and tomorrow Chelsea, her boyfriend, and me and a few of my friends are supposed to go tubing on the river if it doesn't rain.
I'm technically supposed to work tomorrow, but I'm so fed up with Applebees right now that I'm going to call in sick and they can just deal with it since I've had to deal with way too much of their stupid mis-scheduling shit lately. I'm always having to fix their problems and I'm tired of it. I've never missed a shift in ten months and I'm a good employee so I am hoping that will work in my favor. And I figure if they want to fire me tomorrow it's really no big deal. I don't honestly think they will fire me since we're horribly understaffed right now and I know they really need me to work my shift on Sunday for Mother's Day. So I'm kind of gambling that they need me badly enough that they'll put up with me calling in sick tomorrow because they really need me for the weekend. But like I said, if they do decide to fire me it really makes no difference to me at all. They're just screwing themselves. I'm only supposed to be working until next Friday anyway, so I'd really only be missing out on four or five shifts at the very most. I don't need the money right now since I just got paid from my real job last week and I have another big paycheck coming June 1st, plus I'm about to go home and not have to pay rent or nearly as much for food/going out for a couple of months. And lord knows I don't need my dumbass managers to ever give me a good reference since I don't even list my Applebees job on my resume and I have enough good references elsewhere to get any restaurant or bar job I'll need in the future (P.S.-I really don't want to need another restaurant or bar job in the future...) So yeah. I'm not going to work tomorrow. I've never skipped out on a job before ever in my whole life, but I don't even feel all that guilty about doing it this time, that's how annoyed I am with the restaurant at this point. I guess I do feel sort of bad for the two waiters that will have to go it alone tomorrow morning, but I've had to do that plenty of times myself and they'll make more money that way anyway. So yeah.

Anyway, I need to go meet everyone for dinner. In short, I'm good. Excited. Happy.