Finals Week Soliloquy

Tonight I am at home alone recovering from my recent bout with either bronchitis or pneumonia as well as the effects of finals (which I completed Tuesday) and senior project (which I completed Thursday of last week) at Cal Poly as well as caring for and caring about a dear Loved One's brokenness. I feel utterly drained and a bit anti-social. In fact, I keep entertaining the idea of ditching my graduation ceremony at Cal Poly this Sunday and just going to the beach alone. However, I know I would regret that decision were I to chose that option so I plan to walk Sunday. I feel a bit discombooberated after all I have experienced and endured over the course of my journey, especially the past two years at Cal Poly and more so this just-ending spring quarter. For the first time in my life I feel middle-aged and I hate it. It feels like too many things have hit me in too short a period of time.

The past two years at Cal Poly have been an amazing experience that has helped me to grow as a man and broadened my horizons. I have been forced to reassess some of my opinions and realizations and make improvements, while other opinions and realizations have merely been reinforced. While at Cal Poly I did not join the Rose Parade float team as I had originally planned, but I did become a member of Phi Alpha Theta. I made some new friends at Cal Poly including one of my professors. While I did not find my wife at Cal Poly or even acquire a girlfriend, I did manage to maintain a celibate lifestyle and keep myself sexually pure in a sexually-charged environment. Of course, it helped I was a fat-forty-something living off-campus for the duration, but still. And yes, I became a Fat Fuck at Cal Poly. Between graduating from Cuesta College in mid-May, 2014, and starting at Cal Poly in late-September, 2014, I lost 25-30 lbs. Over the following two years I quickly gained that back and doubled it up to a 50 lb.+ weight gain. I seem to have fallen just under a 3.5 GPA for my Cal Poly undergrad career.... too many otherwise good papers turned in late caught up with me too many times and I let some A's get away from me.... my bad.

However, I also had a lot of distractions in my private life with the aforementioned Loved One's struggles not helping my already difficult time dealing with my chronic procrastination problem. This two-pronged assault on my GPA began in the Winter of 2015 and kept up right into this week. If this continues either I won't graduate from grad school next year or my Loved One will have to find somebody else to help them if they fall again. Have I been helping or enabling or a bit of both?

I don't know what to expect with what comes next: Cuesta College summer school health ed class (Health 202) to satisfy a requirement for the teaching credential program that I did not get fulfilled at Cal Poly. At least this will be one less unit and a thousand dollars cheaper than had I completed it at Cal Poly. However, I shall have to drive (or ride the bus) to Cuesta College main campus in SLO for six weeks, starting next Tuesday, three days a week (Tuesday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.). After that I will have to return to Cal Poly a month earlier than other types of students because I will be doing in-class work at Atascadero High School with my master teacher Ben Tomasini. We will take classes before the local schools resume classes so that means going back to school mid-August instead of late-September. Fall 2016 quarter will be 16 units PLUS some in-class time each week with our master teacher. I hear it will be the roughest quarter of the grad program.

God is sovereign, God is in control. God knows what I'm doing, I do not. I'm just trying to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ and let the chips fall where they may. I have come a long way, yet have such a long way to go. I am merely an explorer and sojourner here; life is fascinating, but so very ephemeral. May God protect me from the storms to come!