Finally!

Three weeks from today I will be walking into a room, wearing a gown, utterly excited!

Nope, it won't be our wedding day...its GRADUATION DAY!

Finally the day has come to put on that cap and gown, move my tassel, and accept my diploma! As I graduated from high school in 2003, this day has been a long time coming. I started going to Fresno City College right out of high school. After a few years at City, majoring in journalism, I decided that I needed a break from school. My plan was to take a semester off and instead three years went by before I started the process to go back to school. In that time I was working two serving jobs, met and started dating Zac, and moved out of my parents house. Realizing that I didn't want to serve tables as a life long job, I quit one of my jobs and started to get everything in order to go back to school.

When I stopped going to school, I didn't drop my classes, I just stopped attending class. It had a seriously negative impact on my grade point average and I lost my opportunity to receive financial aid. It took a lot to sort out everything but I was finally back in school and it felt great. I had a few semesters at Fresno City and then I was able to transfer to Fresno State. I changed my major from journalism to child development, and then when I started attending State it changed to Child and Family Consumer Sciences. The change in major made going back to school feel like starting all over again, but I couldn't be happier about the change. Clearly, I still love to write (and that's a passion that will never fade), but I feel so enriched by all that I have learned in my major courses and I am so happy with my decision to change my educational goals.

The next two weeks leading up to finals are going to be a little stressful. I have two term papers, a project report and an exam to get completed. May 11 is the final day of instruction and then its 4 finals to go before grauation! It's a lot to get done in a short amount of time but I am confident that I can get it all done and successfully pass my courses. Until then, my cap and gown are hanging in my closet. It's a nice little reminder on the days that I get ready for school, of what I'm working towards.

It's been a long journey and I am so excited to finally reach this accomplishment.

To make it even more special, this year is the school's centennial celebration. How awesome is that?!