I'm technically still on the hill, but the next 4 days are simply a transition...

Yesterday, at 4:14 PM, I turned in my FINAL final paper at Soka. It's funny: I had always wondered with what emotions I would send in that last email to a professor, but i ended up sending it in without any emotion at all. The only thing on my mind was: I'm done; I can sleep now. Relief.

Will I look back at that moment years from now and feel a surge of emotion? Possibly. Probably. But yesterday, it was simply: I'm done.

The going-away party at James and Wendy's felt too final, though. Michael was my first big goodbye-- a close friend whom I probably won't see for many years now. That was when it started sinking in: I'm really going away. Wow.

I'm ready, though. Ready and excited to move on. Nostalgic, of course. A little sad, of course. But above all, appreciative. Appreciative of everything I have experienced in the last 4 1/2 years (in California, in Buenos Aires, in Mexico-- all of that has been a part of my Soka life); appreciative of Ikeda Sensei for founding SUA and for working so hard to open so many doors for me; appreciatve of all the friends and professors who have in one way or another made SUA worth it. I know I'll always carry this place in my heart and that it will always be a part of what I call "home."

"You were born to a whole, and this is just a particular"-- Emerson. Yes, SUA has been a wonderful particular, but at the end of the day, that's all it is: I need to now move on to the rest that awaits me. World, here I come.