Approaching the Finish Line

The second most-famous groundhog in West Virginia doesn't have a cushy lotto job like the one in Pennsylvania, but even he's excited to see the finish line.

Five days left bitches! Grad school will soon be nothing more than a painful repressed memory that will be brought out in a moment of violent outrage thirty years from now. Keep all sharp cutlery away from Future JP.

I have ZERO interest in continuing my education right now. I make no commitments about the future. I have no idea how unpleasant any forthcoming jobs will be. Going back to school a few years from now might be preferable if I'm working with an office full of crazies who take turns shitting in the corner wastebasket every day at noon. And when you're working with failed English majors, that would be a promising mindset.

For right now, though, I don't want to keep trying to make research about a fictional work sound important. Yeah, other folks are working on cures for cancer, saving people from burning buildings, or making nifty gadgets that function as an egg beater and nose trimmer at the same time. But my explanation for why a prostitute catalog from 1793 that compares penises to machines in a sexist manner is so much more important than that. Sadly, that's actually what the final paper in my sodomy class is about. (And I think I'll be happier when I don't cavalierly throw the phrase "my sodomy class" into casual conversation.)

I will miss the friends that I've made down here in Morgantown. Mutual disdain and apathy for book-learnin' can create strong bonds of friendship. I should be able to stay in touch with a lot of you, with all sorts of technological stalking tools like AIM and Facebook at my disposal, but it'll never really be the same again. Of course, most of my friends seem to be losing their minds lately. I think the stress of final papers and an uncertain future is getting to them. I have been oddly calm though. I feel like I'm in some sort of weird Jedi zen mindset. I still have the papers to finish, but my laissez-faire attitude just won't let me care.

The weirdest part about having only one week left for grad school is that I have no idea what to do when it's over. I've applied to four jobs now, but I haven't heard anything substantial from any of them. I'll be gainfully unemployed in five days. I'll probably spend most of my time in Kittanning, since it's much cheaper to live at home (no income remember), but I'll make my way to Morgantown a few times. My lease doesn't end until July 31, so my time is mine to do with as I please. It's just somewhat unsettling to know that the future can hold anything. A more worldly man might have some philosophical insight on that point, but I'd rather compare it to the end of Terminator 2, where Sarah Conner muses about the unknown future rolling toward us as the camera focuses on a dark road being traveled by a wildly swerving driver. Hopefully my unknown future will consist of sentient machines trying to gun me down because Future JP becomes an ass-kicking rebel freedom fighter!

Your ass is mine, Skynet!

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The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug. JP is there to write ironic musings about the forthcoming apocalypse.