Graduating, sort of

When I was checking out grad schools, I crashed on the floor of a fiction writer who took me to a protest the next day while dressed up as a cow. (He was protesting the cost of tuition. The cow suit was relevant to the protest. It's a long story.) It's hard to believe that three years have passed since the angry-cow incident. These are my final days in the Columbia MFA program. I will definitely miss homework (reading two books every week) and having a dozen or so smart and dedicated people close-edit my work. I'll also miss the study alcoves at Columbia, the lectures about crazy short stories, the constant visits from writers and the occasional beery hangouts at Toast and the Amsterdam Lounge. This has been great (and the three years have gone by in a flash.) I'm grateful that the program has given me a chance to teach Ivy League freshmen, work as a research assistant to an NY Times editor and shape a full-length manuscript. Now I'm marking the end of my time here with a little get-together this weekend in the Upper-Upper Westside. I guess this means that I am graduating -- though that isn't true technically (I'm still fiddling with the thesis and probably won't do the graduation "walk'' in June.)