On Saturday, April 30th at around noon, I walked commencement. I was congratulated by President Hopkins and wished well by a ton of my classmates. One of my favorite professors wished me well, too, which was pretty cool. After I got out of the panic-inducing Nutter Center, I went to lunch with my mom, sister and her husband. We had a grand old time just hanging out, even if we were soaked by the rain.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
On the Thursday of finals week, the day that I had the exam that meant the most, I woke up at 2 a.m. with horrible pain in my side. I didn't know what this pain was and I'd never felt pain like it anywhere but in my head and even migraine pain was two notches lower than what this was. I woke up my mom, something I never do and she decided we would go to the ER. Three hours, one CT scan, too many failed attempts at going pee later and I was told that I have one kidney stone working its way out and way too many more in my kidneys themselves. Happy finals week, kids!
So I got home, I went to sleep, I called off my last shift at my favorite job ever and woke up around ten to get to campus a little before one. I got to campus only to vomit—twice. Why am I telling you this? Remember that really important exam? That was at 2:45 p.m. and I hadn't had much time to study, because I was in so much pain and spent all my time trying not to throw up on my book.
I got to my exam, told my professor that I might run out of the test just because I didn't want to get sick on everyone, and I thought I might have actually done well. I thought I was rocking my test so hard that I would pass it with flying colors and I would get a medal of honor for how stellar I was rocking it while on pain killers, while feeling like the world was spinning and I was going to up-chuck on everyone.
I didn't rock it. I didn't pass with flying colors. I didn't even come within a few percentage points of passing. I failed that final exam that I needed at least a 65 to 70 percent on to pass the class.
Yes. I failed a class in my last semester of college, and it really freaking hurts.
So that beautiful day of everyone congratulating me, of the smiles and the hugs, of the teary-eyed hugs and the people who I know I'll miss? It feels like crap right now because I walked but I didn't graduate. I didn't do it. I didn't make it. The same day I found out about this test and how horribly I really did, I found out I got a 90 percent on a paper I turned in the same day as the ER visit, so that takes some of the sting out, but at the end of the day, I failed a class. I failed.
I'm figuring out how I'll graduate now. I've sent emails and made phone calls. I have things in the works but each message I receive that is congratulatory makes me feel like a bigger failure even if I'm not. I have pain. I have health issues bigger than I could've known before that Thursday morning. I didn't do my best in that class, I get that now, but at least I'm figuring it out.
I will have my degree by the end of the summer, no matter what it takes.
