The prospect of school coming to an end

I have exactly one week left of classes, this year, and as an undergraduate. In less than one month, I shall have graduated (assuming no unforeseen logistical hiccups, but I am not). So where does this leave me? Starting soon, I am a free agent. For the first time in nearly two decades I shall not be a student. What freedom! What terror!

Mostly, this means a new, large responsibility. It means a great amount of organization, as well as personal accountability. Moreover, it means that I shall have to measure my worth, not by a series of marks and contests, but through inherent self-esteem. Ideally, I will have been doing this already... but I'm not always ideally able to do so. Of course, I won't be completely devoid of outside judgement - far from it, in fact. I will still continue lessons. And, as a hopeful musician, I am entering a life in which I will be judged regularly by outsiders: audition panels, teachers, etc... But I must nonetheless be able to judge my own progress and abilities. I must trust myself.

So this we add to the list of things I must watch closely in the coming year: Organization. Discipline. Self-accountability. Self-worth. I've studied intensively outside of school before - on summer breaks, I've managed quite a bit of learning these past few years. Let's see how I do for more than three months.

I'm actually quite confident, and excited, even. I envision detailed schedules and logs, studious autodidacticism. These are comforting thoughts to someone who, from the age of five, has always dreamt of going back to classes a month into summer vacation.