Dear World....

Dear World,

I have finished university.

I wrote my last exam EVER today.

I'm sure you're sick of hearing about it.

My time here has been wonderful. I met some incredibly people, I lived in Hell, I lived in a building that made the Berry Queen say "You let me bring my ten year old SON here?" as she walked into the foyer and smelled the smell of drugs and filth.

I lost my mind a couple times. I dated one guy seriously and a number of guys not so seriously. (Come on now. You all remember the guy from first year who told me that if I wouldn't sleep with him, he would dump me? And then I told him that was just fine? And then he dumped me? I really still laugh about that sometimes because what could be funnier than a real-life episode of Degrassi Junior High?). I have gotten drunk off my ass a few times, and once I even landed on my ass in a puddle beside a taxi. And Mal? My dear friend? Didn't even help me up. She just stood on the sidewalk laughing at my sorry self trying to stand up out of a puddle. I, personally, blame the hooker boots.

Sometimes I think about what I expected when I came to university. I have to laugh about that now, because it was so silly. I was sure that I would be surrounded by brainiacs who knew more about Shakespeare and Dickens than I could ever hope to know. I was sure that I would be forever embedded within a group of people who would make me feel forever inferior with my lack of awareness as to Darwinian concepts, and who would make me feel forever inferior when they spoke of Marx.

I've yet to encounter someone who speaks of Marx and Darwin with any sort of authority whatsoever.

But, I did have a grand time. I learned how to drink beer, I learned what to do when locked out of one's apartment, I learned that calling your mother in hysterics three times in one week IS NOT A WEAKNESS.

Regardless of what I learned, I am proud of me. I never thought that I would make it through this last year. In all the bullshit that has happened, I certainly didn't think that I would make it out alive or with much left to give.

I'm going home in a few short days. I can't wait to go home. I can't wait to go back to the country where I can give everyone I love all I have to give, where I can pour out my heart and soul in whatever I want to pour it into.

This world is now mine for the owning.

AND I WILL OWN IT.

Toonses