If you have a finished object that is written & not fiber crafted, it still counts as a finished object, right?  Either way, I’m making an exception for this object because it’s my last one.  I’m also finishing 2 objects for the price of one: the project itself and my academic career, which is another project.

She is called Death, 38 Pages & Destroyer of Incomes & Lives:

I’m handing this in today.  It concludes the last leg of a long, arduous journey that started at a state college with a lot of personal and financial struggles, some accomplishments that I’m pretty proud of attaining considering where I started, and ended at the Ivy League.  Since that time, I’ve changed careers several times, got married, bought a home, and am successful.

Here’s where I continue to brag about myself and my self-importance.  Keep reading.
(Ha! No. Don’t worry.  The humility is coming & it’s very, very real.  See below.)

To be quite honest: I shouldn’t be alive right now.  I’m not being over-dramatic or exaggerating for the sake of good hyperbole.  It’s just the truth.  So writing a post like this is just pretty goddamn amazing to me.  The cards that I’ve been dealt in life did not work out in the favor of someone like me having a shot at the Ivy League in any way.

Yeah.  I can’t even believe I just wrote that.

I still have the same mindset that I had when I started out at the school:  “What the hell are you doing here?  People like you don’t go here.  They know you’re faking it.  Just give up.”  In my mind, places like that are for people who have been in America for a long time – who knew the systems.  Who had non-disruptive lives that didn’t involve a lot of moving around, living overseas, or a lot of the dysfunction and hardship that I’ve had in my life.

If anyone told me years ago that I would have even had a shot at doing what I’ve done, I would have laughed in their faces & told them politely to screw off.  In fact, that’s what I did to the first professor that told me to apply there.  I laughed at her suggestion.  I said,”Really? Are you serious? There is no way. My undergraduate transcript looks like it came from a gun range.”

I put in my application on a lark.

When I got called in for an interview, not knowing that they usually offer those to people that they are almost sure about accepting for admission, I thought: Okay, this is it.  I’ll interview & they’ll see how unqualified I am for this place & how much I don’t belong there.  I’ll get this over with & check on those other school applications. Tell Professor _____ I told you so.

The next day, I got a phone call. They told me that they wanted to let me in.

I even managed to not only keep my job while I did it but to also work my way up the ranks.

Now I’m graduating.

Feel free to share your own badass accomplishments with me in the comments below.

See you in 2017.