School is over and I'm.....what??

I never thought I'd feel sad to be out of school for the summer.

Remember those days of the past - the last day of school? Freedom! Joy! The long summer days ahead; it seemed they would go on and on; one endless weekend.

Well, it has happened: I am sad to be sprung. I finished my Medical Terminology class last night, took my final, and now I am going to miss going to school. It's a frightening realization because it means that maybe I am a real adult. Because, really - there is no way I could still be a kid and be sad about getting out of school for the summer.

I loved my class. It had been years since I went to school. Unless you count yoga or pregnanacy fitness or lamaze as higher education. So it seemed a big decision to actually sign up for a real class. After the first couple of sessions, I began to question my decision. I had to actually set aside time - my precious time - to do homework and study for the weekly quiz. I didn't even want to think about the BIG tests, the midterm and the final looming somewhere vaguely in the not too distant future.

I got into the routine quickly enough, though, and began to relax enough to actually learn things. My instructor was a registered nurse who infused the lecture with tales of her own personal experiences at the hospital and I found the lectures to be very interesting, even entertaining.

Now that my Tuesday nights are my own, once again, I feel a little bit empty. I think that not only did I learn all about medical terminology, body systems, and medical procedures; but I also received a dose of self-pride. Hey, I could actually sit in a class of a bunch of 'kids' and do as well as the rest of those freshly minted brains. Never mind that they were probably taking four other classes simultaneously and I was only taking the one.....

Let's see, if I stretch this out properly, I could probably be able to take one class per semester and have my master's degree in hmmm.......about 45 years.

That'll keep me busy!