All done.

Here I am, it's eleven months later, & I'm finished with school. It amazes me to look back a year ago & think about how much everything has changed since then. I knew it would go by quickly, but I really felt like the last few weeks were in sped-up time, rushing toward me all blurry.
Because the program is only complete after you go to school for 1500 hours (& not, say, for a certain number of days or whatever), I had to go to school on Tuesday for 2 hours & 15 minutes. It was my birthday that day, too, but I wasn't really thinking about that (which isn't really like me: I've been known to put up countdown calendars to my own birthday) because getting done with school was so much bigger. They didn't give me any clients that morning, so I just wandered around. My last client at school was on Friday. She was getting a relaxer (the last one I had to do) & had nearly waist-length hair. The relaxer wasn't so hard to do, but contending with all her hair did make it a little challenging. Then I blew it out straight which took about an hour & a half. It really was a lot of hair. I was telling her about my upcoming cross-country trip & she asked if I was good at driving through the night. I said no, not really (though Adam is). About mid-way through her blowout, she said, "If you can do this, you can drive all night." Not true, but nice of her to say so anyhow.
It was strange saying good-bye to everyone that morning, as it always is when you leave a job or school. And strange because they're all still there: Michelle, Sunshine, Amber (Mercedes graduated just before I did, having missed no days at all), doing what we've all done every day, it's just that I'm not there anymore. They'll all be done in about a month & I'll go back for their graduations. I don't know if these friendships will last. They were built mainly on the fact that we were all in the same building all day long. I like to think we'll stay in touch, but I know that out in the real world, we have almost nothing in common. Still, though, I will try to stay in contact with at least the four of them. Obviously it was more than just proximity that made us friends or I would have had the same level of friendship with every single person there.
I'm going to leave this blog up, though this is the last post I'll do. I am going to disconnect it from my Facebook account so I can friend people from school now (they all pestered me about it all the way through school & it became a joke that I turned down everyone's requests).
I'm one of the lucky few leaving school with a job lined up: starting May 24 (after I get back from our trip), I'll be at DB Sutton & Co in Chapel Hill. I am beyond! excited! to be starting work! So come find me there! Looky, here's the website: http://www.dbsutton.com/) I am also lucky in that everyone who works there is super spiffy & nice & talented & supportive. Truly, I won the jackpot on this one.
So, I guess that's it. I don't really know how to end this except to thank you readers out there. I've never done this before & it was always nice & fun & interesting to get your comments & know that someone was out there reading all this. I've enjoyed writing it, though I was dreadfully slack about it most of the time, & I hope you enjoyed reading it.