The above quote is pulled from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. I wrote about my struggles with the epic poem in March of 2006, and wasn't very kind to either the piece or its author. I have to admit that while my opinion of the poem hasn't changed much, the line quoted in the heading of this post has won some weight in my life. It is a perfect expression of how I feel about finally graduating from college, and about how no one will ever be allowed to force me to read a waste of ink like The Waste Land again.
On December 19th, my graduation from the State University of New York at Albany was finally confirmed. I won't bore you with the details, but there was just a teeny bit of doubt that things would be postponed yet another semester. In fact, even though I have graduated, I will be doing a bit more school work. The big monster I had to tackle was the completion of my English Honors undergrad thesis titled "I Watched Krypton Die and So Did You," about the impact 9/11 had on Marvel Comics. My adviser was determined that the paper be considered for some award the school gives away every year. But since it doesn't give it away until the spring semester, she wants me to polish it some more between now and then. So, as that dude once wrote, once more unto that thing I really don't want to do all that much but kinda have to.
School has dominated my life in ugly, stupid ways. This blog's hiatus was only one of them. Because of both the nature of my thesis and the stress that it brought, I just about stopped reading comics altogether except for those I needed to review for my paper. My relationship with my girlfriend, my physical health, my finances, and my overall enjoyment of life has been in the toilet this last year of school. Now it's done, I'm glad it's over. After happily engaging in nothing but mindless bullshit for a few weeks, I am on the warpath to reclaim my life, starting with this blog.