525,600 Minutes

When I completed my Bachelor's degree, I felt as if there was nothing I couldn't do- the world was mine for the taking. Not only had I just completed five years of hard work and learning, but I had done it myself. Anyone who has put someone through college knows that this alone is no small feat! When the actual degree came in the mail, I opened it and stared at it forever, which my mom teased me about. What you have to understand is that it was not just a piece of paper to me, it was the physical manifestation of all of the work I had spent the past five years doing- the hours studying, the anxiety over how I would do on a test, the worrying over whether or not I had enough to pay for next semester, the hours spent perfecting that last paragraph of hundreth paper I had to write, the sacrafices I made (I never had a true spring break), all of the knowledge I had crammed in to my head. It was beautiful!

On this past Friday afternoon, my program director approved me using six of the hours that I do as a TSS for my internship. This means that I will definately complete all of my 500 hours by the April 23rd end date of my internship, which means that I will definately have my Master's degree by the end of April. This past Saturday, as I was waiting for a client, I looked at the billing sheet, which reads (as all of my billing sheets do) on the provider line, "Laura Pengelly, BS Intern", and realized that in two short months my billing sheets are going to read "Laura Pengelly, MA". And then I almost cried ( tears of joy) as I thought to myself, this is really going to happen, I am really going to have a Master's degree! I did it! I am going to be the second person in my mother's family and the third, but the only one of the grandchildren, in my dad's family to have a graduate degree. Hopefully this is the first of many (happy) "this is really going to happen!" moments in my future.

P.S. For those who do not know/recognize the reference: the title of this post is a lyric from a song in the show "Rent"- the full lyric is :"525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?"

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale

We can do no great things, only small things with great love. ~Mother Teresa

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. ~Benjamin Disraeli