I’m rapidly coming up on the end of the beginning. Childhood, different grades leading up to high school graduation, and then a few more years at a university are the beginning, designed to help young people get started in life and be ready to take care of themselves and contribute in some kind of productive, and hopefully meaningful, way to society.

I graduate from BYU a week from today.

I have a rather hectic week of finals, ceremonies, and celebrations ahead of me.

I’m really excited to be graduating. I’ve been working for this moment for the last 24 years… I’m thrilled that I will get to work on real projects full-time instead of spending most of my time doing what often feels like “busywork.”

I hope that I can find a good way to put all my learning and preparation to good use when I start “real” life in about two weeks.

Hopefully I’ll have a chance to take a breather, too. It may be part of our “beginning,” but that doesn’t mean that education is easy. I have a lot of things to catch up on.