Anticlimactic

Well, I think I'm officially unpacked and "back" in Boston, although I still have a few things that I can't seem to find or remember where I stashed them.   I've been asked if I liked Singapore; I guess my best response is that it feels good to be back.  It's not that I disliked it, but really, Singapore wasn't anything special.  I basically enjoyed myself because, well, what else was there to do?  That's not to say I'm ungrateful for the experience because it's all worth something in the end, and this little endeavor is part of me now, so that's cool.

But it does feel like there was some kind of weird disconnect or time warp in my life recently.  Maybe a time warp isn't the most accurate way to describe it, but I just kind of feel like I went straight back into my life 6 months ago, but with a couple of major details switched around.  The thing is, they're the kind of details that you usually celebrate or at least acknowledge, but I feel like I skipped them, and it's a bit anticlimactic.  In May, I submitted my master's thesis, but my (prior) adviser had signed the cover sheet before he left for a trip back to the US, and never even read the final version or made any real comments about my work.  I also got a paper accepted to a small conference, which my adviser also didn't read, but I'm not proud of it and don't want to present it this fall.

Then I returned to the U.S. to find out that a bunch of my classmates had graduated and had left or were preparing to leave, and got my own diploma in the mail about a week later--it feels like I took some online course or something.  Not long after that, I turned 25 almost without realizing it; as I explained to some friends the other day, in most of Asia you report your age as how old you will be that year, so in my mind I had already been 25 since January.  It also snuck up really quickly and I didn't really do anything to celebrate, so it just made time all blend together.  Which isn't really a big deal, but I guess that's the point I am making here, that none of this seems like a big deal to me.  I mean, people typically feel some pride when they earn a degree, right?  Hrm.  Well, "cheers!" I guess.