On being 'done'

My mother has an oft-repeated statement that annoys me more than anything. It surrounds her notion of being 'done'...for her this is usually surrounded by a pleading stream of things that have to be 'done' household chores, ironing at 6am on Sunday mornings, cooking tea early on a Sunday evening...(I'm sure the last two are somehow related). I have often joked that on her eventual demise I will make some salacious speech about her finally 'being done'...(I am a nice daughter, I promise)...but today I can finally declare that 'I'm done'. Five years ago I decided I needed to do a Masters, five years before that I had this silly notion of going off to get myself a university education. Ten years later and the tax department should list me as a Gold Sponsor with the amount of HECs I will be paying back over the rest of my life. But you know what? I'm done.

I am done feeling guilty when I know I should be studying/reading/writting instead of well, having a life

I am done trying to do ridiculous all-nighters or the trick (that never works and I have Lisa to back me up on this) of the little nap...20 minutes at 3am does not make you a better proof reader...and I have proof

I am done with MLA, APA, Harvard in-text and the acronym Ibid.

I am done with economic multipliers, frescoes, oils, works on paper and movable cultural heritage, the 4 P's, the 7P's, narratology, semiology, communication theory and models, proposals, plans, reports, essays, critiques and the worse of all, the dreaded multiple choice!

I am done with using phrases such 'as Lord argues' and 'as Falk and Dierking outline'

I am done with reading others thoughts, summarising them, comparing, contrasting, arguing against them, reapplying their thinking to other disciplines and trying to make something original out of what is, lets face it, a crap essay question to begin with

I am done trying to out do everybody else to see if I can squeeze in another reference

I am done with the anti-climatic moment of handing things in

I am done trying to work out why although I get good marks no one has ever really offered any constructive criticism...yes I agree with you, that was a well written essay...but what happened to those other 5 marks? (oh, you lost them on your bell curve?)

I am done listing things I am done with.

Ahhhhhhh....now that's out of the way and the list of things I can now catch up on is in front of me...let's see, watching soap opera, sleeping in, gardening, sailing...well really leisure time in general, a social life, ironing at 6am on Sunday mornings, cleaning the oven...partying like it's 1999 (ahhh those ten years!)

...and now I'm done with this post.