I'm... graduating. Can't delay it any longer. My second degree, Computer Science, December. Went and filled out the final bit of paperwork today. It's a very odd feeling - my self-image includes, indelibly, the idea that the main thing I'm doing, the most important thing I'm doing with my life is learning. Even when I'm employed writing code to guide the knife of radiation, or the expert system that keeps patients happy, I've always been happy to write 'student' on any forms that wanted to know what I did. Learn, learn, learn. My tattoos? Record of the most important things I've learned. The people I love? I can learn things from them; those who cannot teach me anything have no place in my heart or in my life. My friends? I know their stories. The upcoming visit to velvetknife? To meet his people, to learn more of those whom I've heard so much of. Knowledge has my allegiance, first and foremost, and always has.
And I know that I won't stop learning, couldn't without dying on the spot, but I think I'll miss, in this next year-and-a-half before grad school that easy answer, that obvious sign of where my loyalties lie. It has to be this way; I'm terribly burned out, consumed by fire within and without. But I don't have to like it.

"What do you do?"
"Oh, I'm a student."

Maybe I'll keep saying that anyway.