From left to right: The trophy for Top Shooter, the trophy for #1 in academics (final average of 98.15%!), and the trophy for Highest score on the POST exam.

Graduation was yesterday morning. Besides all of the nifty trophies, I also got various gift certificates and other goodies for my first place wins. (People were asking me if I needed a box to carry all of my stuff! It was too cool.) The only award that I didn't take first place in was Fitness, and I took third place in that. So, needless to say, I made a very good impression on the department brass. My shift was there to watch me graduate, which was pretty amusing since my shift was working yesterday. Around 9:30am would have been a perfect time to commit a bank robbery in St. Tammany parish. :-) But it was terrific to see them all there, and they were all pleased that I'd represented the shift so well.

Anyway, the ceremony went smoothly, including the speech I had to give as class president--which I'd been given very little notice about. Instructor, a few days ago: "Diana, you have your speech ready?" Me: "My WHAT?" So, I wrote a speech at 11pm the night before graduation, and somehow it ended up being semi-coherent.

And now I have this huge sense of relief. It's over. Wow. I can do things not related to studying and not feel guilty now. That's one of the big reasons there were so few entries--I felt guilty about wasting potential study time if I sat down at the computer for too long. But now, I can go see a movie... I can read a book that doesn't pertain to criminal justice... I can clean my house and yard... Egads, talk about a mess. I put a helluva lot of work into this academy, using just about every spare minute to study and prepare, and thankfully it all paid off, but the rest of my life certainly suffered. Luckily I don't have much of a life, so really all I have is a trashed house and a yard that resembles a rain forest.

I also have a stack of certificates from all of the various courses of instruction in the academy, including the POST certificate--which is the one that really matters. Most of the certificates I'm just going to file away, but I do want to get my POST certificate framed. Who knows, maybe I'll finally get around to getting my college degree framed as well.

I thought Ron Collins' entry about finishing projects was interesting; it made me think about one of the big reasons I disliked my job at the casino. There was no sense of accomplishment--no sense of finishing a project, or getting something to work right. It was the same routine every day, and the only measure we had of our performance at the end of our shift was whether the pit had won or lost--something that we had no control over. Reading Ron's entry made me realize that that's one of the big things I'm enjoying so much about police work. Every call for service is a project that needs to be worked on and solved. Every day there are a dozen problems to be solved. There's a sense of accomplishment with every shift. There are some things that money can't buy.

But, on a totally realistic note about money, I will admit that one of the first things I did after graduation was to take all of my certificates to the office so that I could get my raise for being POST certified!