quarter life

so i saw this ad on craigslist: http://chicago.craigslist.org/wrg/61739142.html

and i decided that this was right up my alley. so i gave it a shot. i like david sedaris, i like writing, and i'm 23 and a recent grad. perfect right? well, here's what i came up with anyways:

Post-College Reflections and Farewells

Well, it's been about two months for me now since graduation and needless to say, it's an adjustment. I spent 4.5 valuable years of my life at Purdue University mastering not only a degree, but the beer bong, the tailgate, and strategies as to how to cut in the late-night Taco Bell line. So, where am I now?

Well, at the least I can say that I've learned a few things about college versus real life. I mean, you go from living within walking distance of everyone you know along with every restaurant and store you know to... living alone, or in my case, living with your parents. And the whole parents thing is interesting because, I really don't think they realize where I have been for the past 4.5 years. I don't think they quite understand that I was actually living on my own that whole time, without any substitute parents, and when I came back two months ago, I didn't magically turn 18 years old again.

Where are you going? What time will you be back? Do you know where the portable phone is? I mean really, those were all valid questions 5 years ago, but I'm pretty sure a curfew isn't valid anymore.

The job thing isn't going so well either. I got a job offer about two weeks out of college and I thought, "Wow, this degree thing really works," and told them no. Haven't had a job offer since. Go figure. Big shot with the degree--not so much. But I've been interviewing, I've been stalking Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com like they were the cute guy in my English class, but nothing's really happened so far.

Of course, instant messenger is still in effect for me and my fellow graduates. Still our main form of communication, in fact. But I fear for the day people start to get real lives and abandon their screen names. How am I to know that they are alive and breathing? Or sleeping, eating--walking down the hallway at a medium pace to the bathroom to charge their electric toothbrush--depending on their current away message? I mean, aren't these things important to anyone else after we graduate?

I guess the lesson learned is that as we start this new chapter of life, there are certain things we are just going to have to abandon. And let me give these things the utmost respect as I bid them farewell because they have been nothing but good to me throughout the past 4.5 years and I will miss them greatly. With that--goodbye beer bong, tailgate. Goodbye Taco Bell line. Farewell carefree lifestyle and stalking boys. Goodbye instant messager. Thank you for completing my collegiate life and for all the countless memories(and keeping me up to date on my high school boyfriend's life for the past four years without him knowing a thing).

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so that's that, my feelings on it are that i really could care less if it's published or not, or even if they like it. i just thought it would be a fun thing to write. so if it gets published, bonus. if not, well, at least it did on my blog. haha.