"If I clean this toilet I can have a beer tonight."

I’m constantly amazed at how challenging it is to be an adult. It’s like everyday there’s something new I have to do that won’t get taken care of unless I actually take the initiative to do it.

I’ve basically had to turn into a parent for myself in order to get anything done. I remind myself to do things repeatably even though I heard myself the first time, I nag myself incessantly to do gross chores around the apartment, and I even discipline and reward myself with a behavior chart I keep on the fridge. Five gold stars mean I can go out for happy hour on Friday.

I’ve recently put myself in time-out (spent all day on the couch watching whatever Sandra Bullock movie TBS plays) for breaking curfew and I’ve lectured myself about not taking vitamins when I started sniffling last week. I’m at the point that I think my actual mother feels left out when she calls because I’ve already covered her territory. She calls expecting an opportunity to nurture (tell me what to do) and instead she gets a co-parent complaining about misbehavior and paying the cable bill on time.

While I’ve enjoyed being a parent to myself and ending each night with a warm glass of milk and Goodnight Moon, I’ve started to wonder when I will transition from being a faux-adult to being a real one. Read More »

I’m a total college girl. I love wearing college sweatshirts, cheering at basketball (so much so that I cheer for the school I transferred from and the one I currently attend) or hockey games, partying at all times, supporting student government, loving the gym and dining halls, repping NU right here on CollegeCandy, playing on intramurals and familiarizing myself with all the fun trivia about my school. Example: Did you know that Northeastern University is really the first place that the Red Sox played? Yep, the Red Sox didn’t always play at Fenway. Back when they were the Pilgrims/Americans, they played at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, which is now part of our campus. The area is immortalized with a bronze statue of Cy Young.

Yes, I love college. Probably more than Asher Roth. The experience of being at a University is incredible, my social life is banging, my sister goes to school right around the corner at BU, and I live in the “big city” version of a college town. The Boston area is home to over twelve major universities and I’m familiar with all of them. Or at least their frat houses. Read More »

Working in the real world is harder than I ever thought. I remember older friends telling me that they would come home exhausted and barely have the energy to pull together a dinner sandwich. But I blew them off and just assumed that for some reason their jobs involved intensive physical labor that made them so tired. And since I was never on the construction job track I figured that I would end my days full of energy and zest.

Turns out I was wrong. I’m so dead by the end of the day that I can barely keep my eyes open when I crawl into bed at sunset. Truth be told, I cannot figure out why. I possibly have the least physically demanding job in the entire world. As a freelance blogger I spend half my days in bed on the computer and half my days on a couch on the computer. Sure my fingers are getting a work-out (ever seen a thumb with biceps?) but the rest of me might as well be sold off for spare parts. If anyone knows how much legs (partially shaved) are going for these days, please leave me a message below.

And it’s not only the exhaustion that’s taking a toll on me. It’s also being responsible for the work that I do everyday. In the past I’ve had part time jobs doing things like working at an ice cream store. But if I didn’t bring my A-game to work it wasn’t that big of a deal. All it meant was that some kid had an allergic reaction because I wasn’t paying attention when his mother asked if nuttybutter-walnut ice cream had nuts in it. Same with internships. I could make a million mistakes and then shrug my shoulders and be like “sorry, I’m just an intern, I didn’t know that pressing backspace would delete a year’s worth of work.” Read More »

I got a job!!!

All my tears, temper tantrums, panic attacks, stress-induced friend fights, and violent rages towards my parents turned out to be totally worth it. I’m on my way to getting a full time job. And by that I mean that I’m now working three freelance blogging jobs and making enough money to support myself for at least one to three months depending on how long I can sustain myself on a water and table scraps diet.

One blog is about the postgrad realty market, one is geared towards men’s humor, and the last is all about liberating and embracing a woman’s sexuality. So by the time I get done with a week of writing all three, I’ll be the only certified realtor that can make hilarious fart jokes while imparting the seriousness of bra burning. If that’s not a pick-up line in a bar, then cat’s got my tongue (I’m aiming to write for a blog entirely composed of idioms if anyone’s got a lead). Read More »

My third (and, god willing, final) internship ended last week. Even though I left without a job offer or a hint at a job offer, I did manage to fit some quality ballpoint pens, a stack of Post-its,  and a pack of printer paper in my purse on the way out. So not only do I have tons of jobless free time on my hand, I also have the basic arts and crafts supplies needed to make 513 paper airplanes with personalized post-it notes attached.

Life is good.

A downside to the end of my internship is no longer having an answer when people ask what I do. Intern sounds downright glamorous compared to unemployed. Hence why I choose to exaggerate the truth and choose my words more wisely. Writing this blog equals freelance journalist, making my lunch equals part time catering, and spamming my brother’s Facebook page equals social media marketing. Read More »

"I miss Welcome Week." Sigh.

Lately it seems like Facebook is on a mission (aided by the company that sells prozac) to make me feel suicidal every time I sign on. For weeks all the status updates and albums were “lovin’ summer” and “will it ever stop raining this summer?” I could easily relate to those as I was also experiencing summer and the torrential rain showers of ‘09.

However, now I sign on and I have to see this:

Jessie can’t wait for classes to start up!
Shar regrets that first night back jungle juice!
Alissa accidentally packed her keys into the trunk but it won’t stop her from getting to school!

And all these statues and declarations of school spirit are forcing me to realize that I’m officially not going back to school…although my diploma has yet to come, so that’s actually still questionable. For the first time in my entire life (I started school mere months after birth) I’m not buying fresh new school supplies and I’m not sitting in classes trying to read the professor’s mind and decide if she is really going to give pop reading quizzes. I don’t even know what to do with my hands if they’re not flipping through syllabi. Read More »

I’ve been in the workforce for a while now (I know this because I can no longer sleep past 8 on weekends, a sign that my body is on a real-person schedule). Long gone are the days of opting out of my responsibilities in favor of nursing a hangover and staying out late on weeknights. Instead, I am in bed by 10pm and hunched over a desk for 10 hours a day no matter how crappy I’m feeling.

Besides the paychecks I’ve been depositing for the past 3 years, I’ve taken away quite a few things from my time on the job. Namely, a few very important lessons (learned the hard way) of what is and is not acceptable in a professional environment.

You starting a new job soon? Keep these few things in mind: Read More »

I’ve been asking a lot of questions lately. Mostly to myself, but I have a quirky tendency to mumble aloud so sometimes I get answers from people assuming that I was trying to have a conversation with them. But I appreciate their responses; I’ll take anything I can get these days, with the exception of Yahoo answers. The longer I go without finding a job, the more I question every decision I’ve made since kindergarten….including that one-piece stir-up jumpsuit my mother insisted I wear.

What if I had gone to another college? What if I had majored in psychology? What if I’m one of those people who don’t know they’re pregnant until they go into labor at nine months and discover their baby has 13 fingers and tentacles because their mother took a shot every time she asked herself what if?

What if I had taken a different internship last summer, seduced the boss, and then been able to blackmail him into getting me a job. What if the love of my life lives in the past and we spend the rest of our lives communicating only through a mailbox at a lake house (do they have to play that movie every single weekend??). What if I end up getting hired at my dream job and realize that I hate it? Read More »

I’ve learned many lessons since graduating from college. I’ve learned that buying a pair of shoes isn’t as important as eating dinner, that keeping in touch with friends is hard and that your first job out of college isn’t always as amazing as you think it will be.

But the biggest and most important lesson I’ve learned is that networking is the key to success.

You may not want to believe it, but when it comes to getting ahead in life, it’s all about who you know. Every single job (from full time gigs to random babysitting jobs) that I’ve gotten since I graduated from college has been because I had some connection to the person hiring. Whether it be the college I went to, the sorority I was in, or just some random person who knew my mom, I would not have gotten the position if that connection hadn’t been there.

And it’s not like I wasn’t qualified. Read More »

After slaving away on that perfect resume and writing what feels like hundreds of cover letters, you finally landed the big job interview. Yay for you! You’ve wowed someone with your accomplishments and degree, and now it’s time to blow them away them in person.

This is a pretty big deal.

You’ve heard it before, but you only get one chance at a first impression so it’s important to make sure that you are 110% prepared for the big day. You will undoubtedly be one of many interviewing for the given position, which means you need to go above and beyond all those other people to prove why you are the best suited for the job.

How can you be sure you are ready for the interview? Read More »