I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are ONE SHORT SEMESTER away from hearing “Pomp and Circumstance” play.
Now let me start this off by saying I have nothing against freshman. I volunteer at Orientation every year. I dutifully hand out identification cards and point them in the direction of the cafeteria/registrar/financial aid office. I’ll help them get through Writing 101. I’ll edit their articles. I’ll listen to their incessant chatter in the library with mild amusement. But um…well…actually, it’s probably a little bit more than mild amusement.
So I’m registering for classes this week. The second semester of my senior year. My last semester ever as an undergraduate. Better make it a good one right? Oh, I intend to.
I’ve sat down to write the first entry of the column that will chronicle my final year as a college student about fifty a few times now, but I just haven’t been able to figure out where to start. So I figure I might as well start with the truth: I can’t seem to write this column because I’m not really sure how I feel about this whole “senior year” thing.
It’s May 26 and I officially have less than three weeks left in my college career. Most of you are already out of school (how’s that going by the way?), but I have twenty more days left. That means twenty more days to stress about my unplanned future before graduation day.
In high school I was a boyfriend kind of girl. I was never single for long, but instead jumped from guy to guy. I went through every relationship possible. I was in love, I was out of love, I was in lust, I was in good relationships and in not so good relationships. I dated guys that treated me like I was everything, and guys that treated me like I was nothing.
Today is May 5th. Many of you are wearing sombreros and chugging tequila graduate in a few weeks, or even days. (Did I just freak you out!?) Thankfully I’m on a college quarter system, so I have one more month of bliss before entering the real world. But still, there never seems to be enough time these days for everything I want to do.
Graduation is fast approaching and soon we college girls will have to swap our flip flops and sweats for pumps and two-piece suits. Unless you have an amazing job where you can work in your PJs, you’re going to need to update your wardrobe with some real people clothes (that don’t permanently smell of pizza and beer, no matter how many times you wash them).
With graduation fast approaching, I am trying to cram in all the education and life lessons that I possibly can before I have to leave this place. I go to class, take notes, listen, and really try to absorb the teachings from all my amazing professors, teachers, and friends. However, there are some life lessons that simply can’t be expressed in a quarter long class or in a classroom at all.
Today, I was walking across campus on the way to my last class before Spring Break (CABO, HERE I COME!) and I had a HOLY SH*T moment. You know, one of those defining moments when reality slaps you hard across the face prompting you to stop dead in your tracks and scream HOLY SH*T. Well, today reality slapped me with the inevitable fact that I am graduating from college in three months.
The hardest part of graduating college is not the fact that your friends are now spread all over the country. It is not the fact that you can no longer party 6 nights a week with $1 pitchers. It isn’t even the whole “getting a job” thing (even now). The hardest part is having no freaking clue how to do anything.
I've lost track of the days and I no longer can distinguish between night and day. We drink round the clock now anyways so there doesn't seem to be a reason for me to try to figure any of this out. But there are still a few things that I must get done before doomsday (known to my parents as commencement ceremonies).
It was the second to last weekend of college. Lawns were packed by day and the bars were crowded at night. Therefore it makes sense that it was the weekend that I contracted a deadly disgusting eye infection that prevented me from socializing properly. I won't go into details, but it wasn't pretty.