Graduating from Eastern took a while. You could even say it was a very long wait. I have been a member of the real world now for a few months, and I have learned a couple of things. Namely it's not much different then the life of a university student, except you feel exponentially more guilty for living with your parents. Furthermore there is a TON of waiting involved. Waiting to get a job interview, waiting to hear back, waiting for a second interview and finally waiting to start your new job.
In the middle of all this waiting things are changing. I suddenly have more free time, less money (starting to pay back student loans), and a sense of smugness that comes a long with having a real live degree. I meet new people, those people disappear, I see my old friends less, I might even take up a new hobby (Roller derby). Everything around me is shifting, but the important thing is to try and learn from it. Here are some lessons I have learned since graduating. To be fair some of the lessons I learned in my last semester, but that hardly counted since I was only taking two classes.
1. Something is always going to go wrong with your car. - I paid my car off! I no longer owe any money on the focus, and I was looking forward to not having a car payment, until my dad told me now I need to get it fixed! Apparently you can't put 125,000 miles on a Ford Focus, while being very negligent on timely oil changes, and expect it to purr like a kitten until you're making the big bucks. I swear to god the second my car figured out I didn't have to pay for it anymore it decided it needed work.
2. Not being in school causes you to think less - At Home Depot I do very basic math all day long. Yesterday I had to figure out fractions for a measurement and my brain almost leaked out of my ear. Never mind I spent lots of time and money on taking math classes, and that generally fractions never scared me before, but when I saw those fractions I was stumped. I freaked out and started thinking about all sorts of crazy ways to figure it out, convert it to a decimal, quadratic formula, just close my eyes and randomly cut the damn blind? Eventually I solved it, and in true math class fashion I showed all my work, all over the side of the blinds box. To bad I DID forget this particular blind has a metal headrail, and I put it in the machine that cuts wood blinds. A saw blade made for wood cutting metal, does not make a pleasant sound. Not. At. All.
3. You will meet new people... weird new people - As we grow older, we tend to lose track of some of our friends. This is a normal part of life. You spend more time at work, or with family, and less time going out and getting plastered with your buddies. As this happens you might meet new people and think "hey, a new friend! I can't wait for us to hang out and get into crazy mischief!" Everything goes well until you find something out about said new friend that makes you realize what you've gotten yourself into. They might be someone that runs around naked a lot, or someone that has given up 16 children for adoption. Or one minute you guys are best buds, and the next minute they disappear off the face of the earth. You will wonder what happens to them, but the friendship wasn't to be. You will realize you have a great group of friends, and you didn't need that new friend anyway. Furthermore when you told them that your core group of friends likes to get drunk and sleep together, in a purely plutonic snuggle-sandwich kind of way, they judged you. Who needs that?!
4. You still won't have time to get into a serious relationship - who needs it man? They might cramp my snuggle-sandwich style.
5. You will try crazy things in a desperate bid to figure out who you are - Did you catch that bit about Roller Derby up there? Yeah I'm going to try out for a Roller Derby team. I started skating with a few of them tonight. Did I mention I haven't been on roller skates since I was 10? What makes me want to skate around in a cute outfit bashing into other chicks? The world may never know, but I do know I need to learn how to skate better. To be fair I skate fine, I'm having a little trouble figuring out the whole stopping thing tho...
6. You will start seeing problems with "kids these days" - You know what's the MOST ANNOYING THING EVER?! Sometimes at work when people between the ages of 17 and 22 come in they are listening to music on their cell phones. What wrong with that you might ask? Well they are listening to the cell phones play out loud. Thats right, theme music. Kids now have theme music that they play, out loud, no matter what. Do you have any idea how obnoxious it is to listen to cell phone quality music as you try to explain how to special order carpet runners because the jerk-ass customer won't turn it freaking off?!? It's awful, thats how it is.
I guess life is what you make of it, but lately I've been more interested in Survivor then what is going on in mine. I'm sure it's only because I don't get to start my new job until the 21st, but in the meantime, I'm getting sick of learning. I thought I was supposed to be done with that when I got out of college?
Eastern Alumni Girl.
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