Hi Mom! Hi Dad! I'm home :)

Here's a quick bit of an article for those of the college grads who will be returning home.


The Chronicle of Higher Education
From the issue dated May 22, 2009

JUST ASKING

Verses of Economy
By STEVE KOLOWICH

Poetry is all about economy. Words are used with precision and thrift. But not all poetry is about economics. In fact, almost none of it is, and that is a tragedy, says Stephen T. Ziliak, an economics professor at Roosevelt University. "An economics without poetry" he says, "is an economics that is blind."

To supplement their studies, Mr. Ziliak encourages his economics students to compose haiku, the Japanese poetry that consists of three lines of verse in a 5-7-5 syllabic order. He assigns haiku challenges for bonus points on exams, and even holds haiku workshops as part of a course on rhetoric in economics.

Q: Mom and Dad, I'm home!
The job market is nasty —
Where is my bedroom?
A: Invisible hand:
Mother of inflated hope,
Mistress of despair!

Copyright © 2009 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

Original Link (http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i37/37a00604.htm)

Wandering off...

I've gotten the sense that this blog may have meandered away from the supposed intention of being helpful to college grads or ones to be.

Then I thought about it.

It's supposed to be about life after college. Nobody said that meant it had to be useful or insightful in anyway.

Then I realized that I lead a fairly boring, day in day out kind of life and it really can't be that entertaining to read about.

Today, for example, it's Mom's day. So I gave my mom her present this morning, went to church, came home had lunch. I made her strawberry shortcake and tea then flopped on the couch for most of the rest of the afternoon and watched a marathon of "Whose Wedding is it Anyway?" Which sadly, in between laundry and packing for the next week of puppy sitting that I'm doing, inspired me too browse through wedding dresses and start planning a wedding. A wedding, mind you, that is not on the horizon as of yet.

Moving on.

I heart Amazing Race! The finale was tonight, so of course I needed to watch. Yay! Asian kids for winning! I liked them. :) I was tossed between the brother/sister Asians and the Mom and Deaf son. I thought that they were two of the best teams on the race and would have been happy if one or the other had won.

Now it's iron chef time.

So you see, this is my life. Work and being absorbed by cable tv now that I have it. At least until my mom decides to downgrade to basic cable, in which no more wedding shows or iron chef for me. :(

That is that and if do anything that's actually remotely interesting, I'll be sure to tell all of you about it so that it may inspire your post-college life as well...

Props

I'd like to give a thumbs up to Cake Wrecks for making my mundane, after college life a little bit happier. I heart this blog. :) (and thanks to my boyfriend who introduced me to the blog).

Working at a College

Working at a college gives me a split feeling. I walked by a classroom yesterday with a bunch of students taking midterms and thought "I am so glad I am all done with that." Today kids were lugging there belongings out to their cars to go home or on vacation this week for spring break and again I thought "I don't have to do that anymore. Thank goodness that's all over with."

At other times though, especially with some of my friends still in school, I get a nostalgic feeling. Wishing I was back in school, for all the fun, stupid stuff that comes along with living so close to a whole bunch of other kids.

I think the year after college is a weird one. It's so in between everything.

This morning a gave myself a mental slap for living too much in the past. Moving forward can be one of the hardest things to do. All of the wonderful times I had, in England studying abroad, my senior year, the plays I was in, etc., left me feeling pretty off this past year. I told myself "you can remember them and be happy you did all those things, but move on, because there's so much more to do."

Ok. So I'm being a little, what's the word, sappy? philosophical? mushy? I don't know you pick, but it all counts.

Of course, everyone's experience after school will be similar in some ways but different in others. Or maybe just polar opposites. Either way, it's all something to take in.

I wish I could have gotten more feedback from all the people I asked what life after college was for them. It would have been nice to post a more varying range of things, but oh well. People can leave comments.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Mixed Feelings

I have come to have mixed feelings about being an adult. It has it's perks, I can drive, earn my own money, buy things if I want to, and make decisions.

Another part of me wishes to be a little girl again. Just playing and going to school wishing I was older. No worries about if my next paycheck is going to stretch as far as I need it to or if it's really going to take me 30 years to pay off my student loans. I've noticed a very upsetting trend the last couple months where my outgoing bills are a good percentage more than my incoming earnings.

I've found myself the last few days needing to slow myself down and take a breather. Part of the realization came from when I donned myself with a pink shirt and red socks Monday morning and then again today when I wore my brown shoes with a black outfit. I gave a sigh and shook my head at myself then I said "Well at least it isn't one black shoe and one brown shoe."

Anyway, the joys of after college life are up and down. Right now mine are looking like the stock market.