Spring Cleaning Revisited

Updates, changes and where that puts us now. What's been going so write that we haven't wanted to whine and blog?

Spring Cleaning

Updates, changes and where that puts us now.

What's been going so write that we haven't wanted to whine and blog?

A Job? What's that?

Oh, the first job after college. Then there's the notion that there are jobs, and "real" jobs. There's pay the rent jobs and why am I here jobs and this is soooo not worth it jobs. But all of them come with the feeling of cash falling into your hot little hands.

And how on earth does one find and obtain that "real" job in the Real World without experience and without a relevant degree. You can always be an Enterprise Rent-A-Car manager, they hire right out of colleges and I have a girlfriend that does just that. However for many of us the term "business manager" never appealed. So we went after other jobs.

Tell me about the first place you worked after college. Tell me about the job searching. And why you're no longer at that first place you worked after college.

Grad School?

Why on earth would we ever want to inflict grad school on our selves?

Better yet, why would we ever want to go through the process of applying to grad school? Argh! Make it stop! Make it stop! ... and it hasn't even started yet.

Relationships: after college

So in a very unscientific way (read: quick google search) I came up with these numbers on current college relationships. Some 13% of recent grads say that college helped them find their spouse.1 However some 63% of female students said that they believed they would find their future spouse while at college.2 There's obviously some discrepency here, but the real truth is that women aren't going to universities to get their M.R.S. (Thankgod!)

Sometimes it feels like there's a "senior scramble" as graduation nears where people who've been dating suddenly get engaged, or people who were casual feel the need to get serious and job hunt in the same market so they can move in together. But as you go to all these weddings you're still sitting with your girlfriends and the truth is that most of you are dating or not dating out in the real world. And it's a helluva lot more different than dating in college was.

General Feelings on Your College Experience

We've been digging up some feelings on the "so what now?" front that seem to play directly into the "that was college?" mentality. I'm going to offer this prompt as a way for us to expand, vent and rant on it as we see fit. Nostolgia is allowed as well.

Pat Yourself on the Back: I Think I Need an Upper.

So far I have carried the least weight on this blog when it comes to inspiring posts. While this may not be the most original of ideas, I think it will be fun for us.

A lot of our Lost Year revolves around failure - around those plans and ideas we had about Real Life that just went down the toilet. And, let's face it, it's not fun to write about your failures all the time. So tell me: what have you done, whether it be from the beginning of your Lost Year or from just earlier today, that you're proud of? That makes you feel accomplished? And I mean in even the tiniest, smallest of ways - or the big fat ways, if that's what floats your boat! (Floating....big and fat....oh, I'm awful.)

Write down as many things as you want, anything that you want - from "Ohmycrap I figured out what I want to do with my life!!!" to "I tried mussels today, and I didn't like them just like I knew I wouldn't (and I spit them all over the table) but dammit at least I tried them!"

Too bad I still haven't had the guts to try eating a mussel. Slime + food = just doesn't sound pleasant.

Culture Shock: Moving Away from College

Call for commentary:

What was it like moving away from college? Leaving campus for the first time in four years without expecting to go back must be akin to the feeling you would have if you were moving to Europe or Asia without knowing when, if ever, you would come back.

Where were you going? Did you want to go there or was it decided for you? Was it what you expected? Did your parents fight you on it? Was cost a shock? Was the neighborhood a shock? Did your roommate make you homicidal? Suicidal? Or just want to never come home again?

Share your trials, tribulations or expectations met or gone awry.

What do you want to be when you grow up? The pressure of having a Plan.

Call for commentary:

No one has ever gotten away from the "what do you want to be?" question. The only difference is when it turned from idle question into nagging reminder that your life was, as of yet, unfulfilled and you weren't on the Right Track to have a really good Plan.

There's a fabulous quote from the poet James Tate from an essay he wrote on poets/poetry and where his poetic originated:

As a child I was exasperated by the question: 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' Here you are, six years old, you know, trying to put together this little model airplane, and they say, 'What are you going to be?' I just wanted to say, 'I'm going to be seven. Next year I'm going to be eight. Leave me alone ... Whatever it is I'm going to be, let it be a surprise. Or I'd rather be nothing at all. And if you keep asking me this I'm probably just going to be a guy who avoids interviews.'

"The question persisted, but at the age of seven I started getting cagey and hit on an answer that got these people off my back. I told them I was going to be a writer, and that silenced them right away. And I went back to kicking my pet squirrel."

The question we pose: When did "what do you want to be?" go from friendly question to crazy, impossible, unbearable pressure?

WTF Name?

So some of these names we've chosen are more self-explanatory than others. Give a little (or long) explanation of where they come from just as a place to start.