Post Grad new beginnings

Yes, I changed my title. My header. My pages. 

The hopeful, job-seeking college student that created this blog, and the posts that filled it,
is no longer who I am in my new phase of life.

I'm one year into a new chapter, and so a new blog (and color scheme..) has ensued.

As a post-grad I have a lot to learn about the way the world works.

I have a new apartment in a new city & I need to learn how to take care of it without a chore chart and a handful of loving roommates.

I have a new(ish) job that I need to learn how to 1. keep and

2. become good at and seasoned in.

I have a new car I need to learn how to maintain without the help of my dad.

I have a completely new life that I need to learn how to live. 

Newly financially independent, recently college-educated and currently trying to figure out how I fit into this whole mess of adulthood. 

Join me, dear ones, and help me figure it out -- 

or at least drink some wine with me while we try.

It'll be a fun ride, I promise

I'm a graduate!

It finally happened, on Saturday I joined the world of college graduates, and I couldn't be happier! I thought I was going to leave feeling sad about leaving my friends, my roommates and the cutest apartment I may ever live in, but for now, the only thing I feel is excited. I'm ready to start the next chapter of my life and see where my career takes me!

It was the perfect ceremony; not too long, not too short and Wolf Blitzer (yes, the Wolf Blizter) gave a lovely commencement address to the College of Communications graduates. I walked across the stage, shook a few hands of people I didn't know, got my diploma and joined the largest alumni network in the world of proud Penn State grads. 

I am so happy to be finished with school, home with my family and figuring out my future. 

Now, I just have to find a job.

 

 

leave it to Sang to have the most creative cap of everyone, the 'wow' fingers were most definitely necessary

"You're too young to settle. Don't give up on your dream" -Wolf Blitzer

 

Cheers to the future

Easter Flowers.

It's early in the morning, well 8:30 -- early for this college senior, and all I want to do is crawl into a ball and go back to bed. That isn't on the agenda today, I have an exam in the afternoon so I have my pandora on a dreamy station, a steamy cup of coffee by my side and my window open so I can hear the birds and feel the breeze. I want to go back to bed, but this way of studying is an equally good alternative.

I'm studying for my final final. You read it right, the last exam I will ever take as a student at Penn State. I'll fill my brain with knowledge of mass media history for the next few hours, only to take the exam and lose half of the names and dates I had known so well an hour before. I wish I could revel in this a little more, but I still have several assignments and projects to keep me busy for the next few days.

I want to try to process the last four years, but summarizing what has happened, who I've become, who I've met, triumphs and shortcomings along the way .. it seems way too daunting of a task to even think of, let alone squeeze into a short little blog post.

I can't really summarize 4 years. Which is good, because nobody is asking me to. But I can say a few things about my current state of mind: Easter Flowers.

Since getting my driver's license, it's always been my task to go out with my sisters the night before Easter and buy my mom and grandmom Easter flowers. It's simple, sweet and is always a guarantee to make them happy. Never, in a million years, can I imagine giving my mom Easter flowers and having her be disappointed or dissatisfied. That constancy is a good thing.

I fear leaving my carefree and happy days of college and being jaded by the world; working a job that's miserable for a bit to get my foot in the door (likely) or working an 8-5 job that leaves me unfulfilled and totally drained (more likely). My fear in this isn't those jobs or those feelings, it's in not finding joy in my "Easter flowers."

My Easter flowers are what I'm doing right now. Listening to good music, drinking coffee, writing and admiring the still clam streets of my home through my window. Whether I'm studying for a test, having a qt, applying for jobs or just taking a few moments to relax, I hope the things that make me happy now will always make me happy. I hope that I am never dissatisfied with a clam, cool morning, my caffeine and Pandora streaming.I don't think I ever will. I don't think I ever could.

Here are some of our Easter flowers from this weekend:

 

Okay. Tucker isn't a flower, but how look stinkin' cute he is

it's really happening

time keeps moving

even though I wish it wouldn't sometimes.

Yesterday, I finished my last fall semester of college and also had the last day of my internship. I was, and am, so excited to put a semesters worth of hard work and sometimes stressful moments behind me and move forward to spring semester. Where I'm getting caught up, you see, is that I'll move into spring semester naturally and without effort. It will, as always, fly by at an incredibly speed. The only difference is that it'll be my last semester as a college student.

I'm not sure that I know how to function outside of being a student. I throughly enjoy staying up-late, blaming a cookie and coffee diet on exam stress and having someone else pay my rent. I'm not sure how much that flies in the real world.

But in honesty, it's not really leaving college that scares me. It's a life of ordinary that I'm afraid of. Perhaps I just watch The Office too much or maybe I've been tainted by 9-5 job cliches, either way, I'm worried that my last semester of college will be the last time in my life where I am free from restrictions on how to live.

But maybe, the only lessons I'll ever learn aren't the ones in this bubble of a college town. Maybe, and hopefully, the rest of my life will be phases of life lessons -- a constant state of growing, moving, changing -- all for the better, all pointing me in the direction of who I will be. And maybe, that's the lesson in itself; things change, we change, circumstances never stay still, and once we accept that, we can start to learn from it.

I don't want to leave, but I'm looking forward to where I'm going.

On a completely unrelated note, Florence + The Machine's Cosmic Love is the greatest song to ever happen to my finals week playlist. Actually, the entire Lungs album is. Give yourself a Christmas present if you don't already have it. 

I'm a senior!

I'm not sure if that's a good thing, or a scary thing. Regardless, this is how I felt as I exited the Carnegie building today after handing in my final assignment of my junior year