Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: features

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Versus Magazine Online [Image based format]

I am getting pretty introspective in my old age. As a senior I am approaching my graduation with such a mixture of emotions I feel like I need counseling to sort them all out. My favorite pastime has become to sit and think about life while listening to reflective music. This includes Coldplay, Howie Day, U2 - anything that puts me in a trance. Comparing myself from four years ago to this present day, though, it would seem that I am going in the wrong direction.

Four years ago I was about to graduate high school. I was bursting for independence. I was one of the brightest in my graduating class - idealistic, responsible, and fielding scholarship offers from a number of schools. I had saved up money for school, and was full of energy and excitement about my upcoming college experience. Today I am the antithesis of my high school self. No one wants to hire me. I am in the bottom half of my graduating class, broke, morally corrupt, a delinquent employee for my campus job, and fearing graduation day as though it were a biblical plague. It is a running joke among friends that Vanderbilt will have to work hard to get me out of here; I will latch onto Wilson Hall with a Kung Fu grip.

It is strange that I should fear leaving college so much. In many respects, I am "so over" Vanderbilt. After eight semesters, I have had about enough of school and assignments. Now when a professor assigns a paper, they're about the twelfth professor to ask. Quite frankly, I am sick of assignments (which does not bode well for my future job performance, but I digress). I had already developed senioritis by my junior year. Most students go through similar burn-outs with school. Nothing, repeat, nothing compares with the feeling of last semester before graduation. A professor will start talking about all the material he or she wants to cover, and I fight hard to stifle a laugh. For all intensive purposes, I'm already gone.

What I do not want to say goodbye to is the college lifestyle. See if this sounds familiar: when I came to college, I noticed a regression into childhood. Without adult supervision, I watched too much TV, skipped class, ate sugary cereals, watched too much TV, took naps, broke/stained/lost most things I owned, watched too much TV, consumed mass quantities of junk food, and watched a lot of TV. Some of my friends were much more responsible than I was (not like that's hard). Their irresponsibility was more along the lines of going to bed without finishing an assignment, and then frantically doing it the next morning.

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