Spring Break
Future looms for columnist
Steve Markley
Issue date: 2/17/06 Section: OpEd Page
As Jack Twist says in Brokeback Mountain, this is one bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. All around me, I see my friends finding jobs, getting into graduate schools and nailing down those $40,000 per year jobs straight out of college. Meanwhile, I spend most of my time waiting for my roommates to all leave so I can put a spoonful of peanut butter on my chest and eat it off with my finger while I watch reruns of Saved by the Bell.
It's February, and I've hit full-on panic mode. I have less than three months before I'm cut loose from the safety of Miami's campus and must face something that doesn't exist here. No, not minorities - I'm talking about the real world. This is a mythical place where it definitely ain't cool to get drunk four nights a week and scream at strangers as you walk back from the bars that you were meant to be born as a woman.
Basically, I'm freaking out. Sure, it's easy for all you business majors and accounting people and education majors with your GPAs that are higher than is mathematically possible. You know what I'm good at? Making jokes about penises. That's it. One time I tried to take up the yo-yo and ended up strangling a newborn kitten.
With this lack of talent in mind, I went to the career services building to fill out a resume, which included nothing but editor of The Miami Student (an organization where all my superiors have assured me in no uncertain terms that they would rather put a toothpick in the nail of their big toes and kick a wall before ever recommending me for anything). In order to fill up a page, I resorted to putting down that my mom once told me I was really good at building with Legos when I was eight (in fairness, she usually only said this when she didn't have to cut up my stool with a plastic knife to find the pieces I'd swallowed).
So after the career services lady told me I'd probably be good at pumping gas if there was any establishment left in the country that still did that, I decided to simply write down on a piece of paper what it was that I wanted out of life.
The problem is, what I really want is for a big wad of fame and fortune to come crashing into my lap, so I went to the Internet and Googled "big wad in my lap." The results were not exactly what I had in mind, but it's good to keep your options open.
Anyway, at this point it's all spinning out of control. I haven't taken the GRE. I haven't applied to any job after the summer. I haven't so much as looked at a grad school's Web site. I told my parents I won a fellowship from Duke University. I don't even know what a "fellowship" is.
It's even worse because I just know when all these people who write me hate mail are rich and successful and making crude advances at their housekeeper, (likely an undocumented worker) and exploiting all the minorities they can, I'm going to have to admit that they were right: I'm not going anywhere in life, I was never that funny and according to graffiti in Culler, I am probably gay.
It's February, and I've hit full-on panic mode. I have less than three months before I'm cut loose from the safety of Miami's campus and must face something that doesn't exist here. No, not minorities - I'm talking about the real world. This is a mythical place where it definitely ain't cool to get drunk four nights a week and scream at strangers as you walk back from the bars that you were meant to be born as a woman.
Basically, I'm freaking out. Sure, it's easy for all you business majors and accounting people and education majors with your GPAs that are higher than is mathematically possible. You know what I'm good at? Making jokes about penises. That's it. One time I tried to take up the yo-yo and ended up strangling a newborn kitten.
With this lack of talent in mind, I went to the career services building to fill out a resume, which included nothing but editor of The Miami Student (an organization where all my superiors have assured me in no uncertain terms that they would rather put a toothpick in the nail of their big toes and kick a wall before ever recommending me for anything). In order to fill up a page, I resorted to putting down that my mom once told me I was really good at building with Legos when I was eight (in fairness, she usually only said this when she didn't have to cut up my stool with a plastic knife to find the pieces I'd swallowed).
So after the career services lady told me I'd probably be good at pumping gas if there was any establishment left in the country that still did that, I decided to simply write down on a piece of paper what it was that I wanted out of life.
The problem is, what I really want is for a big wad of fame and fortune to come crashing into my lap, so I went to the Internet and Googled "big wad in my lap." The results were not exactly what I had in mind, but it's good to keep your options open.
Anyway, at this point it's all spinning out of control. I haven't taken the GRE. I haven't applied to any job after the summer. I haven't so much as looked at a grad school's Web site. I told my parents I won a fellowship from Duke University. I don't even know what a "fellowship" is.
It's even worse because I just know when all these people who write me hate mail are rich and successful and making crude advances at their housekeeper, (likely an undocumented worker) and exploiting all the minorities they can, I'm going to have to admit that they were right: I'm not going anywhere in life, I was never that funny and according to graffiti in Culler, I am probably gay.
