To Catch a Predator

Here is the best part of facebook.

I can keep tabs of the 400+ students that walked across the stage at the GVSU fieldhouse four summers ago.

I'll acknowledge it. I am only friends with half of these people because I want to see how their lives have turned out differently than mine. Some have traveled the world. No joke, Christina Paruch has been to Milan, Spain, China, probably South America. Danny Patton has spent time in Brazil, Carolyn Courtade has been to Africa twice. Mackenzie Wellman did a "Semester-at-sea" whatever that means, but these are not the people that come up in conversations with my friends. (My legitimate friends that I affectionately reference as GAGWAGGERS.)

We like to talk about the 13+ girls from our graduating class that have given birth. The 9 individuals that have come out of the closet (one of which went back in), and the 25 people who are either engaged or married.

Jeez, Jenison.

But really, I see the baker's dozen of girls who have stumbled into unplanned pregnancies and I am so grateful that I have avoided that life. I look at these girls (or at least their facebooks) and I feel so sad for them.

They live in their parent's basements with an infant. They have perpetual bags and/or circles under their eyes. Some work third shift, others dump the kid off with grandma and grandpa so they can go out to the bar each weekend.

My 22 year old cousin is the mother of a beautiful ten month old girl that she shares with a 32 year old wannabe rockstar, who performs obscene rock songs in footie pajamas, and delivers medications to nursing facilities. They're not married. He gave her the herp. Clearly one of them is not feeling the committed relationship.

My sister is pregnant. My sister-in-law is pregnant. They are married. They have careers. They have homes with nurseries, and cars in which they can fit a car seat.

I live with Mom and Dad. I bum gas money off of them. I drive an unreliable beast of a gas guzzler, and am okay with living paycheck to paycheck. I will not be giving birth anytime in the foreseeable future.

Facebook provides an excellent cautionary tale to the single lonely girls my age.

Crack open another summer

So I finished my seventh semester as a college student.

Its always weird after that last final, because it hasn't fully set in that I won't have another paper due, an exam to cram for, or a project to finish until September.

I don't know what to do with myself.

I spent hours upon hours this semester agonizing over my french homework, creating documents for Keith Rhodes, and filling in my "grocery bag" items for Barb Ziemann. Now I have three disheveled folders spilling paper all over the floor in my room. Throwing them out seems to undo all of the work I did this semester.

Now what?

Winding it down.

My facebook is currently abuzz with several recurring themes, those overwhelmed with glee over a Spartan victory, those complaining of the cold weather, and the most prominant, my classmates anticipating college graduation.

I have been fairly oblivious to the world these last four years. Anything of value was directly related to my college student lifestyle. (Movie discounts, drink specials, 4am deliveries from Jimmy John's, and the occasional road trip to Kalamazoo/Detroit/Fort Wayne/Chicago).

Its so strange how shocked so many of my friends seem to be as the realize this bubble is about to burst.

Personally I have been thinking about graduation since my first semester at GVSU. Actually probably since the first time I worked a forty hour work week.

Its kind of nice to see those paychecks roll in, you know?

Anyway, unlike many of my friends I still have another year before I walk across that stage in the wrinkly blue gown after napping through one last lecture. Seriously, if Mark Paul Gosselaar is not my graduation speaker, I may not show up. So, now comes the search for an internship. Who wants to hire writers? I've watched my brother's search for adequate use of his comm. degree and the nerves start to set in.