First, I have a practical question regarding graduation. You know how at the end of the ceremony, students throw their mortarboards up in the air? Is there someone I should be watching who instigates this, or will I just “know”? Is it supposed to be a natural reflex? And if we are throwing our mortarboards, can we be coordinated about it? Like, can we all try to throw them on the roof of Cupples? I know it’s far away, but I’m sure people in the first two or three rows could nail it.

I’ve taken an informal poll of adults I respect regarding what I should do after graduation, and here are the results: go to graduate school; don’t go to graduate school; work for a couple years and then go to graduate school; get a real job; travel; grow marijuana; find employment at a reputable strip joint in Vegas. And here is an actual thought I had a couple weeks ago: I could go to prison for a year or two. I’m thinking some medium security facility that would let me keep my laptop so I can write and play Solitaire-which really isn’t much different from my life now. And do you remember how ripped Linda Hamilton got in “Terminator 2″ after her incarceration? I could finally have a reason to start exercising!

This school helps you develop a certain amount of practical life-tools, but unfortunately, it doesn’t hand you a map towards a fulfilled life. Do you know what this school hands you? A diploma written completely in Latin. I do not read Latin. For all I know, my diploma will read, “Marisa Wegrzyn is a fart face.”

It’s not that I fear finding employment in today’s economy or that I feel my degrees in English and Theatre have prepared me for a lucrative career in bartending. I am about to enter this limbo-land that consists of equal parts giddy optimism and existential blues. Lately I’ve been weighing my post graduation options in terms of what will make me the least miserable. Is living in squalor as a starving artist an admirable thing or is living in squalor simply a life picking mouse shit out of my generic Fruit Loops? On the other hand, what are the ups and downs of holding a well-paying job where I watch the clock, pinch every minute out of my lunch break, and live for weekends?

There certainly are less depressing options, but even the fun ‘n’ fancy free options involve some form of misery. I’m not saying it’s like a Stephen King “Misery” where a psycho bashes my legs with a sledgehammer. I think we’d all be more fortunate if misery was always that blatant-”Clearly I am miserable because Kathy Bates broke all the bones in my lower legs”-but misery can be sneaky and subtle, and you’ll have to stick up for yourself if one day, after a little sleuthing in the dark corners of your soul, you realize that you’re not doing what you want to be doing with your life.

But I believe in happy mediums and there are days, quite a few, that it seems anything is possible; like it’s Saturday morning and I’m six years old. I may meet someone tomorrow who whisks me across the globe; I may get tremendously lucky or tremendously unlucky; or fall in love; or fall out of love; or get hit by a taxi; or get a job as a stripper and give a lap dance to a genie who grants me three wishes. Anything could happen. Especially that genie thing.

I know I spend a lot of time crapping on WU, but I only do it because I like this stupid place and I’ve enjoyed writing this stupid column for the past two years. I spend more time on these columns than I spend on legitimate school work. I’m not sure if the craftsmanship shows, but not every writer has the skills to reference Linda Hamilton and Kathy Bates in a single column.

So there’s another fortune cookie message: Work isn’t work if you enjoy the hell out of it. I know I’ll never have enough money to fulfill my dream of naming the psychology building Monkeybutt Hall; but I hope I leave here having etched some small mark on this campus, because WU has left a big greasy skid mark on me. Congratulations to the class of 2003, thank you to my loyal readers, and to the friends and faculty who have made the past four years worthwhile, I miss you already.

And so goodbye…

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2003 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Cadenza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.