Senior Year: The First Two Months

The beginning of the end came and went far faster than I had expected it to go. 

I moved in at the end of August, right before Labor Day and started doing homework basically as soon as school started (I mean, why wouldn’t have I have done that).  I applied for graduation in the second week of school just so I wouldn’t have to think about it.  I picked my capstone project for Communications based on  things that I enjoy to do – Social Media and creep on people – in order to get to do something fun for research. I’m working at City Hall as an Administration Intern.  I’m enjoying my last year as a collegiate Kappa Delta.

I’m doing things that college seniors are supposed to be doing, right?  So why do I feel so disappointed with how this year has turned out so far?  I know it’s only October, but I actually feel like everything is going so differently than I had planned.

I wanted to go out with my friends every week.  I wanted to enjoy spending time with my sisters.  Instead, I’m working two jobs just to make it by this semester and I never have time for anything.  I’m disappointed in the way things have gone.  I’m disappointed in my internship.

I started out having so much fun and enjoying it because I was being used for research and various tasks that took up time, but now I’m starting to feel like I’m actually useless here.  I ask for something new to do every time I come in and no one ever has anything – unless it’s Monday during a pay week, then I’m just folding everyone’s paychecks for 20 minutes. My skills – my finely tuned public relations and event planning skills – are not being used.  My creative writing skills are not being used.  Most of the time I spend my four hours there doing homework.  They actually had me cleaning mold off of books the other day – MOLD OFF OF BOOKS.  When I googled this mysterious mold, I came to the conclusion that it is probably Pink Algae and that’s actually not safe to be around period. COOOOOOOOL. As much as I want to intern here for the entire year, I feel like I don’t want to come back next semester. Give me a project, let me take over something other than the senior citizens calendar. When I asked for this internship in the spring it felt so right, I knew I wanted to do PR in some government office, but that’s not what this internship is. And I just can’t make myself like it anymore. I’m not being used to develop my abilities.

 As for working every weekend, I’m basically at Marcs as much as possible. While I love my store, I love being on campus too.  I always feel as if I’m missing things and every time I walk into the store my heart breaks a little bit more because I feel like I’m just walking into unchartered territory.  I’ve been there five and a half years and I feel lost every time I go in.  I don’t know a single person anymore.  Everyone I started with in September 2009 is now gone. Most moved on to different jobs and some just left the store for another one, but mostly I’m the only person in the front end who has been the same (minus my eight month stint at May/Green). I feel as if I don’t have friends there anymore. I actually started counting the months and days until I graduate so I can leave the store, even though I know that I might not get a job after graduation and I’ll be at 33PT until it happens, but I don’t want to be there forever.  Marcs is not where I will spend the rest of my life.  I can’t do it.  I just spent three years at one of the best Jesuit Universities in the country, I cannot stay at Marcs.

I’m missing my sister and friends.  The more snapchats I receive and the more pictures I see on Instagram, the more it makes me hate that my life is all about work and school.  No, I don’t want to rush my way into a full time job so I can afford to see my friends every weekend or so I can at least enjoy a weekend, but I want to see my sister.  I want to plan the bachelorette party without worrying about if I’m going to have time for anything.  I want to go pick out my Bridesmaid dress.  There are so many things I just want to do with Samantha and I can’t because school and work are priorities before everything else. And as for my friends on campus, we all have internships and homework to do so it’s hard to actually make plans and get things done.  But everyone else can find time to go out.  Not me.  Nope, I’m trapped in my dorm/study lounge/work doing things I have to do in order to make sure someone will hire me in 6 months. Fun in not an option.

This year I had goals of finding who I was going to be when I graduate. But I feel the further I move into the unknown, the less I know about myself.  What do I really want to do with my life? Public Relations?  I changed my Communications minor to a major just so I could study PR.  Event Planning?  I would love to plan weddings and special events for the rest of forever.  Get my MFA in Creative Writing?  Yeah, sure, just let me find enough money to pay for two more years of school in a state hundreds or thousands of miles away. I walked into this year thinking I knew what I was going to pursue when I got into the spring semester. Now I’m just trying to find an internship that will hopefully hire me for something that fits my degree at the end of it. I feel even more lost than I did when I started college three years ago.

And yet, I’m not overwhelmed with this semester.  The amount of work I do doesn’t seem to affect how I feel on a day to day basis. Sure, there are days when I just completely ignore homework and go on Total Sorority Move for four hours even though I have three assignments due in two days, but not even that makes me worry about how I’m going to get everything finished in time. I seriously feel so unfocused every day, I’m surprised I’ve made it this far in life.

So I guess what I’m saying world, is this:

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.  I won’t go to grad school next year and I will hopefully find a job.  But doing what is something that I still have to figure out. Because even after three years of hard schooling, I still don’t know crap.