UPDATE FROM THE FAR EAST

I'M A TEACHER!!

I've been in China exactly 1 month, so here's to my first post from abroad. Yesterday was my 1-monthiversary with Shanghai, and now I feel like we're dating. I feel like we understand each other and it will only get better from here.

Sh!t is cheap here, yo. China is a country for the commoner. Bottled water is 25 cents in convenience stores. I ate dinner for 9 kuai ($1.30) twice last week. The metro is 60 cents a ride, roughly, and I've been practicing Chinese EVERYWHERE.

My kids are adorable. I teach a class of 14 4th graders in English, and 2 classes of 42 6th graders at the "local school," which is attached to our international school. Still waiting on the first paycheck, which will hopefully feel awesome and fuel my travel expenses and habit of having adventures as often as possible.

Yesterday I came back from Chabad, after breaking fast after the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, sprinted through the gate at the school (where I live for freeeeeeeee) and then changed and sprinted back out to catch a subway train to go to the mall, near the center of the city, to meet my friend Lucy from high school.

The security guard commented at me, "Hen mang, ma?" (You're very busy, no?)
I responded yes. That pretty much describes my life here-- VERY busy. This job is a job. I work 7:45-5pm usually, depending on the work load and planning demands of that week. Tonight my coworkers are getting together for some homemade chili.

Other than that, it's been Chinese food overload and I'm KIND OF liking it =p

Lunch time. Till later,
Chineseified Becca

Southern Charm

Many New Yorkers have told me that Maryland is a southern state. Being from Maryland, I know that Maryland is a mid-Atlantic state. Never have I been more sure of this than now. Life here in North Carolina is decidedly more southern than it is in Maryland.

I have to say, this place is beautiful. The local college campus is hidden behind the trees. Campus is green and well-kept with stunning architecture. A towering stone chapel is visible from nearly everywhere.



Local traffic is light, although this may be an artifact of the pre-school season. Everyone on campus has been friendly and helpful, which I cannot say of the people at my undergraduate institution. To top it off, my apartment is great(I'm now accepting visitor applications).

There's plenty to say about how a lot of things aren't open on Sunday that would be in Maryland, or how slow things seem to be here, but I think these are illusions in my head. Class starts next week. There'll be nothing slow after that.

School started

I don't have time to write this post.

I'm going to China quite soon

I leave for China at 11:05 tomorrow morning. That is very soon from now, considering it's 4:45 pm in New Jersey. I feel like my whole summer has been building up to this, from answering the question "So, what are you doing next year?" to spending the last three weeks at home and in NYC mad chillin' and saying my goodbyes. Things I will miss: diversity, non-Asian cuisine, my family, my car. It should be really exciting though, the whole experience, I mean.

I'll let everyone know what living in the real Shnagi is like. Care packages are appreciated (especially those containing remnants of things like "freedom of speech," "uncensored Internet," and "capitalism.").

PEACE OUT, U.S.A.!

-Becca

Wow, People Still Write in This!

So I just returned last night from my whirlwind Euro adventure. Possibly the only positive part of returning was finding out that people still write in this... and eating Chinese food. Well done, folks.

So it is 6:30 am, and I can't remember the last time I was up this early without a reason. The crazy things jet lag will make you do! The trip, needless to say, was amazing. Kristen and I visited 8 countries in 7 weeks, stopping at all the famous monuments, drinking all the of famous drinks, and eating all of the famous food. Mussels in Brussels, gyros in Greece. It was tiring and fast-paced but exhilarating and relaxing. Conflicting ideologies, I know, but somehow possible.

Kristen and I managed not to fight really at all. I guess its a result of us both being ridiculously awesome. At this point we have been apart for almost 9 hours, which is about 9 times longer than we have been separated in the last 2 months. Withdrawal much?

Returning home is a strange thing. I thought leaving school would finally make me recognize the end of an era. However, it is returning from Europe that has done it more than anything. Sort of like this trip was an extension of college, and now its officially, irreversibly over.

I guess all I can do now is fuck around for a month, fill out all the necessary paperwork, and then get on with my real-life job. I don't want to see unexcited, though. I am thoroughly convinced that my real-life job and real-life life will be awesome. Mostly because, as aforementioned, I am awesome. Also, in need of a new descriptive word.

Until next time!
-Jenna

Thoughts on my summer

"What are you doing this summer?" is a question everyone gets during June, July and August, and it's of special interest when you've just graduated and the question turns into "Oh, congrats, so what are you doing now?"

Well, actually, funny you ask. I work for minimum wage for my apartment complex and watch a lot of TV shows and play Scrabble on Facebook.

Somehow, my days become busy. And by "busy," I mean I'm not hunting for things to keep me occupied. For example, this weekend I had something to do at ALMOST every moment, between my job, my friends, the pool, going out, waking up the next morning and not remembering the previous night but going to my job anyway, etc. Yesterday I worked in the middle of the night and then slept till 3 pm. Upon waking up, I had tomato risotto let over from Friday night and put on the Food Network. This is my life, currently.

But this post-grad hanging out lifestyle in the college town of every college student's dreams (I joke) is ending on Saturday when I move out. For good.

Am I ready? This is a question I can't answer. It's been a summer of drinking, goodbyes, lasts, playing in DC and prepping myself for moving on.

It should be a really good week, because so many people I know are in the same zone: the live-it-up-one-last-time zone. (I thought this was supposed to happen during finals week and post-graduation weekend, but conveniently, it has happened again.) Saturday night everyone got smashed, there were a ton of people just in for the weekend, and unfortunately I was too drunk to come out of Saturday night with even more than 6 photos (appalling). I just want to make the best of everything and maximize my time with everyone I love so much and will miss beyond belief.

Becca

My Life on Speed

Speed. Not the scalar property, but the drug. My life is on speed. Well, possibly crack cocaine.

As someone mentioned earlier, life after graduation is busy. Coaching two swim teams and working in a lab has been overwhelming. Each work day is about 12-14 hours long and what little social life I had has been further reduced to almost nothing. Fortunately, my summer team is 3-0 and lab work is going well. The other coaches on my summer team are doing an excellent job coaching, and Jenny and Melissa have been organizing social events for the little ones.

I still haven't finished the thank you cards for my graduation. I have time to write a quick entry, but I didn't bring the cards with me to write them. Perhaps I should do the cards instead of seeing people tonight.

Yesterday was the 4th of July. After a day of lab work and working on my car, I went to watch fireworks on the roof of Commons 3 with Eric and the visiting Jansen. Its crazy how easy it is to get on the roof of that building. You need to be good at climbing or at least 6' to unlock the guard for the ladder, but once its unlocked anyone can come up the ladder. The fireworks view from the roof was amazing. We could see at least a dozen fireworks displays in the Washington, DC area.

I was extremely paranoid about getting caught. Everytime I heard the air conditioning units on the roof start, I thought it was the cops. My heart was racing, but that was probably just the speed racing through my veins.

Kyle

Oh, Google Chrome

So I am actually not as bad about posting as one might think. In fact, I almost finished a life-of-Leslie update last week when, in my haste, I accidentally x-ed out of the blog tab on Google Chrome. Needless to say I was frustrated to have carefully thought about and then articulated my goings ons, so I boycotted the blog for yet another week. Mature.

Anyhooo my life has consisted of working at the clinic, seeing my little brother graduate high school, getting mild food poisoning after a friend's comedy show, more graduation parties, and procrastinating the packing for my inevitable move July 2nd. Work is the usual... a patient telling me that I don't know how to do a proper lunge (um. excuse me, WHO is working in a PT clinic and WHO injured their knee? yea that's right, so shut the fuck up scrub. just because you're too uncoordinated to pull off a simple lunge doesn't mean i don't know the correct form), another man complaining about his "lack of care" (perhaps if you didn't come more than 30 min late for your appointment slot the therapist would have had time to do your manual work), and of course trying to hammer out the details of my fulltime employment upon returning from Europe. By the way, I LOVE what I do. Just sometimes I deal with assholes. Big ones. With injury induced angst.

Although there are a lot of major adult-morphing changes in my life, I was glad to see at Jenna's graduation party that things really haven't changed that much. It's good to know that at this point in our lives we can drain a plastic bag full of vodka on a train platform, pre-game while on the subway (why did we have to hide the bottles if it was actually ok Jenna?), sneak into a private party by dropping the all powerful name of "Mikey Horn", and finally- but my all time favorite- we can still pee behind gas stations... or any other random place for that matter. We're growing up, but our youth isn't dead my friends. Stay young at heart, and you will forever be creative in your drinking exploits and urination locations. Until next time, Les.

Mozletov

So far, life post-graduation has been really busy. Every day it seems like there are a million things to do! While my parents are at work I've been taking care of my brother; driving him to doctors appointments and physical therapy, etc. Then I have my own things to take care of. On top of which, there seem to be infinitely more family extravaganzas and get-together's than I've ever been to before in my life. My dad being one of ten children and my mom's mom being one of twelve, I guess it's a little understandable. But with such a large family and so many events- which are always trips of at least three or more days- it has been hard lately to find time to relax or see people around the area. How can they expect me to go out and get a job if I'm surrounding with these family parties as soon as I graduate!? haha. I just got back from a batmitzvah in New Jersey last night; I've never met Emily, but she's a great hebrew reader and her parents know how to throw an awesome party! She's like my cousin once removed or second cousin... my brain hurts from trying to figure all the family links out the past several days.
Anyway... hopefully life will chill out a little bit now. That's all I want from the summer really.

-Mia

WTF, College?

So I left College Park yesterday. Packed up my room, mopped the unruly floor (at Kevin's insistence), and drove my appropriately sized car out of that hell hole. As glad as I should be to get out of a city that administers $75 parking tickets and rains cockroaches, I could not miss it more. Where else can you go out to a bar and run into 75% of your friends? Where else can you get $2 drinks on a Saturday night? Where else are the bar patrons all sloppy drunk and underage? Certainly not Manhattan.

As I think about it more and more, I realize that college is sort of a fucked up institution. You are expected to leave your life behind, and start a whole new one elsewhere. Only to realize that, after 4 years, you are expected to leave THAT life behind and start ANOTHER new one. All of your friendships that you spend years building disperse.

I probably should have realized coming to Maryland that most of my friends would end up in the DC area. Doesn't make it any easier, though. Now we are all going to have to learn to talk on the phone (which is so 1990s), and put in effort to stay in contact with each other. Certainly won't be the same, though I hope we all don't drop the ball on visiting each other (hint, hint).

Don't mean to be a downer, but for real, leaving college sucks.

--Jenna

Great Expectations

It was only two weeks ago that Onyinyechi Eke told her fellow graduating Terps that in order to be successful, we had to "do hard things." Unfortunately, I want nothing more than to sit around and do easy things. How will I be judged for what I do and do not do in this summer before I move on to bigger and better things?

Don't know. Sort of don't care.

I took a mini vacation last week to spend some time with friends that I won't see very often after the summer. The weather was great and the outdoor pool on campus was open. Jenna says that the most beautiful people are at the outdoor pool. What she means to say is that almost everyone there is young and has a nice (or at least decent) body they don't mind showing off. Either way, we hung around the pool last week synthesizing vitamin D and photodamaging our DNA.

On Monday, a few of us went to Lake Anna in Virginia to chill on the water. My dad has a grill rigged to our pontoon so we did a little bit of jetskiing and grilled on the water. Later in the afternoon, we ran the prop into something hard and Grillboat had to take the rest of the day off. Sorry, Grillboat. Get well soon <3.

Alas, the real world smacked me in the face this week when I had to go back to work. I love working in the lab though. Also, my Biochemistry paper is up on Pubmed in its full glory, so I'm on a science high. I also have been going out drinking at night this week. This is good because I'm (a) not drinking during the day and (b) not drinking until I'm drunk which means I'm not an alcoholic.

"I haven't taken shots since college!"

--Becca, University of Maryland Class of 2010

--Kyle

Home, home on the range

So, now that I have been a real person for 2 days, I see that nothing in my life has changed. I still find alcohol very enticing, my highest aims are to one more time swim in the fountain post-2 a.m. when I return to campus and I don't see anything more important in my life than my friends. I haven't matured at all since receiving my (fake) diploma and I'm really quite happy about that.

After reading what everyone else has written to this, I have several thoughts and questions.

1. Who is Mia? Apparently we were at the same graduation for Comm, and I don't know her..?

2. Fruit Rupes, you double majored in Commercial Spanish and whateverelseyoumajored in? No sabia esto antes! Es una lastima que nunca hemos charlado en espanol cuando hemos estamos borrachos. ay!

3. I didn't know we were allowed to use profane language in this blog. Profane language is my favorite.

Right now I'm at home in New Jersey. I came home to hang with my family and get some important things done like looking for new glasses frames, shoe shopping, a haircut, visiting my grandparents and hopefully booking a flight to China. We'll see how all of that goes. I think I'm going to go back to College Park on Thursday, assuming home will have driven me up a wall by then anyway.

FOMO hasn't kicked in yet, fortunately. I don't want to think about the fact that I missed Big Ass Drafts at Cstone tonight (normally one of my favorite nights of the week, besides the Thurs/Fri/Sat trifecta). Instead, I had graduation dinner with my family and apparently have failed at seeing any of my home friends because my home friends and I are all lazy bums and driving cars to see each other takes too much energy.

Thank the lord for NYC, where I'm going tomorrow. I consider myself among the luckiest of human beings who are blessed to live in the suburbs surrounding the greatest city in the world. I'm going to hop on a bus and go there. It's going to be easy and I sure as hell am not going to take it for granted because frankly, New York kicks Washington, D.C.'s ASS (I have confirmed this after 4 years of metro-ing there. It's a proven fact).

--Becca

Dearest Dearests

So Chris Frank just left. An emotional moment to say the least. Love you C-Frank-explains-it-all.

Anyway, first and foremost I want to congratulate everyone on this blog on a job very well done. We've made it my friends, now we must go where no man has ever gone before, that is, we must go out and live what we were born to do. I hope everyone does great things.

I'm watching the Lost finale right now and honestly this show fucking sucks. Its a bunch of unbelievable, convenient, unrelated phenomenon summing to one really shitty drama. Unnecessary aside.

Onto some of my quotes from today, recorded gracias a Gyles K. Daniel.

"I was so depressed all yesterday and today. College is over, life just goes downhill after college."

"I wish I had done 5 years."

"The Handsome Men's Club will never die."

But we mustn't dwell on the past, we did what we could, we lived it up while we were young, and fuck y'all I'm still gonna live it up. Jenna tried to tell me last night that partying and smashing aren't all there is to life. I disagree whole-heartedly. The one thing I learned in Spain, legitimately, is that there is more to life than working all day. Actually, those were the closing lines from the professor during la ultima clase de historia medieval.

But enough life lessons, I'm only 22, what do I even know?

Kyle says I'm supposed to write about myself so here is me: My name is Eric, in case you haven't figured out who this is yet, I was born in Lancaster Pennsylvania, one of the cutest, most adorable towns ever (not biased at all, I swear), and I hope to return there some day. It embodies who I am very well: clean, a little old-fashioned, a lot of German-Americans, pretty much 50-50 in terms of political ideology, people there love good beer and cars. I don't think I've changed too much since High School, except for having much shorter hair and a few more notches on my belt. My favorite thing to do in the entire world is to go to the gym, it has been for a long time, and it's a time-consuming hobby. During the past 4 years there is not a doubt in my mind that I spent more time in Ritchie and the ERC than studying. I just finished up a B.A. in Commercial Spanish and a B.S. in Physiology & Neurobiology. I don't think I learned a single new thing about the Spanish language in all of college, just refined my skillz, but definitely learned a good bit about biology. Spanish classes (shout out to Resrie) were 438103743x better though.

Next year I'll be at GWU, studying medicine, ballin out, fucking bitches, takin out loans in place of making money. Props to Obama for shortening how long I'll have to pay back my student loans, and on lowering the percentage of my salary I'll have to dedicate to paying them back. But first I gotta make it through this summer. I strongly suspect it will be a dull one, filled with lots of early nights and beers on this couch I'm sitting on right now (drinking a beer ironically).

That's all for now.

Eric

PS - Do hard things!

One amazing day after the other

YESTERDAY I GRADUATED FROM
COLLEGE

and it feels
OH SO GOOD.

My ceremony was at 2:30 in Ritchie Collesium. One of my older sisters, Mercy, flew in from Oklahoma. She was there along with my parents and my wonderful little brother, Nathan. They were soooo supportive, and I was ecstatic to have them there for such a monumental occasion. I ran into some friends from my major (Communication), and a few of my professors- one of which I have done a lot of research and side-work for. She has really been a great influence on me and I have such respect for her.
These past two months have been reallyyyyyyyy intense for my family- a rollercoaster of emotion every. single. day. Without going into the entire schpeal, my little brother got a horrendous infection in his tonsils, throat, and chest cavity which nearly took his life. He was in the ICU of the Shock Trauma unit for 6-7 weeks, easily the "sickest person in the hospital" for a while, according to several of his nurses. He had something extremely rare, and EXTREMELY dangerous. In short- he was literally on the verge of death; an unbelievably difficult thing to wrap your head around. He is my best friend, brother, other half... I've grown up and shared everything with him for my entire life... so the thought of him just suddenly not being there, ever again was just beyond my comprehension. And thanks to the amazing staff at UMMC, I will (hopefully) never have to face those terrifying thoughts again. He is alive and well... moving, eating, talking, living, laughing, cracking sarcastic, smart-ass comments which I never thought I would love so much... I feel so blessed. So you can imagine my graduation + the presence of my brother was just overwhelmingly happy for me yesterday.

Then today was my graduation party shin-dig! I have a pretty huge family (my dad is one of TEN kids... so, yeah)... many of them live on the west coast but timed their visits to the east coast to overlap with my party! My sister and I woke up at 10:30 for our 11 am nail apt. with my mom- ballerrrr timing on our part, especially since we had no alarm set haha. It was such a nice treat, especially for Mercy who lives in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma, and doesn't get these things done... ever. She felt like such a rockstar she said, ahaha.
We ran around and did a couple errands, and then headed over to my party! SO MANY OF MY RELATIVES WERE THERE! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I was so beyond happy, I was beside myself with LOVE! hhaaha I don't mean to go all mushy on here but I don't know how else to express it.... so many people I love, all in one place, just happy for me and my brother and our family. Everything felt okay. I had people asking what my plans were, but it was all without pressure. It was just in genuine interest in my future and in me, which is infinitely better than the nosy, intrusive and pushy "Whaddya wanna do!?"
I wish people would never ask this question. I feel like saying "Well I think I'll go home... take a nap... maybe get something to eat... watch Law and Order later..." hahaha. Really... am I supposed to have my life figured out right now!? Gimme a break, society. I've been going through the rythms of public education for SIXTEEN YEARS... haven't I earned a couple months to just relax?! I declare I have. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm not going to become a lazy fuck who mooches off their parents until they're 40, but I am taking this summer to chillllll. And just appreciate all that life has given me, and blessed me with. Because really, I am SO lucky. No debt. A brother/best friend who has been given life again, and in turn has renewed my life. I am in love with his nurses- who ALSO came to my party today. Brought me to tears. They saved his life, and now they are amazingly close family friends. I have parents and a family who LOVESSSSS ME. And really... what more can I ask for than to be surrounded by the people who love and care about me more than anyone?!?
yeah, I can't think of anything either.
Life feels oh so fucking good, and I am thankful beyond words for everything and everyone.

Toodles!!!!!
<3 , Mia

This Week Killed 24.6% of my Liver

Yesterday I graduated from college. Fin.

Kidding. My name is Leslie Keegan, and I just graduated from UMD with a BA in Spanish. I was also Pre-Physical Therapy, which gives you nothing... as in if you were to look at my transcript without knowing that I plan to continue on to graduate school, chances are you'd be confused. And probably judge me a little.

Yesterday was an interesting day to say the least. I learned that it is possible for a ceremony graduating 80 people can last 2.5 hours, I learned that a certain Japanese major likes horses and wants to die looking at clouds, and (most importantly) I learned that I am secretly a giant bitch who has no trouble publicly denying the hug of her department head. Celebrations were in order for all that learning, and I couldn't have asked for better friends and family with whom to par-tay. PS- got the entire Hoopla game filmed.

As for the future, I am continuing my job as a physical therapist aide in a sports medicine clinic in Silver Spring (aaahh... THAT'S why she majored in Spanish) during the month of June before traveling through Europe with my younger brother James. After that, more of the same but in a clinic in Bethesda and/or Germantown for about 2 years until I go back to school. Then you may all call me Dr. Leslie. Or Dr. Awesome. Whichever feels more natural. I'm excited to see what life throws my way, and to read about the exploits of my friends. I love you all.

Yesterday I graduated from college. Still in denial.

-Leslie

Turns out you really CAN do it!

Yesterday, I graduated from college much like many of my relatives did before me. You see, I'm no first generation terp. In fact, in many ways I was born to be a terp. I am the daughter of two terps, the grandaughter of two terps and even the great grand daughter of a terp. Both my sisters were terps and I have so many aunts, uncles and cousins that were terps it's fair to say anything I did in college AT LEAST someone else in my family had done before me. With that being said, there is no place I would have rather graduated from and no other mascot's nose I would have wanted to rub for luck.

I used to think my parents were lying when they told me I could do anything I put my mind to, but at this moment in my life I have a very hard time disagreeing. I got into my dream graduate school, just signed a lease for a great apartment in a city I love, and to put the cherry on top am traveling around Europe this summer with one of my best friends. Indeed, my life is good. I have no reason to believe I deserve any of this, but I do think that four years of hard work and some serious To Do lists certainly didn't hurt.

My name is Kristen and I graduated yesterday with a double degree in International Business and Finance and a minor in Spanish. In the next few months, I'll be telling you about my adventures around Europe, moving to New York City and all about getting my Master's in Public Adminstration, Public & Non-profit Management from New York University (NYU). Fingers crossed this degree will teach me more about how microfinance can be used in Africa to help people suffering from diseases of poverty. I look forward to blogging more soon.

Best,
Kristen

hail, not-entirely-nourishing mother.

Yesterday I graduated, which is not to say I'm any wiser for the experience. Any sagacity I've managed to accrue these past four years has been the result of a series of tiny steps. College has been, well, graduated- any change happened slowly, not overnight. So for me, graduation is just a walk across a stage. No big change, no great realization.

I'm pretty sure my life after Maryland is going to be the same way. I have a BS in Computer Science, so I'll be heading to Northern Virginia midsummer to start working. I'll learn new software, new systems, and new coworkers, and I'll grow- slowly. I might have a few bills to rub together, too, which should prove interesting and possibly act as a catalyst for a bit more change. I don't think that sort of thing will go to my head, though, since I'm way too used to being broke in one way or another.

I'm still the same Kevin- I still want to write and think and have fun. Only now I'm a Kevin with a piece of paper that says I'm smart and know stuff. I guess after Maryland we'll see what it is I actually do know.

Kevin

Yesterday I Graduated from College

Yesterday I graduated from college.

I got a B.A. in Communication from the University of Maryland, with a minor in Spanish Languages & Cultures and a minor in Chinese Language. What now?

Graduating was kind of anticlimactic. I got a fake diploma that was a piece of nice paper with a turtle on it. Big whoop.

I thought the last night of college as we know it would be like "WHOAAAAAA WE'RE REAL PEOPLE!!!!" but instead it just involved waiting on the same dumb lines for overcrowded College Park bars, not getting in and resorting to my favorite place on campus, the fountain. No regrets. I love the fountain and I loved watching the drunk graduates who considered it a rite of passage to race in it and fall clumsily.

Three months from today I'm headed to Shanghai, China, where I'm going to teach English to small Chinese children and the thought of it just makes me smile. It's not that I'm sick of the U.S., it's just that this is a time in life to (okay, fine) put off growing up and having a 9-5 job in an office (sorry, Jenna, but you're making bank, no hard feelings). Not that I'm putting off growing up, either, it's just awesome that I have the chance to leave and I'm going to do it.

Do I feel any more like a "real person" than I did yesterday before getting my name called and shaking the hand of the head of the Department of Communication at UMD? Nope. I still look 18.

--Becca

Yesterday I Graduated...

Yesterday I graduated college. It was surprisingly surreal and today I can honestly say I feel no different. I am supposed to be a grown up now, right? Then why hasn't my binge drinking slowed, and why does the sound of the ice cream truck coming down my road right now still get me WAY too excited? Maybe it's too soon. Perhaps I need to wait until my career takes off to fully feel the effects. What career, you ask?

Well, after years of soul searching, I came to the realization that I have no soul. And thus, I am diving head first into the shallow pit that is the business world. Only sort of kidding.

I double majored in Finance and Operations Management. Starting August, I will be moving to Manhattan to join the ranks of the largest consulting company in the world as a technology analyst. You may be thinking, "Oh, wow, a technology analyst. I bet she knows a lot about technology." To that I answer, "While that is a logical assumption, I am actually technology illiterate. " Really, my family won't even let me touch the TiVo at home in case I break something and I frequently think my printer is broken when I have forgotten to plug it in. Frequently.

But I have been assured that is OK. In reality I am going to be doing strategic consulting in the technology realm. It might sound boring and vague, but it is my dream job, and I could not be more excited. Apparently my problem solving skills will keep me successfully afloat -- and my business degree can't hurt. Hopefully the job description will become more clear in the near future.

All I know is that soon I will be like that woman from Up in the Air, traveling all the time (though unmarried, thank goodness). But not too soon. First I get one last Hurrah in Europe, traveling for 6 weeks with my friend Kristen, who you will hopefully meet soon. I will try to keep you posted during our travels, depending on the abundance of internet cafes in various cities.

I don't know where I will live or who I will live with when I get back -- that much is uncertain. But stay tuned to find out.

--Jenna

The Day After Yesterday

Yesterday, I graduated from college. That makes today the beginning of my life in the real world. At a young age, we're told that the real world is a big scary place where everything is hard and people will walk all over you. Life is hard and nothing is free. Blah blah blah (not the Ke$ha song).

I never really understood why people send young adults to college, a place second only to home school in its degree of insulation from reality, to prepare for a life in the real world. Do undergraduates really come out with the skills to survive in today's dog-eat-dog world?

Don't know, don't care. I'm going to school for another five years. TFG.

My BS (aptly named) in biochemistry is sort of what you might call, I don't know, useless (?). So I'm going to Duke University to further my education. Higher learning, knowledge, enlightenment, and all the like.

Only two and a half hours until my graduation party so I have to keep it short. I hope you will join myself and several of my good friends and fellow Terps as we leave College Park to go on to bigger and better things. Throughout the summer, we'll reflect on the past and look to the future. And as we go our separate ways, you can envy or pity us, or observe with indifference.

Grinnan Kevin is going to be so critical of this hastily written post.

-Kyle