I have come to the carefully considered conclusion that I do not want to graduate. Which sucks, because I'm not going to have a say in the matter in less than two weeks.

I already know I'll be coming back for graduate school, but I don't want to have to leave and come back at all. I just want to stay here, because for once, I'm actually happy and the thought of going "home" to Terabil makes me want to crawl under the covers and never come out.

It seems like just when I have things going well, when I seem to be doing things right-- I'm in a city I like, doing well in my art and my classes, surrounded by people I care about-- I'm just expected to drop it all and "start a life in the real world."

You know what? Fuck the "real world." I like the world I'm already in.

I keep getting asked what I'll be doing after graduation and frankly, I wish the hell I knew. I've had so much work this quarter I haven't been able to do more than a cursory job search, and while there are a lot of things I'd want to do, I've seen my roommate doing enough job searches and cover letters to know how few of those jobs would probably want me.

What I do know is that I would rather have my fingernails ripped out with pliers than spend any significant amount of time in Terabil. Unfortunately my mom would rather I stayed at home while I looked for a job, which might take months. My grandmother has also offered to let me live with her while I look for jobs in her city, which to me sounds like a much more palatable option, but my mom insists that there won't be enough space for both of us (notwithstanding the fact that I've been living in an 18x12 dorm room with another person for the past four years, so I think I can deal with a house), and besides, there's this newspaper internship they found a classified ad for in the paper, and I can live at home! for free!

"Free" is a subjective term. If there's anything I've learned, it's that living with my family has its own very special costs.

Labels: family, school