Post-Graduation Plans

The closer and closer I get to real life the more I realize what exactly I want—a wealthy benefactor who will pay for every desire that I have. Hopefully one day I will write a novel that Oprah lays hands on so that I will never have to do anything but write for the rest of my life, but until then I am looking for another source of income. My friend Joey recently made a blog post about how people with advanced degrees in English have no real marketable skills. In short, Joey, I have to disagree. I think there are a lot of skills that make me very marketable as a kept man. So, if you are out there, wealthy and still remain unconvinced, here is a list of reasons that will convince you to support me:

1 – I will do almost anything for money. This of course excludes working 9-5, doing any sort of manual labor, or going outdoors. Other than that, though, I am your man.

2 – I have big time dedication. I am definitely willing to do what it takes to really live a life of leisure. For example, I once watched Legally Blonde 8 times in 7 days.

3 – I have a lot of hobbies that deserve time and attention. I watch a lot of TV. An amount of TV that would shock, intrigue, and disgust you. Sometimes I even disgust myself. I also read a lot and I would like to bind more books. These things take time—time that I don’t have as a working person.

4 – I can be quite charming. I have not paid full price for a book at Borders in years (the female cashiers love me—especially the one who wears too many accessories and is dating a boy 20 years younger than she is; and you thought I was wrong about cougars) I get what I want because people love to love me.

5 – I make a beautiful trophy. The other day a woman in my program talked about walking down the hallway with a tray of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. She said that it made her feel beautiful because everyone was staring at her. I explained to her what it felt like to be one of those beautiful people—the kind of person that people do a double take just to get one more glimpse. I will be the first to admit that it is very, very difficult to live the life of a beautiful person, but I have accepted my fate and I am willing to suffer the excruciating consequences of my lot in life.

6 – Undoubtedly, I am going to end up very successful and wealthy at whatever I decided to do, so you probably won’t have to support me for long

On a related note, I was recently browsing a creepy blog that I read every once in a while. The author mentioned that she was getting a fairly large following and promised her readers that her site would always remain ad free no matter what. Let me take this moment to promise you, dear readers, that I will cash in this blog the first opportunity I get. If they will give me money to allow someone to ring your doorbell and shove an advertisement down your throat as soon as you open the door, I will do it with a song in my heart. This is my way of keeping it real.

They're After Me Lucky Charms, and I'll Make Them Wish That They Weren't

Early this morning, I was reading blogs in an attempt to try to fall asleep. I came across a blog with a post that is a greenish illustration of a scene from Alice and Wonderland. The author said that she was posting it as to not get digitally pinched. This naturally led me to thinking about how bizarre St. Patrick’s Day really is.

Less early this morning, I was on campus walking down a long staircase and this boy ran down the staircase, pinched a girl, and ran back up. Today, anyone is able to go up to a person and if they are not wearing green they are somehow able to pinch them. There is a name for this type of behavior: assault. Were it May 17^th or December 17^th everyone watching would have been horrified by this student’s behavior. They may have even faced academic or even legal consequences and rightfully so. When I was in school if someone has been beat up for not wearing a certain color they would have likely been a victim of gang violence. What is wrong with these people?

This being said, I will be eating corned beef and cabbage later tonight because it tastes good. And I am still wearing green today, because I don’t want to get pinched. But if anyone dares pinch me today, you can bet I will be pressing charges. I have a feeling it will be much more satisfying than pinching someone back 10 times. Happy St. Patrick’s Day everybody.

The Trouble with Dating in the 21st Century

I teach an introductory writing class at the local university. My students tend to love me because I am awesome. Also because I am fairly close to my students’ ages so they tend to relate to me better than some of their other professors. I keep in contact with some of my former students and yesterday my favorite former student called me for some advice.

He has been dating this girl for a month or two and until recently thought that they were dating exclusively. He was set up with this girl through a mutual friend. Apparently the girl is about 6 years older than him (cougars are so hot right now), has an advanced degree, is beautiful, and is generally a very cool person. Sounds perfect right?

Earlier this week the aforementioned mutual friend let slip that he knows how their relationship is going because he reads the girl’s blog. At this point he realized that he had made a huge mistake. He tried to play it off but my former student pushed him and discovered all the gory details.

Here is the point at which real life becomes the plot to a romantic comedy. Girlfriend’s blog has quite a large following and chronicles the details of her romantic escapades with multiple men. All of the details: conversations, attractiveness ratings, likes, dislikes, you name it.

My former student claims that he doesn’t care about the blog or that she is pursuing other men (they never agreed to be exclusive). He asked me to read the blog and let him know if I think he is going to get burned in the end. I am not going to link to the blog on here, in an effort to protect the privacy of the parties involved (read: I don’t want her to find out and him to get pissed at me), but I am curious about what others might think about the whole situation. Feel free to discuss.