I just found out there's no such thing as the real world...except, that's not true at all.

I've waited awhile to post this because I wasn't sure what I was going to say. If I'd posted three weeks ago I would have said how excited I was to move into my new apartment in the city and do all sorts of exciting things. Two weeks I would have posted that I couldn't stop crying or being sad and missing all sorts of thing I'd never thought I'd miss. Last week I would have said I was adjusting and that I was looking forward to starting work. Today I would say that I can't believe college is over, the party is over. I'm in the real world. The world where I wake up at 6 am, make coffee, check traffic, commute, work until 5, commute, and then realize I'm completely exhausted and can't function but still need to consider which health insurance plan I'm going to pick.

You know that Chuck Palahniuk quote about feeling like you rushed through the moments when you should have been paying attention? That's kind of how I feel about the past 5 years. Not that I'm sad. Because I feel like the future has a lot to offer and I'm eager and excited to experience all of it.

This one semester when I went to the edge of the crazy ledge and back...

I left school for Christmas break in mid-December with a good feeling. I’d ended the semester with a 3.5 GPA and had 3 weeks off before beginning my last semester of graduate school. I even had two pretty difficult to get things: I had a boyfriend of over a year and had lined up a job in October for after graduation. Things were going great.

Fast forward to shortly after New Year’s. The first thing that started to slip was my relationship. We didn’t speak on Christmas and didn’t spend New Year’s together. A breakup that didn’t go smoothly or easily, but felt like a breath of fresh air.

Then there was the freak out about the job. The job I’d accepted suddenly seemed like it would suffocate me. I sent a freak out e-mail turning the job down. Then I was faced with the possibility that I might have to move in with my mom and work at my high school job. This was a major step toward the crazy ledge.

Then came the problems with Accounting. I’d avoided this class until my very last semester and for some reason this class made me realize that I’d made a huge mistake by picking this graduate program. As much as I wanted to graduate, the horribleness of this class overcame me. This midterm and my MBA capstone course midterm fell back to back in the beginning of March. I miserably failed my accounting midterm. And I learned that talking about failing and really getting an F are two very different feelings. The second pushed me closer to the crazy ledge.

Then I got really sick in February. I visited the doctor four times that month, once after passing out in the shower. I started missing several days of work. My boss was angry. Things at work got tense. And crazy. One more step to the crazy ledge. To the point that one morning a text from work sent me into such a crying fit that I was sobbing uncontrollably on my bedroom floor.

Then one day I woke up and it was April 23, 2010. It was my last day of work. School was done. I’d found a new job. I’d found an apartment. I had great friends. It suddenly felt like even though I was entering the unknown and the scary, it might really all be ok. That maybe I really had gone to the crazy ledge and made it back to talk about it.

This one time my friend got punched in the face

Right by where I live there is a bar called The Outback. For those not from my small town in the middle of nowhere, The Outback is different from Outback Steakhouse. Otherwise you might be confused as to why we are wearing leggings as pants and taking shots before going to eat a Bloomin Onion. The Outback is the type of place where $8 will get you a never ending cup of booze and has a dance floor with cages. Obviously no good can come of this.

One Saturday night my friends Taryn (@tarynhill) and Brooke decided to head to The Outback, leggings on, ready to drink. At the end of a fun night we decided to head to the dance floor for one last dance. As we stumble through the crowd, I suddenly hear someone yell, “That bitch just stepped on my feet!” I turn to see an enormous black woman who was pissed. Taryn realizes that she accidently just stepped on the girl’s feet in her heels. Taryn, the nice girl that she is, turned to apologize. Woman pushes Taryn. Taryn says “Don’t push me while I’m trying to apologize.” What happened next happened fast.

Taryn got punched. Right in the face, the eye, to be specific. I instantly grab Taryn turn her around and move her off the dance floor. She’s holding the side of her face and crying, because she can’t fucking see, you know? Now in case you are wondering why I didn’t fight back, I’ll tell you. Taryn is 5’3” and I’m 5’5”. This woman and her friends were much taller and much larger than us. I definitely don’t have a desire to have my face smashed in. However, my little friend Brooke, who in heels still looks up at me, ran straight into that crowd of girls, arms swinging. I didn’t see what happened to her until the next day when I finally saw her black eye complete with a huge bandaged gash.

However, I did run to the bouncer and scream “Excuuuse me, my friend just got punched in the face!” And then to the cops, “Excuuuse me, my friend just got punched in the face!” Like hello people, do you see the crying girl holding her contact with her bloodshot eye? The cops assured her that there was no need to press charges because we’d been drinking and didn’t even know the bitch’s name. Taryn sits down on the bar step and is sobbing hysterically and keeps repeating “I don’t want anyone to see me with my makeup like this.” While her makeup was everywhere, that was not her only problem. Perhaps the problem was the broken blood vessel in her eye.

I took her back to my apartment while I proceeded to clean my kitchen.

This one time I got tired of dealing with stupid boys and didn't wear pants.

I’ll just start by saying that there’s nothing wrong with sending the “want to fuck?” text. In fact, yes, if that’s all you want, just text that. If you don’t care how my day was or what I’m doing this weekend, then don’t ask. It will just get me thinking that maybe you do care about those things. Then I’ll think you might want to eat Chipotle, drink beer, and watch a baseball game with me. There’s clearly a line. And everyone needs to stick to one side or other. Either we’re just having sex or we’re dating. And I’m fine with either. I just need to know. You know, so I don’t do something extremely embarrassing, like text you in the middle of the afternoon and ask if you want to go eat wings with me.

“I wasn’t sure what was appropriate.”
“Appropriate? I’m not some waitress you banged in a snowstorm. That word has no place in our vocabulary. I’m the woman you don’t have to worry about.”
“Sounds like a trap.” –Up in the Air

I’m never appropriate. And today was no exception. It was a gorgeous day and a family needed a golf cart ride at work. I hop on the golf cart excited to drive around campus. After about two feet, it hit me. Duh, I’m totally wearing a skirt and it is flying up. So I pull it down and keep driving. Obviously, I feel so inappropriate that I have to tell people. But I’m an idiot and have 2 typos in the same sentence. First, I say I’m driving a gold cart. Which I’m clearly not doing because what kind of university in Missouri can afford gold carts? If there is one, I want to be there. The second type was of the actual word inappropriate. I spelled it “innaprorpriate.” And of course it got pointed out by someone who is totally cute. And then I was all, I should probably just get back to focusing on not showing my vagina to all of campus.

And this post should have totally been about why I’m spending all my time in the shower lately or how I had one of the most epic weekends of my life, both of which are much better stories than this.

Currently listening to: Pursuit of Happiness-Kid Cudi

This time I went to Jamaica but fell in love with a scene from Californication...

This past week I was on spring break in Jamaica. It was absolutely amazing! We spent 5 days on the beach. If you've ever been on spring break/been to Jamaica/been on the beach/etc. you can understand how awesome this trip was. I definitely drank more than my liver can stand. Besides being an incredible experience, it was a relatively uneventful trip (as far as spring break trips go, that is). However, I was left with the *worst* case of the travel bug. I can't wait to schedule my next trip. Who wants to go somewhere totally awesome with me? Anyone?

Anyway, over at You'll Grow To Love Me (http://jennbollenbacher.com/blog/), She asked us to list 5 things we desire for ourselves in the next year. She put hers on her blog so they would be out in the universe. So here are mine:

1. Land my first big girl/real world/post-college job

2. Fall crazy, passionately in love

3. And have that love returned

4. Cross at least 2, but hopefully 3, things off my life list

5. Move :)

And in other news, I've become completely obsessed with the Letter to Karen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6mkeLJwnTY) from Californication. I'm such a freak but it really gets to me for some reason. It's gotten so bad that now everytime I hear the song "Nothingman" I get a little sad and a little bit of a heart flutter. (Don't judge me!) Can someone please right me a letter like this? Maybe?

So to sum up this post, I'm basically looking for someone who will travel with me, help me cross things off my life list, and write a "Letter to Melissa."

This one time I played in a quarters tournament to win a trip to Vegas with a guy named Dylan

Katie likes to call me the devil. I more fondly like to think of her as my partner in crime. After a day of work in which we found that we were, in fact, not getting fired, we decided to celebrate. (Isn’t that mostly how these stories go?) I join Katie on a semi-date which involves her, the guy, the guy’s parents, and 2 of the guy’s friends. The guy has an amazing job in which allows him to buy other people beer. After three rounds of beer, Katie and I decide to buy the dad shots. Then all of us, parents included, head to the bar because apparently there is a quarters tournament in which you can win a free trip to Vegas.

Dylan ends up with me as his partner, which is unfortunate for him because I’m clearly horrible at anything in this arena. (2 drinks later) Dylan decides that I clearly need to practice. I throw about 3 quarters (which are really plastic poker chips) and then we all decide to head to another bar. The other bar is selling 40s for $4. For some unknown reason Katie and I think that we each need one. Fast forward an hour and we’ve lost track of time and our drinks and run back to the tournament. They’ve created a bracket and I see the first match. Our first opponent is this guy I kindasorta feel really awkward around for multiple reasons. Obviously, this sort of thing would happen in my life. But of course, I instantly want to kick his ass. I lose, because as it turns out, Dylan also sucks. So the two of us aren’t running off to Vegas anytime soon. However, he assures me that it’s totally fine that I sucked because I’m hot.

Katie also lost. Although I told her if she won the trip I’d be her maid of honor. Because, clearly, getting married is the only reason to go to Vegas. The other guy’s partner was his sorta girlfriend who is a stripper. Her name may have been Sapphire or Daisy or Candy. We still don’t know.

This night ends with me, pantless surrounded by Christmas lights, getting offered $10 to go to a dance party across the hall.

Because everyone else is doing it...

Inspired by all the amazing bloggers I know, I've decided to start my own blog. I guess I should begin by clarifying that I'm wildly inappropriate and do not censor myself at all.

Last night I miserabley failed my managerial accounting midterm around 5 p.m. My dear friend, fellow grad student, and coworker Katie also failed. Together we joined forces to celebrate, ahem, I clearly mean grieve. Katie begins by asking me if we can do some stalking, but she doesn't want me to think she's crazy. Of course I say yes and who am I to judge anyone else for having a case of the crazies? We finish that up and spend 2 hours having beers and wings and we have to tell our server that we do not need our bills yet because yes, we will be drinking more.

And that was just the beginning of how the night was going. It ended with me sending out a mass text saying "I'm a hot mess."

As if everyone didn't already know.