Graduation, Cowboy Boots, and the Real World

My life right now = transition time. I graduated from Loyola University Chicago just about three weeks ago with a Bachelors degree in Marketing. Honestly, graduation kind of went by in a haze. It's this time where your family comes in to town, everyone keeps telling you how proud of you they are, but the truth is, you really aren't sure if you are proud of yourself yet because, oh yeah, you still have to figure your life out.....that's fun. However, graduation is a good time that includes lots of nice meals your family pays for and lots of alcohol!

Now with my family involved, graduation was nothing less than entertaining. I was in a weekend long battle with my mom about her wardrobe choices. Remember how I mentioned before that she is a hippie? Well she thought it was going to be warmer (it was freezing cold) so the only shoes she brought were a respectable pair of nude slingback pumps and....wait for it....a pair of ankle length, bright, fuchsia, COWBOY boots. Come on mom, people already think we're rednecks since we are from Minnesota. Well, since it was "too cold" to wear her sling backs  she felt the need to wear the cowboy boots to every event including the commencement ceremony. She also wanted to wear her fuchsia Northface over her dress. Thankfully, I convinced her to wear a blazer of mine instead. Where I didn't win though was the Commencement ceremony, she showed up wearing a summery empire waist dress, my blazer, black leggings, and the freaking cowboy boots. I tried to channel my inner Joan Rivers and fashion police her, but it just wasn't happening. I got over it, since I do love her dearly, but my graduation memories will always include those damn cowboy boots. I've included a nice picture on the left so you can see what I had to deal with, photo cred goes to my brother, Robert. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, all of my pictures from commencement do not include our feet, so there is no evidence of the cowboy boots, hence why I provided this picture. 


Now fortunately, I kind of have my life together after graduation. I started working full time three days after graduation. I'm pretty lucky, I know, but I have to talk about the transition to 9-5 work days. Suddenly I had to wake up at 7:30am every day, and be in the office for seven hours straight, I would die without my lunch break. I had a really busy last semester of college, and I couldn't wait to move to a 9-5 schedule. However, the thing about school is, you can choose how hard you want to try, most of the time you can still pull of decent grades and be lazy at times. You can skip class if you aren't "feeling well" or better yet you can go to class and zone out the whole time. At work you have to always put in your maximum effort, and you can't not show up when you don't feel like it. It's also just plain weird not being in class. I have spent the last seventeen years of my life sitting through class, it's weird picking up a new daily routine. It's not all bad though, weekends are glorious and I'm really enjoying not pulling my weekly Wednesday all nighters that plagued me my last month of college!

All the best - Donais