Entry one--An unfortunately rather boring but needed intro to my life

My name is unimportant, but if you need something to call me--I'm happy to respond to Sparky.

I am a twenty-two year old woman from the Massachusetts South Shore area and I am due to graduate from University on May 22nd with a degree in English. If I had my way--my degree would say that I graduated strictly for Creative Writing--but now-a-days that would probably not look as neat and tidy on a resume as it once might have.

Then again, I can't recall it even looking good on a resume aside from one for an editorial company.

That aside, I still love what I do. I love to write.

My university is known primarily for it's Law and Business schools, so, i have grown accustomed to being asked where i attend school only to have the follow-up question be if i were planning to be a lawyer. No, I am not.

I also have grown used to being asked if I were planning to teach. Again, no, i am not. (Though i have only the deepest respect for people passionate and patient enough to do so.)

In the end the ultimate question is--well, what do you plan to do after graduation? And i never really know how to answer them.

As it stands, i work in three different places--each as unrelated to my major and passion as the next. The job i work that might seem even remotely related, is a work-study position in my University's Communication and Journalism Department. It's also one of my favorite jobs so far--and the one I am slated to lose once I am handed my diploma.

Mikey, the manager of all work-study students, is one of the most thoughtful bosses one could hope to have. He seems to constantly be involved in one theatrical performance after another and is easy to talk to with an open sense of humor. I have been working with him since my freshman year and it seems now in my senior year there are more than enough fresh faces to deal with much of the photocopying and errand running; so in most cases I have ample time to surf Facebook or even run off to the school run radio station to meet up with my peers. I pride myself on how hard I used to work there. But there is never a dull moment in this department, a constant flow of media and play writing runs in the veins of this place as professors amble in and out and students mill through.

My second job is a position I have held since high school--long before I had realized how to put a pen to good use. (Though even now I sometimes wonder if I have learned that yet.) A local supermarket, T's hired me when i was only 16. I have disliked it for most of the time I spent there. I am a cashier, I have my own drawer number and everything. For any of you not familiar with the work of a supermarket employee--consider yourself lucky. It is a position requiring an immense amount of patience for stupidity and monotony.Standing for three hours or more is the least worrisome part of this job, then comes the constant stream of customers who seem to forget that you, the cashier, are just as alive and human with feelings as they are. Instead--youre just some annoyance, some apendage of the company that is T's for them to spew acidic words onto when they have been displeased.

Working in a supermarket, one sees an endless supply of the strangeness that is the human race. The regular offenders tend to range from "crazy clepto lady" (an elderly woman who constantly steals things from our market, comes in five minutes before closing and takes her sweet time and complains when she finally checks out.) to "cowboy Curtis" (a man in a cowboy hat who thinks he's hilarious but is really offensive to all things that are female.) The list is at least fifteen people long and all rather irritating--i will make a point to get into in a later entry. There are also the general problems you face as someone who deals with the public, such as rudeness--customers who talk on their cell phones in line while you're trying to ask them about their order, who let their children run amok in the store and cause messes for us to clean or who leave their entire baskets on the belt for you to empty rather than empty it themselves. Aside from the customers themselves, cashiers must also deal with the other staff.

For the most part, Management at T's supermarket is harmless. The head manager,i will call D, Suffers from a palsy of some sort and has been dubbed "bobble head" in secret by his underlings. He tends to be almost overly friendly with the female members of the staff and in busy situations in the front end of the store is highly impatient and anal about registers being open. The front end manager, I will call C, is a woman who should have long ago retired, but sadly enough the store seems to be her life. A widow, she prides herself on having worked in our market for over 30 years and is slowly but surely showing signs of having lost her mind. Constantly forgetful and known for playing favoritism amongst the cashier's, C, is possibly my least favorite member of management there, and the one i come most in contact with. She is also--for some reason I still do not understand--in charge of weekly scheduling. Hours have been terrible and it is a constant fight for staff members to make enough to make ends meet. (Though of course her favorite who has been dubbed by fellow staff members as "The Pig", never has problems getting enough hours.)

With such poor hours being distributed at the market--I had no other choice but to obtain yet another job. I am also a Hostess in a restaurant in Boston. I can't tell you where--but i can tell you we often have the rich and famous gracing our presence there, rubbing elbows with the normal riffraff. Just last week Owl City wandered in--if only professionalism weren't necessary i would have asked for a photo. This job is the newest--so I am still attempting to get the hang of it. Remembering table numbers and to smile and how to answer questions properly all at once isn't nearly as easy as Hostesses i have always witnessed made it seem. But on the bright side--i am always guaranteed a meal before work.

On top of all that--I am still pushing my way through the last weeks of classes before i take the final leap. Finals and projects have absorbed my waking hours--and had I not taken a sick day today I would have been at University running around Boston like a homeless paranoid who "sees" someone chasing him.

So it all comes back to--what do I plan to do after graduation?

Well, I started this blog in hopes to document what it is like in what everyone refers to as "the real world" once i am graduated. With the economy still shaky and jobs still not readily appearing--my worst fear is finding a job that I will say is "just for now" and wind up there forever. My dream is to become a well-known author for young adults, and with any luck I hope to find an editorial position soon. I will do my best to document it with the finesse and sarcasm that is my voice. Wish me luck.