“You say goodbye and I say hello”

Goodbye always seemed like a harsh word to me, and I prefer the Lennon/McCartney phrase, “You say goodbye, and I say hello.” Whether it is hello fortune-500 company, or the more realistic, hello job listings in the morning paper, I would say goodbye is putting a period at the end of a sentence that should have, as Zach Braff explains in Garden State, “an ellipsis.” College is so much more than that John Belushi t-shirt, and I remember my first day moving into the then un-air-conditioned Hull Hall as if it were burned into my memory,  and it might have been at least sweat into my memory. You try carrying televisions and desk chairs into a dorm perhaps hotter than the August 27 weather outside its walls, and you might say the same thing.

Four years and literally six roommates later I have more anecdotes of frat parties, late lunches that were meant to be breakfasts, handfuls of all-nighters and a few all-weekers. School-wise, I am burnt out to the core, but college-wise, I fear I don’t remember how to be anything else but a college student. Drifting from class to class, never thinking any grade achieved is good enough and at one point being employed at four jobs at one time seems better than being out on my own trying to find a job that the news is telling me doesn’t even exist right now.

I have made a ton of acquaintances, one handful of friends and a few that I plan on seeing beyond the next two weeks, and I am perfectly fine with that. I scored runs in intramural softball, almost won in soccer and more recently received three consecutive body slams in street hockey.

I want to work for the Rolling Stone, and I want to visit Australia at least three times and right now I am at zero, so I guess I had to leave college at some point. As for all of the “what are you doing after college” quizzes family members love to pull on me, I have it rehearsed to the tee, “What are you doing next Thursday?” As far as I’m concerned, that question is just as difficult.

Jenna is graduating with a degree in English and a minor in Print Media Studies.