25 pages of papers, one take home final, and one sit-in final. That’s all that stands between me and absolute freedom. It sounds like a lot, but it won’t be terribly hard to get through. I just have to sit down and do it. I just had a meeting with the rest of the senior bloggers and Kate Hainley who guides us through this process, and we chatted about our experiences as bloggers for the year.
I’m one of those seniors who is in denial. I acknowledge that this Thursday is the last day of classes, maybe for my life which is huge because I can’t remember the last time I haven’t been taking classes or had homework, or maybe for a long time until I go back to graduate school. But it doesn’t mean anything to me. I could walk around in a state of melancholy, lamenting my last Monday night class, writing my last column for the Heights, etc. Instead, I’m looking at everything very optimistically: I’m excited for classes to be over (school’s out for the summer, school’s out forever!). I’m excited for the mod lot concert, for the end of the year ticket parties at Kinvara and the Green Briar. I’m excited to explore Boston in the nice spring weather. I’m excited to be done with finals. I look forward to senior week, which is going to be a blast. I look forward to seeing my parents at graduation and spend time with my family. I am pumped for my summer trip to Europe.
But I don’t like thinking about what I’m leaving behind, all the things that are ending. Waking up at 1 pm because I can. Getting coffee with one of the many wonderful people I’ve met here. All the activities I’ve been involved in. Being able to be immature and fun loving and get away with it. Having to sit down and write a blog once a week has forced me to think about and confront these issues: the difficult, the painful, the unpleasant. Its been really helpful to write my thoughts out, even though this stream of consciousness digresses so that sometimes I can’t even follow. And I loved the feedback from everyone who has given me some. I really appreciate it. Just to know that someone out there thinks it worth their time to read the rants and raves of a college senior: thank you. For all those who have stuck with me on this journey following my senior year, I hope it was entertaining for you and that you got something out of it— even if it was a chuckle.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to read the last book of my undergraduate career (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince—thank you Children’s Literature).

This past weekend my best friend from home came up to visit me. We had a great time together, and it always amazes me how I can just fall back into wherever we left off the last time we saw each other when we reunite. She is me with blonde hair, and even though I described her that way to people before she came up, people who didn’t hear that from me told us “wow, you guys are like the same person,” to which I’d respond, “well, no kidding.”
We’ve known each other for almost 8 years now, which is longer than my friends at college have known me. I’ve watched her grow up, as she did for me. Even though I live, eat, sleep, breathe, and do everything and anything with my roommates, day in, day out, my best friend from home always seems to know me better. She doesn’t always know every little thing that happens in my life when I’m away at college and I couldn’t possibly know what happens in her life either, but there is this understanding that exists nonetheless.
Sometimes it’s as if my home life and my college life are parallel universes. I am such a different person in the context of home than when I’m at school—not necessarily personality wise, but my role or the kind of people I interact with. When those two worlds collide and I have school friends visit home or vice versa, it’s always very strange. I wonder if I will feel the same way about my life after graduation, that BC was some other life I lived and left behind. When I go home, it feels like college is a dream—like waking up and remembering having this really great dream and trying desperately to go back to bed and resume it but being unable to. That’s how I imagine graduation. Pretty depressing, huh? Only I know that when you wake up from a dream, you go on about your life and have a whole day ahead of you, if we want to stick to the metaphor.
As for what I have to look forward to: Paris, London, Venice, Salzburg, Prague, now Rome with my grandparents (!) and their house in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy. Then my grandparents are flying home with me from Italy for my graduation party in my backyard when I’ll get to see all my friends and family. So I would say I have a lot to look forward to, and that’s only the short term.

While Marathon Monday was fabulous, it’s now Tired Tuesday—the day after the madness where headaches and lethargy ensue. My last Patriot’s Day at BC wasn’t the best, mostly due to the sub-par weather (I thought it was a prerequisite to be at least 75 and sunny every year) but it was definitely fun. I found that at no point was I ever walking alone, although I never stayed with one group of people. I just kind of hopped from one great company to another, and it shows the meaningful relationships I’ve established here at BC. That will be the hardest thing for me to let go of—this community I’ve built over the past four years. It’s not necessarily the tailgating or the traditions I do with them, although they are cognitively connected. What’s scariest about the real world is that the world outside of the BC bubble is hugely expansive and impersonal and we must forage our way through it and make a place for ourselves, which is more difficult than achieving that in the smaller BC world.
One thing that’s a consolation is that people who I would have never thought to be living in New York, where I plan to be next year, are getting jobs and moving to the Big Apple. That’s very reassuring to me that I can have that comfort as I attempt to establish myself in the working world.
When I went home for Easter, at our family dinner Easter day my Uncle’s mom was asking me what my plans for after graduation were. So I told her my travel plans, and she made a face and asked “What, you don’t have a job lined up?” I’m not worried about getting a job: I know that I am graduating from a prestigious university where I have earned good marks and gotten involved in programs that allowed me to grow and challenge myself to develop personally, and that I am a qualified candidate for whatever profession I choose to pursue. This lady might not be aware of that, let’s hope employers can recognize that, but even though I am confident in my abilities and so is my immediate family, it’s still hard to hear from other people the suggestion that you might be failing or doing the wrong thing.
I actually get that reaction a lot from people who don’t know me: you don’t have a plan?! Yes, I do have a plan…to get a job after I take some much needed time for myself. But I don’t have to know exactly what I’m doing for the rest of my life right now. I just turned 21, I have my whole life to work, and I better be sure that what I choose to do is something I am truly passionate for. I can imagine there is nothing worse than being miserable at your job because you spend most of your time there and it pretty much is your life. That’s one miserable life if you are unhappy at your job. So I’d rather be sure of something than dive in half-heartedly and risk being unhappy.
It’s funny, because as many lewd looks and criticisms I take from random people about my situation, most other graduating students I ask about their plans (which I hate doing because there are only two possible outcomes: they have a plan and you feel miserable for not having one or they don’t have a plan and you can commiserate together), most people don’t know either. At that point, we usually high five and laugh about starting an act in Penn Station. But I’m not alone in my boat. Others may think it’s a sinking ship. I like to see it as starting off taking a few detours but off to sail on to do many great things.

I find it very hard to find the motivation to do school work right now. It’s not senioritis, though it is harder as the weather becomes nicer and the days dwindle down to graduation that I feel like I should be spending time living up the college experience instead of hiding behind the stacks of O’Neill library. Especially for my friends who already have jobs, school seems unimportant because their GPA doesn’t affect their chances later in life since those have already been secured. I can’t say I’m in this boat, one because I am not employed, and two because I am a perfectionist and would still feel compelled to finish out to the best of my abilities, even if it had no effect except on my own pride.
The reason why I can’t get myself to sit down and concentrate is because I just got back from leading Kairos. I went as a retreatant in September and was so moved and passionate about the program that I wanted to get as involved as I could. Now, for the first time this semester I have nothing to do. No hours-long meetings, no running in between classes trying to balance everything I have to do in addition to schoolwork (or at least not as much as before- I’m not exactly sitting on my bum). First I led 48 Hours, then I had my dance recital, then I went straight into preparing for Kairos- never once having a lull or break, so coming back and thinking “What’s next? Oh, graduation and the real world” is extremely scary and a bit like withdrawal. While I think its time for a well deserved break and am thankful I have no further obstacles to simply enjoying BC, the presence of my friends and being a college student in the most basic sense, I have defined myself around some of the powerful experiences I’ve immersed myself during the past 4 years and don’t know what to do with my time. I forgot how to relax and just be.
Plus, Kairos fosters deep relationships with people over a short period of time. I felt so connected to my small group (what up group “I don’t even like jelly”) to the point where I empathized so deeply with them that I felt an overwhelming sense of emotion for them for no other reason than to feel for them and that’s never really happened to me before. I loved being able to impact the lives of others and see how the change works on them right before my eyes. Its experiences and opportunities like these that make BC so unique. I truly believe that had I not gone to this school I would not be the person I am today.
My experiences here have helped me develop, challenged me- when I look back at my college experience I won’t remember what the significance of a butterfly in Madame Bovary was or who was the first leader of the Ming dynasty was, but I will remember how the programs provided to me by this institution taught me how to love, how to challenge myself, how to dig deeper and reflect, how to serve others, how to be spiritual and do so many other things that I probably couldn’t learn elsewhere.
So BC, especially the Kairos program, has sparked a fire in my heart. It has inspired me to attempt to impact everyone I encounter, even in small ways otherwise I would be wasting my talents and not living life to the fullest. Now more than ever I understand and am prepared to follow the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola, “Go set the world on fire.”

I leave for South Beach Miami on Thursday morning (if you can call the ungodly hour of 5:55 am that) for a much needed vacation with two of my roommates. Neither of us went on a true relaxing spring break and so we planned this trip together as just that. If there were a profession where all you had to do was travel, consider me your girl. I would love to be a travel writer, but again it is very competitive.
Seeing as pretty much every writing profession I am interested in is competitive (Food critic? Who wouldn’t want to. Travel writer? Are you kidding me. Magazine publishing? Nice try.), I am starting to entertain the idea that there are many professions I could see myself going into. Don’t get me wrong- I’m not giving up my pursuit of a career in writing just yet. I may psyche myself out at times, but I’m not about to quit before I’ve even started. I’m just thinking in terms of a back-up plan. I’ve got to put some food on the table. Baby needs a new pair of shoes.
I’ve always imagined myself changing careers a million times because I have so many interests. For instance, I gave tours throughout my four years at Boston College and greeted prospective families in the admissions office, and I loved it. I could see myself enjoying working in college admissions. Education is something that interests me and an issue I find very important. Why not work in higher education? At my internship, my coordinator gives me the task of going through resumes and calling future interns to schedule interviews, during which I mercilessly critique each resume (they wrote what? Don’t they know a resume isn’t supposed to be more than one page?). Human resources would be kind of cool.
Thank heavens I’m a nerd that loves to read and write because my English major can be applied to almost anything. But beyond that, looking at what interests me in even the smallest of tasks in my everyday activities can point to possible career paths for the future. Too bad the role of socialite or professional party-goer is hard to come by.