This looks like it’ll be my last post as a (current) Ball State student.  Five years and four continents later and I’m finally finishing up!  I’ve already posted my graduating senior musings, so instead I’ll just give a more normal post and tell you what life looks like as a college student while I still am one.

I’ve had a bizarre final month.  For one thing, I left Muncie about a month ago to mange some personal things at home (hence few posts recently).  Some of my friends reminded me how lucky I am that I’m still in college for that– my professors are being very understanding and are working with me to make sure I finish everything up.  I’m not sure the “real world” would be so understanding and accommodating.

I officially have my first degree-related job: I’ll be working as a gardener for the summer.  I’m beyond excited for this position– I actually get to spend my summer outside! I couldn’t be more thankful for the chance to delay working in an office in front of a computer.  Plus, I’ll get to spend large chunks of time doing one of my favorite things: pulling weeds!  I also learned today that I’m still a candidate for an AmeriCorps position that would start in early September.  If that works out I’ll be building houses for the next year, again delaying the office life.  If I’m super savvy, maybe I can avoid office life altogether?  Wish me luck on that endeavor.

Along with the end of college comes moving out of my house.  I’m going to cry.  I love my house in Muncie and the people who live there with me.  I thankfully have until the end of May to pack and move, but still.  In so many ways I wish I could just freeze everyone in a perpetual state of young twenties living in a college house.  I’m going to miss them tremendously.  But, alas, I guess we all have to grow up and contribute to society sometime.  It just sucks that the time has come.

The campus is beautiful, the air is slowly warming up, and soon I’ll be gardening.  Overall not a bad time.  It would be nice if there were more job opportunities (as far as I know most of my peers have no jobs lined up), but then again a high school friend and I came to an important, life-changing realization last weekend: no jobs, no commitment, and no family means we can literally do whatever we want.  In our case that means we’re going to save money over the next year or so, then take off on a worldwide adventure that will last as long as we have cash.  We’ve been doing all kinds of research on this.  If we can find some jobs along the way (which we totally can!), we’re thinking we’ll be gone at least a year.  I’m hoping longer.  We want to hit all the continents and as many countries as we can.  Biking and CouchSurfing will save us tons of money, which we can then spend on delectable food and extreme experiences (my friend is SCUBA certified, so that’s definitely going to happen).  The beautiful part is that since we have no commitments and nothing in particular to come back to, we can take our time and mosey around at our leisure.

So, that’s how I’m finishing college, wrapping up one adventure and preparing for the next.  Life is as it should be.