all i can say is this:

Maybe it was the stress of graduation, but my brand-new Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology leaves me more likely to believe that the real reason is because my genetic blueprint has me set to start showing this sign of growing up somewhere in my early twenties. I'll be 22 in a little over a month. All week, Nicki and I have been texting non-stop. I was the first to get a "big girl job" offer for a teaching position; she was the first to actually start a "big girl job" as a long-term sub. "i got drooled on so much today...but got tater tots. why is this job so 50/50" "i feel like 50/50 is the theme of the real world" "life at leitrims was just so much easier." Meanwhile, Kim has started "big girl apartment"-hunting for her year in graduate school, looking to live in a place where the main decor on the living room walls is not a wrap-around of side panels from cases and 6-packs of beer, but maybe something a bit class...

Dear Front Gate, Today I drove by you, pulled off of campus and took a left onto Salisbury St. for the last time of my Assumption College career--no longer a student, but a brand-new alumna. Here's our story as I know it: One rainy late August day in 2006, a gray minivan packed to capacity with the items necessary for spending a year in a 3-person freshman dorm room drove up Salisbury St. and was waved onto campus because sitting behind parents and between siblings was a quiet 18-year-old girl who needed to begin writing words on the blank pages of the next chapter of her life. A few months before, she had sent in a $500 acceptance deposit to Assumption College--her mother's alma mater, one of only two schools she applied to in her home state, a place she never really gave much thought to during the chaos of college application processes but simply kept on her list of potential options in case she decided at the last minute that a big...

A month ago, you wouldn't have caught me dead at a bar on a Tuesday night unless it was a friend or roommate's birthday. But nowadays, my attitude is shifting. It's not apathy or losing sight of responsibility. Instead, I'm finally figuring out that I have a pretty good handle on this whole school thing. Five years from now, I'm most likely not going to remember how arthropods begin their molting process or how many million years ago the first "fishapod" walked the earth. I'll probably forget the list of exactly which third world countries sided with the US and which sided with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. With less than 25 days left, maybe the most important thing is not staying in and striving for a solid 8 hours of sleep. Maybe the most important thing is savoring the moments destined to transform into beautiful memories that actually will still hold meaning five, ten, or fifty years from now. Moments that make me want to press the pause b...

It's a trick I learned while sitting on the floor of a Brighton funeral home on a cold, snowy mid-April day during my junior year of high school. I don't remember the name of the girl who taught me. I don't remember her face or if she even went to school with me. Five years later, the only thing I can really remember is the sharp contrast of her calm instructions against the heart-wrenching sounds of another girl sobbing in a back room. "Now unfold that piece and pull it up... then pull these two to puff out the body. That's all." The room was full of kids looking down, quietly folding. I tossed my crane into the large pile that had begun to form in the middle of the room. One more out of ten thousand folded tributes to a life ended too soon. In any jumbled, messy story of growing up, there are events that stand alone and apart from the chaos as significant milestones. Often times, these moments are not recognized as being so important and life-changing...

INGREDIENTS: 1/2 tub Smart Balance butter spread 2 eggs 1 lb ricotta cheese you need to get rid of ASAP 1 3/4 cups white sugar approx 1/4 cup brown sugar 2 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp salt 1 1/2 tsp baking soda 1 container Activia vanilla yogurt 4 c flour chocolate jimmies some alcoholic beverages Preheat oven to 350. Take a sip of beverage. Beat eggs and butter using a la rge serving spoon and a small teaspoon. Add ricotta and white sugar. After realizing you do not have all 2 cups of white sugar needed, throw brown sugar into mix until you think you've made up for the missing 1/4 cup. Take another sip and repeatedly ignore your roommate's suggestion to scrape the pink sugar off a package of Peeps. With your drink in hand, do a Google search for effective baking powder substitutes. Assume one container of Activia = 1/2 cup of yogurt. Add yogurt & baking soda; eyeball salt. Slowly add in about 3 2/3 cups of flour. Sprinkle the remaining 1/3 cup onto the table, the floor, th...

In the fog of waitlists, rejections, massively large traffic tickets, incomplete applications and 4% downsizing that has dominated the last few weeks of my life, the one shining beacon of hope that has kept me sane is a home-turned-college administrative building on Old English Road that backs up to the edge of campus: the Student Development & Counseling Center, a.k.a. The AC Center for Seniors Who Can't Write a Resume Good and Want to Learn How to Do Other Stuff Good Too. For the past month or so, I have been in almost constant contact with David K. at the SDCC, trying to form a plan to up my chances of getting into a graduate program off the waitlist and changing my resume to fit a job application instead of a school application. It didn't hit me that my post-graduation plan has actually changed, however, until I opened a short email last week: Jenn: Are you considering applying to Siemens/Bayer? If so, you need to change your objective line. Other than that, looks great...

Have you seen him around? The last time I saw him was on the water-logged softball field across from my apartment a week ago. I had tossed my brown Northface to the side and stood in the comfort of his rays for ten precious minutes before leaving to spend my afternoon in the back corner of a grocery store tucked away in the back corner of a small town next door to the back corner of Connecticut. "Sun, I love you," I told him. "I lovelovelovelove you. You make me so happy. Thank you for being in my life. You are the only Valentine I'll ever need." That's right. The sun is my perfect Valentine. He knows exactly how to put a smile on my face when I'm having a bad day. He can light up a room just by looking through the window to say hello. He's always ready with a hug and he never makes me cry. Whenever he says goodbye for the night, I know he'll come back soon. While he could never surprise me with chocolate or flowers, he brings out the best in me ...