Home Sweet Home

It's been exactly three weeks and six days since Graduation, with a capital G. It still boggles my brain that I'm now a college graduate, and no longer a college student, and I don't think I've fully grasped what that means, or the reality of what that means, yet. Gone are the days of sleeping in, skipping class (sorry Mom), late-night cramming, binge drinking, and more seriously for me, binge eating (haha sad but true), and in its place... what?

Following the big hulabaloo that was Graduation, I spent about three weeks living with my dear, dear grandparents--not particularly by choice, and I don't recommend it unless you don't have a choice, like me. Now, I love them, but being 21 and having just graduated from college doesn't exactly make me the best candidate to be roommates with my 80-some-year-old grandma and 90-some-year-old grandpa. I think I may have aged about 60 years in my stay there, having read a ton of books and finished an obscene amount of jigsaw puzzles... I will say, though, that my grandma is still a rockin' good cook!

This brings me to the present: home, finally. Nothing says welcome home like "Yeah, we noticed you got fat, especially around your hips." I love my Mom. I really do, I swear... most of the time. Coming home and moving back into my old room made me realize two things: one, that I have way. too. much. stuff. It took me a record three days to sort through everything, try to cram everything into my closet (oh my shoes!!), and throw out the things I don't need anymore (goodbye 90s boombox). Two, that I feel like I'm 16 again--under my parents roof, and therefore, bound to their rules. Damn it.

Life from here is taking rather a sharp detour from what I had always imagined it would be. I assumed I'd graduate and, like most other kids, get a serious job, my own apartment, and start the 9-5 drudge of real life. Luckily (or could be unluckily, you'll have to keep reading my blog to see how things go haha!) for me, Dad put up a serious offer on the table: move to Taiwan for a year to learn your native language all on my expense and I'll send you to Europe for 5 weeks. Now, I don't really consider myself business-savvy or anything, but even to me it seemed like an offer I couldn't refuse, so I didn't... after much discussion with family and friends.

So for now, I'm playing the waiting game: two and a half weeks till I say bon voyage and leave for my European adventure. This gives me exactly two and a half weeks to figure out what I'm going to pack, and more importantly, how I'm going to pack for a five-week trek across Europe...