attention, senioritis: leave me alone

Somewhere back there I missed my blog's second birthday (or is it the third?)...Oopsies. Happy belated birthday to mah blog, I love you. ^.^

Soooooo currently I seem to be experiencing the equivalent of a mid-life crisis - I believe Erikson called it a "moratorium". Translation: I've decided that being over the age of sixteen kind've sucks, that I am not overly fond of my current job, and that I'm not even sure I truly want to attend college next year. I don't want to be one of those people who ends up living with their parents and working at McDonalds until they're 30+ years old - that would REALLY suck - but, I dunno, I don't feel prepared to leave home yet. I usually pride myself on being mature for my age but in some ways I'm really only about ten years old. The notion of being on my own, making my own choices, having a place to live that's all mine, that's kind've enthralling. But there are so many things I'm not prepared to do. Like balancing a checkbook. We didn't totally cover that in consumer math. And cooking? I can make pasta, grilled cheese, and french fries, and that's pretty much it. I hate grocery shopping, I hate doing laundry, I hate pretty much all household chores...

But that's still four years down the road - at least. I still have to get through college, and that's a whole different set of worries altogether. How will I, one of the worst frigging procrastinators EVER, keep up with the workload? How will I deal with living away from home, with a total stranger as a roommate? How will I react to the different professors after having been homeschooled since fifth grade? How much of a loan will I have to take out - I'll almost definitely have to do that - to pay for tuition, and how do I pay it back once I graduate? On one hand, I really want to go, to meet new people, improve my writing abilities, make new friends. I love most of the people I've met there, professors and students alike, and I feel excited about many of the learning opportunities. I just don't know if I can handle it. Mom says I don't have to go right away, I can wait a year or so before going, but that'd just be weird. And I can barely even comprehend NOT going at all, because for most of my life, society has taught me that you finish high school, you go to college for four years, you graduate. Boom, end of story. I've always felt that to be successful I'd HAVE to attend college. I know that's silly - but my brain is silly sometimes.

Supposing - just supposing - I didn't go to college. I'd have to live at home and keep working at the YMCA for an unspecified amount of time. And I'm less than in love with that job. I mean, most of the people I work with are great, it's really very easy work (apart from answering the phones - doing that still freaks me out), I only work two or three days a week, a lot of the people who come in are nice, and it brings in a steady paycheck (okay, so I make minimum wage - money is money). But my boss just makes me nervous. Are all jobs like that? Am I just being a whiner? Am I going to be scared of my boss no matter what my job is? Or are there jobs out there where you can actually be friendly with your boss and not completely tense up whenever they're in the freaking building??? Seriously, every time she and/or her daughter is working while I'm on shift, I get really bad tension headaches. Every. Time. Is that normal? Do most employees have similar symptoms? Jeez.....Yeah, I know I should be thankful to have a job in this economy (crap, bad idea for me to mention the government, cuz I could rant about THAT for hours.....), and I am thankful, but...I wish it didn't feel like such a struggle to go to work each week.

The only solution for all these problems that I can currently come up with is this: within the next year or so I must write a bamfalicious book, get it picked up by a publisher, and have millions of copies sell so that a) I no longer need to work and b) college is pretty much unnecessary.

Yeah, THAT'S gonna happen.....

OK, end of rant. For now. Part II may or may not be forthcoming.