Welcome to the wonderful world of debt.

Thus began my Wednesday morning student loan exit counseling.
I sat with a few dozen other sleepy seniors in a secret auditorium in the back of the GSU, which fittingly had no windows, and one door guarded by a Student Loan Department worker. Sure, she was a 5 foot tall, 50 year old woman in a cardigan...but I imagined she would morph into some sort of Financial Aid Transformer if someone tried leaving. "SIT DOWN and PAY US BACK!" she would holler in a robotic, rage-filled voice, "You belong to us now, you debt incurring minion!" Needless to say, I stayed in my chair.
The first part of the presentation covered the history of the Perkins Loan Program, which I'm really glad I heard. Now, and for the next 109 times I make payments on these loans, I will thank Mr. Perkins, and the BU employee who told me about him. We then received all sorts of deliciously fun information about payments, deferments, cancellations and debt, all of which I tried to compute with the few hours of sleep I had salvaged the night before. What did, and still does, remain clear to me after attending this is the following:
1.) I am in debt. This sounds a lot more romantically tragic in Charles Dickens novels...in 2006 Boston, it's just a sucky feeling and a remarkably bad way to start a Wednesday.
2.) I need a job. Badly...and now. This makes me think of Tuesday night (also the reason I was so tired at this meeting). Tuesday was 50 days til graduation, and because of it, we partied hearty at Avalon. The bunch of us said we'd stay til "12:30, tops." We left at 1:30, after a night of dancin' like fools. At the beginning of the night, almost prophetically, a bass-filled, trance-like song came on, in which a woman's voice repeated the words, "She's homeless." I don't really understand why you'd want to repeat that through an entire song, unless you're going for a whole Zoolander-Derelict thing. Then I realized, holy crap, this is like my anthem. I'm going to be a tri-lingual college graduate, living in a box under a bridge along the Charles and look back to that night and the "She's homeless" song...how art imitates life...well, hopefully not.
3.) The BU student loan department wants to know everything...I mean EVERYTHING...about you. I fully expected to turn a page and see the following:
Blood type:
Favorite color:
Boxers or briefs:
Coke or Pepsi:
How many sugars do you put in your coffee?
Are you a vegetarian?
Who is your favorite Beatle?

I left around 9:45 with a sore hand from filling out these epically long forms, the shocking realization that college life is over, and the opportunity to see the GSU with nobody in the bagel line. Still, it really could have been a lot worse, and while it did snap me into the reality of paying back my college education, I have no regrets. BU has been an amazing ride, and thanks to Mr. Perkins, I've been able to enjoy it a lot.
Oh, and the obvious answer to that last question is Ringo...anybody who picks John, Paul or George is clearly missing the cool factor involved with being a British drummer with a bowl cut.

An evening at the THEATER!

With the close of the final scene of Phantom of the Opera, though moved to clap for the rousing musical finale, I turned around to my mom and said, "I don't get it."
I'm not totally sure why, but I was seriously confused at the end, and I started flipping through my program (wishing I hadn't used part of it for gum disposal) looking for an explanation. Christine is kissing all sorts of dudes, singing in between and managing to jump around in a corseted dress with a train the size of a midsized sedan. I just didn't understand who she was supposed to end up with: Raul, the handsome chap-- who tended to overdo it on the high notes (making me wonder if Christine realized the implications of dating a guy who can sing as high as she can) OR the Phantom, the disfigured fella with the face mask and all the drama. Tough choice for poor Chris, but what's a gal to do? I gotta say though, if I dated a guy named "the Phantom" I'd be pretty excited to bring him around the family barbecues: "Aunt Kathy, I'd like you to meet my new boyfriend, the Phantom....Phantom, this is my Aunt Ka--Phantom?? Where are you? STOP disappearing like this!" I would turn and my partially masked beau would be lurking on the pool shed roof, trying to sack one of my relatives with the skimmer. Hmm...maybe dating "the Phantom" isn't worth the dramatic introductions after all...
But really, I had some problems processing the end of the play. This could be for a number of reasons. First, I was in a seat that is more properly fitting for an Oompa Loompa. That is, if you're over 4' 5'', your knees were pushed against the seat in front of you. It's times like these I wish I were a yoga master, and could have just thrown my ankles behind my head and chilled out for 2 and a half hours. But alas, my interests lie more in the competitive snacking arena, and the yoga mastery was never meant to be.
Another reason I didn't quite get it could be due to my theatrical family history:
Dad: In the car ride home, Dad asks, "Hey, when was the half-time?" Us: "Dad, it's called intermission."
Mom: From our view in the extreme nosebleed section: "Wow girls, I just love it up here! This is our very own VIP suite!"
And so, though ending with a bit of temporary confusion (Mom and the girls clarified in the car) my evening at the theater (said in a British accent) was an all around fun time! It was fun to get snazzy and a little dressy (OK, fine the clothes weren't mine...they were Carolyn's) and spend some time with the sisters and Mom. Also making this evening all the more classier were the ziploc bags of jelly beans I brought along...cause no trip to the theater is complete without a sugary treat! Then again, what do I know? I didn't even get the ending...