Breathing....

     Hi. My names Katie--a pretty average name if you were born in the late 80s-early 90s. a quarter of my age group is name Katie. The other quarters are named Ashley, Jessica, and maybe a mixture of Brittany and Kelly. I'm of average height, average build with average curves and average brown hair and brown eyes. I'm even an average age right now--24 to be exact and finally graduating from higher education after a long and circuitous route to my happy place as an English major (concentration in Creative Writing). It's where I should have always been, they say--they being my mother, my brothers, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my friends... I've been writing since kindergarten, it seems, entering contests and winning little awards. Not until age 11 did I realize I could write books like the ones I read. It was an astounding realization really, one that made me sit right down on my magenta-colored bedspread with it's tulle princess canopy. And from there, I never stopped.
     Literally.
     I wrote 100-page novels on paper, then 500-page stories on my first computer in 8th grade, then I filled up every notebook in every class, through middle school and then high school and then college...
     No wonder it took 5 years + a year off to graduate.
     But the fact that I should have always been a writer isn't all they say lately. Lately, it's more along the lines of: "Aren't you so excited to graduate?" (I guess?) "Do you know what you want to do?" (editing and publishing?) and of course, the DREADED question: "Oh English! So you want to teach, right?" Grrrrrrr. Oh and my favorite: "How's the job search going?"

NOT AT ALL.

     I've been too busy trying to pass my classes and working my work-study job at the children's hospital where I scan things and taking 5 classes and walking everywhere because I'm a carless individual. And I won't have the work study job when I graduate.
     So here I am.

     Oh wait. that's the back of my head. Let me try again.

OHP still not getting it! But I do LOVE my boots (Target). I've worn them nonstop since September and they're still going strong!

I like this one. Except this is a little more "selfie" than I would like it to be. So here is an accurate representation of my face in most photos I take:

It's literally one or the other: open mouthed or fish-faced. To the left is my friend Emily and to the right is Bogey, my boyfriend. Looking way cooler than me.

Now that was entirely too many photos of my face. Or shoes. So I promise to leave that for a while. 

     Wow my hair is short in those! And where did that necklace go!? Anyways. Where was I? The mounting pressure of societal expectations along with familial expectations pushing me to hurry up and locate a career in fear of me becoming an unemployed bum or something like that? Yes. There.

     But seriously, there is a lot of pressure in this day and age to have it all figured out right now, right here, to have a ready and waiting answer when people ask what you want to do and where you want to go. And you know what? I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know it's going to be different and I think I'm okay with that. Maybe that's all I can do. I'm moving in with said BF in less than a month, then he takes the boards and then we're off to Ireland for a week with his family. And all I can hope is that I'll be employed so we don't have to depend on his school loans for income. That's all I can hope. (And that's whole 'nother bag of drivel about dependency and being independent in a relationship and money and yada yada).

      Either way, change is a-coming. I will get to this job search thing soon, but first I have to get my head to stop spinning about the research paper for my Senior Project (haven't even started yet), editing the stories I'm including in my Senior Project (due Wednesday, I'll do them Wednesday), figuring out who's bringing the food to my school's literary magazine, which I am head of (or co-head of) and will be running alone because my co-head managing editor is on bedrest (which means talking in front of people Thursday), and studying for my geography exam and writing my Native American literature research paper and squeezing as many work study hours out of my job before I have to give it up when school ends and maybe feeding myself (and the food won't be healthy. It's almost 9 p.m. and I'm still sipping an energy drink) (Oh god I should stop I'll never sleep!) 

     It's just, on top of 5 courses, 3 oncoming papers, one of which is due this week, two oncoming exams, an entire release party to run for the lit mag and attempting to take care of myself... I have no more energy left to figure out where jobs exist on this thing called the internet. I'm lucky to have a thoughtful mom who sends me jobs she comes across in her own job searches, but I'm scared to submit. Because on top of all of this... stuff... I'm having an identity crisis.

     Or maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I need to take a bite of my leftover Easter candy, jump in the shower, read my lit novel, and then go to sleep. Maybe....

Yeah right. The most I can do right now, right this very second, is to breathe. And even if I have to pull all-nighters, I can at least go into them knowing I may not have to do them again for a very long time. So. Welcome to my blog of neurotic, paranoid ramblings on the future. There will also be fun topics and other stuff. Hopefully it's interesting. :D

And breathe....