The countdown begins.

Well, I guess I'm standing on the threshold of something big, about to jump off the ledge of the family nest into the big bad bright world. Or am I? Is anything really going to change that drastically? It's not like I'm going to be offered a six-figure job as a magazine editor right out of college, and the notion of having to essentially start from scratch with a mere (yes, mere) BA under my belt is, in the very least, intimidating. The advice I'm getting from all sides is basically telling me to do what I want to do...to "follow my dreams"...but how can I survive off of dreams? I'd like to make a living as an artist of some kind or another, but is that not the general dream of every naive youth in the nation? My friend is living in a studio in Boston where she sells her paintings, sometimes for $500 a pop. Wouldn't that be the life? Painting to survive? Writing to survive? It would certainly be better than slinging coffee to pissy lawyers and secretaries for a living. I'm a firm believer that there's only so much abuse a person can take in the customer service sector of the work force before he or she begins to break apart. I don't want to reach that point. They don't pay me enough. In fact, they don't pay me enough to clean up the bum puke off the front steps, but I do it anyway. What kind of life is that? Especially when I could be living in the big city like my friend, surviving off of my own creative intuition. Some people that I work with have been in the coffee business (I mean, the "taking people's orders and making coffee" aspect of the business) for over six years. I'm just over my year mark and I'm already starting to get the "move on" itch. I guess I don't know what's out there for someone who has spent the last two years writing academic essays on english and world literature. Teaching? Sure, but that only puts me back in the school scene. I need a break. Maybe I should go to Italy. Or New Zealand. But on who's dime? I need to start preparing answers for people coming to my graduation party about what I'm going to do with my degree. Graduate school? Teaching degree? But I have a premonition about what's really going to happen. I'll graduate. Maybe move into an apartment in the summer. Steven will probably move in with me later. I'll keep working in the cafe. And then? Who knows. Nothing? Everything? Nothing?