For all the final year students out there, you may be starting to panic a little. Do you find yourself waking up in a hot, sweaty mess? Are you starting to doubt your abilities and forget every single thing that you’ve learnt over the last four years? That’s because it’s graduation season and the real world is waiting to swallow us whole and probably spit us back out again. It’s time for us to start making choices, taking on responsibilities, and leaving our foolish, sex-crazed, alcohol-fueled days behind us.
It’s time to buy yourself a pair of sensible shoes and organise a rental property, because now that we’re on the home stretch, we really don’t have any excuses that are good enough to justify not having our s*** together.
Never fear though, just because we’re leaving our students days behind us, this doesn’t mean the fun has to end. We’re still young, which means we’re probably poor and a little bit stupid. There’s still so much for us to learn and many experiences to be had. You’ll look like a real adult, you’ll talk like a real adult, but deep down you’re still a twenty-something-human and old habits die hard.
You will continue to:
Have Kebabs at 2am
There’s something spiritual about the early morning kebab. You were drunk enough to end up at the kebab shop in the first place, but you’re sober enough to know that you have to be sneaky when you eat it in the taxi ride home, because you remember that cabby from last time and he got really pissed off when your friend dropped tabouli on his seat.
There will be plenty of opportunities to frequent the kebab shop when you enter full time employment. From what I hear, office parties these days can get quite wild. Granted, you won’t be partying three times a week like you’re used to, but the plus side there is that you waistline will thank you for the reduction of kebabs from your weekly diet.
Have One Night Stands
You may think that university is the only environment filled with men and women that are willing to let you share their body fluids for one night and one night only, but you’re wrong. If anything, you’re probably about to have more one night stands than you used to. The professional world is full of busy people who are looking for a quick fix. All you’ll need to do is look up from your desk and you’ll see that your office is crawling with potential.
Sure, it will be a little different than it was when you were at uni, but it will probably be better. Being older, you’ll probably experience someone who has a little more ‘experience’, meaning it will probably be more than a two pump show. You might even find that one night stands can extend into a nice breakfast companion, rather than someone that has to smear themselves back into last night’s clothes and rush off to their eleven o’clock tute.
Have a Sleep In
At university, we’re sleeping in until at least 10am each morning. Anything before this time becomes non-existent, including early morning classes. Your body falls into this new sleepy pattern which includes going to sleep at 2am and rising twelve hours later. Frankly, this isn’t very healthy and hours of your life are wasting away while you’re deep in slumber.
Working full time will whip you back into shape. You’ll get up early and get s*** done before your working day begins and you’ll glide through the day feeling productive and energised. Weekends are for sleep-ins and soon you will start to treasure it as a reward rather than a necessity.
Get Help From Your Parents
I’m not sure if there is a cut off date for parental guidance, but one thing I know is that when you’re in your twenties your parents pretty much have to revert back to your toddler years in regards to their parenting style. You’re learning to walk again, experiencing things for the first time and it would be completely irresponsible for them to leave you. At this point, you’d probably try and invest your savings into a company or something.
Next time you see you parents, give them a big hug, because while you think you’re doing it all on your own, your parents are secretly there beside you, every step of the way.
Make Bad Choices
While we won’t admit it, we kind of enjoy f***ing up. It means two things, a) we’re not yet at a stage where we HAVE to get it right all the time and b) we have something to complain to friends about over coffee. Knowing that we’ve made a bad choice, while it still feels a bit s***ty, is liberating because it means we are still young and figuring the world out. We take comfort in the fact that we fumble over new experiences, because it means they are new and new is exciting.
There will be a point in our lives where we feel like we’ve got everything under control. That just means we need to pack up and move on somewhere different, because we should spend our entire life chasing new experiences and making bad choices. Like that time you got a front fringe. Just awful.