Top 10 Reasons 

I'm excited about Graduation...Kind of...

10...Eight hours of sleep a night.  I remember getting eight hours of sleep every night.  As I recall, it was really entertaining and restful. There have been entire weeks in college where I slept eight hours.  Of course, I'll have to tape a lecture or two before I graduate, because the only time I fall asleep now is in class, dreaming along to my Professor's soothing tones. This is assuming I get a real job and don't have to spend my time on some fishing boat off the coast of Alaska.  Those boat jobs pay really well, though.

9...Pleasure reading.  The last book I read because I wanted to was "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss.  Now, when I read, it's always really interesting books like "Major Principles of Media Law" and "The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual."  Of course if I get a job that doesn't involve manure or animal carcasses, my employers might expect me to read things about my job.  I don't know why I should start reading things I'm supposed to just because someone is paying me.  After all I graduated from college by reading the chapter summaries.

8...Watching television.  The next time somebody asks me what happened on Melrose Place or Seinfeld, I'm going to be able to tell them, dammit.  I am not one of those pseudo-intellectuals who pretends not to watch TV because it's puerile or sophomoric.  I don't watch TV because I'm never home.  I can't wait for the time where I can let the networks and fifty other cable channels rot my brain on a regular basis.  It's a dream I live for every day.  I realize that a job testing shark repellant might not allow bunches of free time, with all the time spent in emergency rooms, but I can still have my dreams.

6...No more lectures, instructors, or Professors.  While I'm sure I'll have bosses or supervisors with enormous egos and highly inflated senses of their own self-worth, I'll bet they won't expect me to read books they wrote.  I'll bet most of them won't even be published authors, but that's just a hunch.  I just don't expect my boss at the Post Office to be the kind of guy who would expect us to read, "Mail Delivery...My Way."  He will probably be too busy trying to keep the gruntled workers from becoming disgruntled, or at least armed.

5...No more homework.  Oh sure, I'll have paperwork to take home from time to time.  Taco Bell expects the payroll forms to be filled out almost twice a month.  I just won't have to deal with professors who feel that their three-hour course is infinitely more important than some other three-hour course.  From now on, it's one job, one set of homework - end of story.  I'm pretty sure that baggage handlers don't even have that one set of homework.  More time for TV.

4...Weekends off.  Because I've been in school full time these past five or six years, I've had to work (for money) on the weekends.  Now I'll be able to clearly define my work week from Monday mornings at 8:00 to Friday sometime after 10:00 am.  The term "weekend" might actually regain some meaning in my life.  In college "weekend" just means I'm not skipping any classes.  I'm still on campus or at work, doing my best to avoid that whole sleeping thing.  However, if I get that fishing boat gig in Alaska, where they have night for six months in a row, it will probably be difficult to tell when the week ends (or begins, for that matter.)

2...Unlimited opportunities.  Saying college graduated have unlimited opportunities is like saying a man lost in the desert has an unlimited number of directions he can go.  Sure he does, but any way he goes, he'll probably die of exposure or heat exhaustion.  I'm not sure which one is correct. (Gosh I wish I had paid more attention in Biology.)  To be fair, some of us graduate with jobs lined up and have a great plan for success in life.  The other 99% of us will be stampeding the malls of America looking for management trainee positions.  Is the Gap hiring?

1...I'm finished with school.  Using this as a reason might fall under the self-fulfilling prophecy fallacy or something else I didn't learn in Logic 101, but I have been in school non-stop for 19 years.  I need a break.  I think in terms of syllabi instead of calendars.  My third year of college seems awfully similar to my fifth year of college, and I can't tell either of those apart from high school.  When I graduate, I can work and settle down in one place.  I can trick someone into marrying me and having children that we can't afford.  Then we can probably get a divorce that we can't afford.  Then I'll wish I was back in school.  (Maybe that's the self-fulfilling prophecy.) When is the next GRE test scheduled for?

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