"Don't Worry: It Gets Worse": A Review

This post half a book review and half a traditional blog post. Except I'm writing it from my phone. *Disclaimer: if I neglect the use of apostraphes where necessary, it is because my texting habits have deemed apostraphes optional. I do apologize.*

I recently finished reading Alida Nugent's "Don't Worry, It Gets Worse: A Twentysomething's (Mostly Failed) Attempts at Adulthood." If you're a twentysomething in college, read this book and take notes. It will prepare you for the days ahead. If you're a twentysomething college graduate, read this book. It will encourage you to know you're not alone in the struggle. If you're a parent of a twentysomething, read this book. It will help you understand what's going on in your twentysomething's life. If you simply enjoy great reads, read it! 

I fall into the twentysomething college graduate category. While some of my engineering fellow Boilermakers were starting their careers or landing RAships and TAships (again, in their career field), I was working nights at a chicken joint and occassionally selling clothes to Jenny, Mike, & The Kids. I'll be honest, there were engineering friends who didn't land a job right away, but a linguist with a BA who isn't fluent in a second language can't get very far. This is where Alida comes in.

Alida majored in writing (or was it English?) at Emerson college and graduated a lot like me: clueless and with unique skills. Alida's blunders were very similar to mine and her writing is quite entertaining and witty. 

Uncertainties are everywhere! Nothing good happens after 2am! Tequila unleashes the beast at your "mature" party! Alida shares these lessons while laughing at them and acknowledging universal truths. "We all put our pajamas on the same way: one foot at a time in front of a TV with chips falling out of our mouths." Her references to Cheeto dust? Totally about me. 

If you like witty writing, read this book. She does speak crudely, but it's not like most twentysomethings don't speak like that. 

This inbetween phase is hard. And it's weird. I can't remember the last time a saw a movie or watched a show about the phase between college and actually doing what you want to do. The trabsition, the making-it-happen, or starting out phase. I hadn't known what to expect and I've honestly felt stupid. It sounds stupid.

Christina L Riepe:

-22-years-old

-Purdue graduate

-Owns 15 books on Spanish

-Great cooking skills

-Works a receptionist

-And a waitress

-Sells knives

-Lives at home

-Dream: spending the majority of the rest of her life outside the US.

Not only does it sound silly, it sounds dumb. Those facts make me sound like some hippy, privileged, anti-American schmuck. But maybe I give myself too much credit.

Twentysomethings, I believe in you. I believe in you because you're learning how much a dollar really costs. I believe in you because you still believe there's more to life than earning a paycheck to pay bills. Even if that's the only thing on your mind this week. I believe in you because Bender from the Breakfast Club and DanIsNotOnFire & AmazingPhil are your heroes. I believe in you because you've made it this far alive. 

I also love reading your blogs.

For the rest of you, help a twentysomething out by paying a lunch date for them. They probably haven't eatten anything besides toast this week. And don't make fun of people you know who regularly post YouTube videos or write on Tumblr. They just might write a book.

<3

The Waiting Game: A Ramble?

I want you to think about the thing you love most to do.
The thing you would make time for in your schedule, cancel other plans for, and may make you forget things like sleep and (dare I say it?) food exist.

Now, I want you to think of the thing you are the best at.
Not in comparison with other people. The one thing that you can say "Hey, I'm ok at racquetball, but I'm a boss when it comes to _____." If you're that guy playing Call Of Duty for six-hours a day but has sub-par averages, then you cannot fill that blank with Call of Duty. If you're a beast at making Mac N Cheese, and you are legitimately good at it, put Mac N Cheese in that blank. I want you to think long and hard about this question before you fill in the blank.

The two things you've named above may be very different. They might be the same thing. However, are you willing to commit the rest of your life to doing one of both of those things till, say, your head no longer grows hair, you have wrinkles all around your mouth and you die? If you chose food or sleep for either of them, you're cheating. I could eat hummus and pizza till the Rapture happens, but you also need food to survive. If alcohol was your answer, I highly recommend you check yourself into a program that can help you safely enjoy alcohol. Or that death thing may happen sooner than you want it to.

What are you willing to do all day, every day, for the rest of your life? A few of you twentysomethings reading this blog might be freaking out right now. "The rest of my life?!?! I don't even know if I'll be in the same major next week!!!" said the dude with a YOLO tattoo.
It's a big question. An important question. Lots of people don't know the answer. Sometimes that answer is scary. If you don't know your answer, THAT'S OK.

If you answered all three of these, I'm so glad you have patience and are willing to be challenged in an ever so strange way.

If you answered all three of these in under five minutes, not only are you a faster reader than I am, but you've got something very special.

My answer for all three of these is linguistics. (surprise!) Specifically, field linguistics and language development. How that will practically look (i.e. translation, literacy, survey) I'm not sure. But, I believe in my heart of hearts that I was born to use linguistics to reach people for Christ.

This is what is more commonly known as a Calling. Most people spend an usually large proportion of their lives trying to figure out what their calling is and the other portion of their lives figuring out how to execute it. My problem is not finding this calling, although that stage was rough, but actually getting to the point where I can do said calling. I'm thankful for knowing what my calling is. I had a conversation with a coworker at Vector where I was expressing my great desire to go overseas ASAP when he said, "At least you know what your calling is." He then proceeded to look distantly with a 'you have something that seems impossible for me' expression.

I know what I want to do. But can I ever get there? As the days roll into weeks and weeks into multiple months, I feel like I'll never be where I want to be. What ifs start to surface and I pay a visit to the Stewarts' and play Settlers of Catan or a few rounds of Nertz in order to stop freaking out. I'm not sure what's worse: not knowing your calling or not being able to pursue that calling. (yet?) I'm sure this story, like so many others, will have a happy ending. I may be the one speaking at a banquet when I'm seventy-years-old talking about how I became a widow at a young age (not at this rate) because my husband was killed in some sort of guerrilla war against Christians but I stayed on the field anyway and if I can do it, you can too! and dozens of young adults will join the fight to end Bible Poverty.

It's frustrating. In the mean time, in the land between, in my desert, I desire so earnestly to do the work I've been trained for and called to do. And can't. Maybe there's a particular reason I'm being held back. Maybe I'm not ready for the mission field. Maybe my mission field isn't ready for me. Maybe there are people I'm not done ministering to here yet.

Until then, I'm playing the waiting game. While I wait, I'm working two jobs, hopefully going to start a masters degree, leading a Biblestudy (soon), planting a tree (so maybe that's a joke), and letting people know I'm passionate about this work.

I'm just really hoping I don't pull a Moses and wait forty years to be assigned to my duties.

But we'll see.

Top 5 College Movies

When I started college, I knew there were going to be a few movies that ev-ery-one had seen and maybe some movies that were borderline cult films. I assumed Star Wars would be one of them, but the disgust the hipster geeks had for the prequels squelched any hope of that. The Ring was another guess I made, but apparently that was more of a high school era film.

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I have composed to the best of my ability the top five movies of my college experience. These movies were the most quoted, the most seen, and the most likely to be played in the background to a game of euchre or with 'Sunny D' in-hand. 




 #5

 Zombieland

I'm pretty sure this movie reminded us how much we love Twinkies. I'm also pretty Zombieland is why we freaked out over the Hostess scare last year. Thanks to Zombieland, we now have numerical rules for life, we realized how B.A. Emma Stone is, and we remembered how much we love Bill Murray. Oh. And how much we hate clowns. So get past the gore and have a laugh.

P.S. Be a hero. 

 #4

 

Super Troopers

For all it's weirdness, I have to admit, I enjoy this movie. Totally thought it was the dumbest thing ever when I saw it for the first time. It's vulgar and the story line is weak, but hey, you gotta love the classics, right? If you hear your twenty-something saying the word 'meow' a lot, it's because they've seen this movie.

P.S. You may need more Maple Syrup. Or powdered sugar.

#3

 

Zoolander

Sadly, I've only seen this one once. But I hear about it. ALL THE TIME. In my opinion, the best installment of Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson ever. So if you're really really really good looking and you want to read good and do other things good, you should watch it sometime.

P.S. Will Farrell is also in it. *yesss!*

 #2

 

The Breakfast Club

As I said earlier, the classics never die. John Hughes was pretty ahead of his time. The older I get, the more I understand the themes of this movie. The less I hate Bender and the more I hate Richard Vernon. We've all got our own problems, our own brokeness. Sometimes you need your own group of misfits to admit that and start working through it.

P.S. Don't you forget about me.







#1

Mean Girls

"On Wednesdays, we wear pink" and "Boo you whore" were too very important lines to take away from this movie. Tina Fey managed to (mostly) reconcile a whole gym of high school girls and a dude in a blue hoody was brave enough to point out the fact that "she doesn't even go here!"

P.S. Fetch is never going to happen.








Do you agree with my top 5? If you've got movies you think I missed or you totally think I was off base with a few, let me know! I want to know about your college experience.

Keep Calm & Stay Fetch