A UCLA alumnus singing the 'real world' blues

Wednesday, November 30, 1994

A UCLA alumnus singing the 'real world' blues

Dawn Mabalon

Call me insane, but I miss school. Call it whatever you want ­ post-grad blues, UCLA withdrawal, whatever. I just don't like this real world thing called life after college.

I'm not alone in this depressed state. One of my soul sisters, a fellow Filipina journalist and NYU grad, called me a few weeks ago.

"I just love my new job," she said. She works as a reporter at a New Jersey newspaper. "I have money to buy books, clothes and CDs. I love my new car."

Then she got quiet. "I miss school," I whined.

"I do too," she said. Then we got depressed, mumbled some niceties and meaningless words of support and promptly hung up.

After graduation last June, I looked forward to my year off between undergraduate and grad school with great anticipation. I'd work. I'd save money. I'd travel. I'd apply to grad school and take the dreaded GRE. Moreover, I'd have fun. No midterms, finals or papers. No more shelling out hundreds of dollars for history books.

Here it is December already, however, and it's just not working out. I have gone nowhere and have saved next to nothing. The 9 to 5 grind is just that ­ a grind, though I truly love my job. I find myself becoming more and more adult by the day.

Some scary examples: I have dry cleaning to pick up weekly and car insurance bills. I find myself buying things like houseplants and throw rugs, and frequenting the chocolate and nuts aisle of Trader Joe's on National and Westwood.

I'm listening to classical music before I go to sleep. I bought a membership at Holiday Spa that I never use. I can actually afford to eat out. I can read books that have nothing to do with school. I go to sleep early because I have to get up at 7:30 a.m.

But I still don't feel comfortable in this adult mode. And worse yet, my year off from school hasn't been the most productive anyway.

Now that I have more time, I do nothing with it but constantly reorganize old school papers, attend in-staff meetings, coalition group meetings, Samahang meetings, board meetings and just plain meetings and shop.

GRE? Isn't that Dec. 10? I opened the tutorial book two weeks ago and the geometry scared me so much I haven't approached the book since.

Students filter in and out of the office on their way to classes, review sessions, meetings with TAs and professors and lunch appointments at Coop or the Treehouse, and it takes all my strength to stay in the office and not run after them.

I peruse the course catalog and I see classes I wish I had taken. I jump at the chance to proofread other people's history papers or to talk to people about my major, especially during the peer counseling sessions I do as part of my job.

All I can think about is how I miss the first day of classes and the ink smell of new history books. I love the collective bargaining and sharing that goes on in review sessions, and pink highlighter pens and taking good notes.

I miss visiting interesting TAs and professors in office hours, and good discussion sections and the maze that is URL. And I even miss the marble floors of Murphy Hall. I miss writing papers, and that point at 3 a.m. when you've finally got the flow going, your thesis is clear and nothing can stop you.

"So how's the adult life?" various family members asked me over Thanksgiving break. I know they're thanking God under their breath that I actually found a job after graduation, and that it wasn't at some newspaper in Nebraska writing obituaries. They're mildly amused with me, I know, but they try to be supportive.

I must admit that the first few months of freedom after graduation are great. I loved having the summer and my life laid out ahead of me. I bought a UCLA alumni license plate frame, and armed with my B.A., felt ready to face the world. I bought a new car. I got a new job.

Then October came, and as I watched my friends stress about classes and talk about new people they had met and anal TAs, I started feeling blue. This is it? I asked myself. This is the real world?

November rolled over me, and a nagging thought ­ graduate school ­ evolved into deep concern. Oh yeah. Graduate school. When is that GRE test? Where do I want to apply? Is grad school what I want to do with my life?

I had a plan when I graduated in June ­ I wanted to get my master's degree in Asian American Studies here at UCLA ­ but with all of my other post-grad depressions and self-doubts, my life's goals seem so blurry and far away. In the real world, one thinks first of the gas bill and then, maybe, of life's goals and ambitions.

Here I am in December already, and I've barely begun thinking about a Statement of Purpose. Do I even have a purpose? And if so, what is it? I feel listless, bored and I am probably fairly boring to hang out with. I need to find other post-grads and commiserate about having nothing to do but wait until next fall.

So I'm complaining. I have little to complain about. I have a car, a good job and a fairly good chance of getting into graduate school. Maybe it's really nothing, and the emptiness I feel will pass, and I'll begin to enjoy not having to study and not learning. And maybe I'll have to get a hobby, like needlepoint or something.

Mabalon graduated in June with a bachelor's degree in history and Asian American studies. She is the director of SPEAR, Samahang Pilipino Education and Retention Project.