It seemed like a good idea at the time

Good news, everyone: According to society, my life officially began yesterday!

At approximately 1:30 in the afternoon, in the Bryce Jordan Center on the Penn State campus, my name was read and I walked across the stage. I stared into the beady eyes of the president of the university, shook his cold little hand and thought, "Damn, I should have spit the gum I'm chewing into my hand before I walked up here." This thought was immediately followed by "Man this wedgie is killing me, I wonder if people will notice if I pick it," and "I could go for a bean and cheese burrito right about now."

Perhaps this moment would have been more magical if my name had been read as I actually walked, not spat out in rapid succession as we, the student/cattle, sped across the stage. Or perhaps if I hadn't been entangled in battle with a less-than-enthusiatic adviser in the College of Communications over a second diploma I could either wait for in the mail for three months or go to another 3-hour graduation four hours later.

The pride swelled within me as I threw a thumbs up at my cheering section (family and friends) and went back to my seat. It was official: I was no longer a student and my life as I knew it was done. And as I retook my horrible little plastic seat, it suddenly hit me what I had done. Four years in the wilds of central Pennsylvania? Cake walk. Double major in journalism and psychology? Simple. Signing my life away to the Grand Canyon? What the hell did I just do?

I believe some of the best horror stories begin with "well, it seemed like a good idea at the time..." So, when I applied to move to the Grand Canyon for six months, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had these grandiose dreams of Canyon Girl: Wilderness Woman in which I was a muscular, tanned woman of the west, perched atop the Canyon rim, hands on hips, with the sun rising behind me. And yes, there may or may not have been wind blowing through my long red hair. I could see myself foraging with a machete (yes, because apparently in my head the NPS issues large, sharp knives) down the Canyon. I could start a fire with two rocks I picked up from my primitive camp site, in which I felt at ease. For this dream, imagine a female Davy Crockett. Then there's the backpacking I could see myself doing, dressed in a white tank top and khaki shorts (gotta show off those tanned, toned legs, right?) coming into a wide clearing where a private waterfall oasis awaited me.

It was all of this that made me put my magazine writing dreams on my back burner to pursue a life that kept me away from mundane things like desks and pencil sharpeners. After spending four years behind a computer screen writing papers and articles, the only thing on my mind was simply what was on the other side of my window.

To complicate matters, I took the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund internship test--the SATs for journalists--and found out much too late I landed a spot at the Palm Beach Post. When I took the test in November, I could easily envision myself at a cubicle copyediting and being happy there, but as November faded to December and it was February before I noticed time passing, my thoughts turned to the future. All college grads dig their heels into the ground to avoid being sucked into the "real world" vortex that was rapidly approaching. The thought of moving back in with parents left me with a cold sweat. I love my family... just in small doses where I can go back to my own place at the end of the week. In my father's house, I will always be 12 years old. No more stumbling in at 4 in the morning, leaving my dishes wherever I please, or using my floor as my clothes hamper. I couldn't give these freedoms up without a fight.

It was then I turned to the SCA (Student Conservation Association), where a good friend of mine had recently taken and loved a job. The SCA assigns you a position somewhere in the United States and pays you with room and board. Not a bad deal for a homeless, jobless college graduate biding time until she finds a job or decides on grad school. The only problem with this plan was that my skills are not valued very highly by the park service. I can read, write, analyze data, and basically talk to anyone about anything. This is not botany, archeology, science, maintenance, or anything resembling a skill needed in a park. And yet, somehow, someone said "hey we could use this girl to look at safety issues!" and here I am, one month away from the Grand Canyon.

The Palm Beach Post position, it should be noted, came the day after I officially committed to the Canyon job.

So as my ass started to go numb in that joke of a plastic chair, my illusions of Canyon Girl: Wilderness Woman started to fade into East Coast College Graduate: I Don't Even Run Outside. This is the reality I was now envisioning: replace the sunrise-backed goddess of a park ranger with a sweaty, overweight ranger sitting on a rock, chugging water like there's no tomorrow. The wind in this scenario now blows from my back, which causes the previously mentioned long red hair to turn me into Cousin It. The machete-wielding wilderness woman is now screeching at snakes, peeing down her own legs as opposed into the toilet hole she had just dug, sunburnt and miserable when she can't light a fire with her lighter. As for that private oasis? Well, if I ever make it that far I'll let you know how that reality works out for me.

Don't take this as any type of regret, however. I'm still excited about the life of adventure I have been dreaming about as I typed out my papers in a darkened, freezing room during a winter at Penn State. I'm only just 21, and there's this whole world out there (or so I'm told), that needs to be seen and experienced. To waste my life away in a cubicle now seems like such a waste.

If anything, this realization that my life has truly started has only made me more eager to go out and see what my boundaries really are. Plus the thought of sitting through more classes in grad school makes me physically ill with the urge to vomit.

I'm thinking the Grand Canyon could just be the best adventure of my life... I invite everyone to join me in these adventures from the ledge.