A day in the life. I woke up at nine and complained how early it was. I ate toast with Nutella (six pieces) and called it breakfast, all the while reviewing the hits and strikeouts of last night’s MLB matchups on ESPN. I showered in five minutes, turned on a hard-rock Cd, and donned anything halfway clean, finally setting out, ready to work. Work is only a ten-minute stroll away. En route, I see at least 12 people who all smiled, said hello and asked me how my short day was going. In the classroom, my teacher didn’t show, and suddenly I had an extra hour to read the paper, check e-mail and update my Fantasy-baseball lineup.

Finally when reality intrudes with a class, 50 minutes later I am having a lunch with two fraternity brothers, a sports writer, a future doctor and an education major. We talked about professional sports, baseball umpiring, bad “R” rated movies, music videos and beer. In my last class, I learned that Bahrain is a great place to store your money, and that everyone in Yemen carries AK-47s but hardly ever shoots them.

This is the life.

And that is why graduation sucks. The afternoon is spent chatting with friends, all of whom live within a five-minute walk, taking a short nap, studying about ocean currents and planning the evening. The evening’s options: go out with close friends, attend a banquet where food is free, or see a major, nationally renowned comedian-for free. Afterward, I listen to local music, play games of movie trivia, argue about the quality of the Minnesota Twins, and write 800 words for the paper, among close friends who do great work. Sleep will come somewhere around 2 a.m., and the alarm is set at a distant 11:12 so I can hit the snooze twice before I have to get up at two quarters till twelve.

I constantly receive congratulations on the news that I will be graduating this May. I laugh at them. “Thanks,” I chuckle. Little do they know. May 19 is looming like a death sentence. Why should graduation be a moment of joy? Just because it is a passage of a life stage? I will acknowledge that those who complete the academic requirements for a college diploma do deserve kudos. But those on the outside should still commiserate with me on this passage of the good life.

College is life as it was meant to be. I know: homework blows; tests kill; and studying can cause nearsightedness and hair loss. I agree with many who believe classes take away from the enjoyment of college. But they don’t destroy the enjoyment of college. In fact, some of them are actually interesting. Never again will we have such an expansion of thought in our lives.

I will be losing the ability to wake up at 6 a.m. confidently knowing that I can wear myself out, because the next day I don’t have to be up ’til the afternoon. I live in the comfort that an estimated 82 percent of my close friends live within a block of me, and I see many of them five days a week in passing. There is always someone to eat with, always someone to shop with, and always someone to laugh with.

I can watch daytime TV, DESPITE the fact that it is so bad it’s almost painful. If you haven’t worn a T-shirt in two weeks it is clean and acceptable in almost all college social settings. The loose schedule allows a person to spend an evening out with friends contemplating the troubles and blessings of the world. Meetings aren’t all about what your fellow employees are doing wrong. Meetings in college consist of plans to improve the community, student life or the enlightenment of our peers. I can walk from one meeting where we talk about improved cafeteria food right into a gathering of people who are working for human rights, to a meeting where dances and laser tag competitions are planned.

What do I do? Get a job? Sure, that makes sense, but none will provide me with the flexibility and enlightenment that college can offer. Graduate school seems to offer itself as the perfect option. But in reality it is just a bluff. Graduate school takes the least enjoyable parts of college (classes and homework) and combines it with the responsibility of the real world, subtracting the university environment that possesses the true fun of college.

I’m warning you. The real world will not give you a chance to see a major band up-close for almost no money. There is no Worker’s Life office where you can pick up tickets to some headlining comedian. I look at people like Carlo Di Carlo, a perfectly talented and intelligent man for whom no job can offer a situation that respects his genius. And there are hundreds of us in that category.

We have been taught to think out of the box, explore creative ways to make our existence meaningful and effective. On the outside there are only the options of being boxed in cubicles becoming drones or being poor.

Personally, I see graduation as a time for good-byes to some of the most inspiring people I have ever met. It is the beginning of the frustrating job search. It is the boundary to the cold hard world of reality. My fellow students college is the perfect life. Stay for as long as you can. Upon this cursory reflection, I must disagree with my colleague.

a

Gradation is not all it’s cracked up to be. Avoid it like the plague.