In college, instead of taking classes that covered intense vocabulary words that you only ever hear on those wacked out GREs and GMATs, I opted to take courses that covered the environmental message in the ‘classic’ Bio-Dome and wrote 25 page papers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Though incredibly interesting to me, I doubt those topics will leave a great impression on the admissions staff at my school of choice.

I take the GRE in less than a month. My scores so far are higher than they need to be for admission, but I’m still afraid it won’t be enough. In school I focused more on the student newspaper than my grades and in life I tend to concentrate more on doing one thing at a time rather than being crazy France girl and joining/running every organization possible.

But I think I’m more than qualified for the program. I have the experience, I have the drive, and I’m pretty sure I have the program director on my side (the importance of networking).

So here’s hoping I get it because, for the first time in my life, my first first choice isn’t calling back.

I think the world is set up really stupidly. Why does everyone have to work 9-5? Why are businesses only open 9-5? Why do I have to take my lunch hour or a day off to go to the doctor’s office or any other appointments needed? I miss the freedom of college and being able to make your own schedule and decide what days you work. I feel like we work for 40 years just to recreate that freedom in our lives, but I want it now.

I’m frustrated with this life. I want change. I don’t know how to do it. I guess the only thing to do now is set up some goals and find the right path to march. I just wish I had an actual compass that could point me in the right direction.

I feel like missing the N train is a metaphor and I’m going to be cheesy about it.

I feel like I’ve been missing the N train my whole life.

Graduation hit and the job market sucked. There were loads of jobs I was qualified for right before graduation but I missed that N train.

I got my job and the next day I look and there’s a job that’s right up my alley. I missed that N train.

The one place where I haven’t missed the N train is in my relationship, kind of.

The boy and I have a pretty complicated history. Met freshman year, I was instantly attracted and deep in the closet. Ran into reach other a few times, my attraction remained. We started talking during the summer of 2008. He started seeing somebody. We kept talking online while I interned at a major national magazine (sidenote: I really miss it despite being so frustrated with it at the time) and he watched his little brothers.

We started hanging out at school. Flirting escalated and we couldn’t deny feelings/attraction/etc. It was a very messy six months for a number of reasons. The biggest? He was still technically with the other guy. Yeah, homewrecker. Open relationships are the stupidest thing ever and we both are at fault for hurting more than each other throughout those awesome/heartbreaking/confusing months.

I missed the N train by not making my move on him sooner. I missed the N train because I put up with bullshit for so long, but I was scared I’d lose him and was falling hard and fast.

Fast-forward to now and here we are approaching our official six months together and almost a year of unofficially being together. We’re living together and virtually spend all of our free time together and it’s taking a huge toll.

It’s changed things. Lately I feel like a mother, harping on him to not leave food  (he leaves out cheese, that stuff needs to be put back in the fridge!) or dirty dishes out.

I don’t feel like I’m living with my boyfriend, I feel like there’s no romance. As of late it’s like I have a somewhat obnoxious roommate that I have sex with every once in a while.

The past couple of days I’ve seen gay couples on the N train heading to work and it makes me insanely jealous because I want to be with him, holding his hand or resting my hand on his knee while we ride the train. But, we both get home from work and we start bickering about dinner and we start picking on each other and it hasn’t been fun.

Is all the time we’re spending together just wedging us apart?

When we start to get in arguments something will trigger something and the past six months of pain and torture (that yes, I also brought on myself) rise to the surface. I’m still not over it and don’t know what to do.

I want to be fun and carefree and ride the N train with him but I keep missing it because I’m delayed by the past.

I guess it’s nice that people think such good things, but it can also be really frustrating. They ask how work is and before I’m able to get anything out other than the “eeeeeh,” they stop me “it’s just good to get experience,” pat me on the back and then we’re done.

Thinking of grad school, “that’s great, you’ve got it all figured out!”

Going to move abroad and never speak to any of you again, “I’ve always wanted to travel! This is the perfect time in your life for that.”

Quitting my job to become a professional blogger, “I wish I understood the Internet. You’ve got so much ahead of you!”

So much ahead of me, but nothing really to do right now other than keep going and waiting for that cosmic break.

I was covering an event for work. It required waking up early, a 15-20 minute walk to the venue with a heavy laptop and camera bag and writing until 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday.Needless to say, Friday was very welcomed.

It’s getting more and more difficult to balance a social life with my work life. Earlier this week we had a party at the office and I didn’t get home until after 11 p.m. Here I am putting in tons of extra hours at work and I’m not sure it’s being recognized.

I’m plugging away and it’s taking a toll on not only on my sanity but physically I feel beat even after a full night’s rest.

What do I do to get recognized? There’s no way I’m going to get a raise.

My biggest problem with work is that I don’t see an end. I don’t have any other options at this point. I don’t see an ending to my unhappy professional life…which is pretty much my entire life.

I know I am gaining a lot of experience but it’s hard to watch my industry crumble and continue to remain at what I feel like is a deadend job, just because as of now it’s steady. When can I return to my passion for consumer feature writing? How long before I become pigeonholed in business writing?

My office is five other people, the closest in age is 26 and married and not somebody I’d want to associate with when not in the office. Too dramatic.

It’s almost Halloween and the boyfriend and I have no plans. Halloween is huge in New York and we have no plans because we have no friends and no idea how to make them.

We depend on each other for our primary social interaction and often times I feel like we take advantage of our relationship and snap at each other too easily.

It’s time we made friends our own age and really start to expand our social circle to more than just each other. Thoughts on how to do that?

Name

I’m one of those people that just can’t choose a path. In my head I make lists of lists of different outcomes, and try to analyze each one before making a decision. And then once I do make that decision, there are even more offshoots of possible futures to be analyzed. It’s a tiring process, but it’s just how my mind works.

Right now I’m working in the IT department of a medium-sized software company that creates financial software. I’m testing the software – over and over again for weeks on end. I was offered the position back in January and I took it almost on the spot. I was happy to have a job, and I realized how lucky I was to have that offer in my hand so early. But now I hate it because I do the same tests over and over. The mean age in my group is 35, and that’s only because I’m pulling it down with my youth. I want to get out. I need to get out. I’m not being pushed to succeed or encouraged to go above and beyond.

One of the ways I’m escaping, professionally that is, is by going to graduate school. I have the luxury of being very close to a reputable university and have enrolled in a master’s program. I keep flip-flopping between majoring in accounting or taxation because I can see a future in either realm. Either way I want to be finished by May 2011. That’s twelve credits a semester, on top of a full-time position, but I was really involved in college and I’m hoping that I can handle all of this. If that’s not enough, I’m mentally preparing to academically prepare for the CPA exam. I hope to start it in June 2010 and finish by January 2011.

I don’t know how to approach my career anymore. With everything going on in the finance industry, the economy as a whole, my current position, and my graduate studies, it’s hard to make sense of everything. It’s even harder when I keep over analyzing the options. I also can’t forget about improving my relationship, my social life, adjusting to life in the city when I work on Long Island, and trying to find time for my video games and comics. Life is overwhelming and at times I want to just run away, but I know I can’t. I am stuck and I’m floundering.

Name

The economic crisis has messed up everyone’s plans, but it’s particularly inconvenient when you have to operate in a currency that’s eating yours alive, and you aren’t REALLY sure when they’re planning to pay you – other than that it’s going to take awhile. I’ve entirely stopped reading the news, because I can’t see the point of listening to everyone tell me how the future of my generation has been wrecked by our mini-depression. Call me a hopeless optimist, but I don’t see what good can come of focusing on how screwed we are.

I’ve survived a lot of the routine grind here, like finding an apartment and opening a bank account, with relatively few difficulties, but I just started actually teaching. I teach the equivalent of first-fourth graders English … but I teach in three different schools, with a total of 13 different classes. That makes things a bit more complicated.

At the same time, I’m trying to apply to graduate programs in political science. I don’t really know what I want to do with my life, but I love political science, and I can see a future as a researcher and a professor. On the other hand, I will also be presented the option to renew my contract here, and part of me feels like this is the one real chance I’ll have to live in France, and this is the only time I can be young and uninhibited enough to do it. I’m trying to visualize where I’ll be 10 years from now : A professor? A diplomat? A politician? I can also see a potential career as a homeless, broke, alcoholic, illegal immigrant in France, though, so I’m not sure how much that vision is worth.

The prospect of the life-altering decisions I have to make is terrifying, but until something forces my hand, I’m floundering.