The key to a worry-free break.

With only a few days left until I make my final trip back to Champaign as a student, I'm not thinking about anything I should probably be thinking about. I'm not thinking about the semester ahead, the horrendous job search that hopefully won't be so horrendous, the people I'll see back at school. I'm not worrying. Sitting here, a few days away from being a second semester senior, all I'm thinking about is right now.

The countless encounters I have had with relatives, family friends, unfortunate acquaintances since I've returned home for winter break have mostly been somewhat bearable. The conversations were all the same, more or less: many, many questions about my future, and very few questions about my present. Questions were posed to me, asking if I am worried about finding a job in this awful economic situation, what I plan to do right after graduation, what degree I'm graduating with and what I want to do with that degree. What do I want to do with that degree? I want to be proud of it. And then I want to rest. I want to think about my future when I'm ready, find a job at my own pace and enter into a career that might not make me incredibly happy right away, but that will at least make me proud.

Call me crazy, but worrying doesn't seem to be the solution to the fear of ending my college career and potentially not falling into a perfectly set-up job whenever I choose. So the next time someone who I run into, someone who I would rather avoid, even someone who I love, the next time that someone asks me what I plan to do with my degree, my answer will be plain and simple: I plan to mount it on the wall in my room.