Religious Rage-o-meter

What's pissing religious fanatics off today?














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MTV's My Super Sweet 16 -
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27%

"The Gays" -
10%

The Diary of Fools Online College Graduation Guide: Chapter One - Moving Back Home

Congratulations! Against all conventional wisdom, you’ve decided to graduate from college! So what now, you ask? Get a job? Buy a house? Start planning your financial future? Whoa, slow down, Johnny Wall Street! First, it’s time to spend a few depressing, disillusioning months/years living in your mother’s basement. This is a very important transitional period for new grads used for “figuring shit out.”

“Moving back home after graduation may seem like a step backwards for many graduates,” says Bill McClurgen, CEO of CareerBonanza.com, “but it is an important phase. During their time in college, students develop a sheltered sense of idealism and invincibility. That sense is immediately shattered to hell the first time they get scolded by mother to make their bed.”

Reverting from complete freedom to moving back in with your mom as a 22 year-old adult may strike you as somewhat depressing. In all actuality, it’s much, much more depressing than you ever imagined.

Shortly after making the move back home, graduates will start to notice an almost immediate decline in their self-confidence, social life and general hygiene. This is to be completely expected. After all, just two weeks ago you were rolling on ecstasy while having a threesome with a teacher’s assistant and a Mexican hotel maid in Cancun. Tonight, you will be sitting at home watching a CSI marathon with your parents and going to sleep underneath your X-Men sheets.

So, is there a way to avoid this terrifying living situation? Well, some people will tell you that preparation for life after college starts during college. These people are in fact, douche bags. Feel free to key their car. Let’s face it, while you were in college you were too busy trying to figure out if the Transsexual Native American Literature course you took satisfied your Multi-cultural Gender Sensitivity Awareness and Tolerance requirement, or if you’d have to sign up for The History of Central American Hermaphrodite Midgets in the spring. If you had used the remaining time in your schedule to start hashing out your post-graduate plans, it wouldn’t have left you much time to build your 3-story beer bong, now would it?

Like the majority of college graduates, you will have very little idea of how you actually plan to apply your degree to the professional world when you graduate. Combine that with your diminished bank account and lease that ran out 3 weeks ago, and conditions are ripe for moving back in with your parents.

When making the transition back to your parent’s house, it is important that they understand that you are now an adult and that you expect to be treated in kind. Declare your newfound adult status by sitting your parents down to share your expectations and ground rules for the duration of your stay in their home. Just kidding. As long as you’re living under their roof you’ll do what they say. If you were such an “adult” you’d have your own place, now wouldn’t you? Now shut off that goddamn TV and help your father trim the hedges in the backyard! Your parents didn’t spend their retirement fund to put you through college so you could watch DVDs all day and treat their house like a goddamn Radisson! And are those dirty dishes in your bedroom? They better be in the dishwasher in 5 minutes or else somebody loses car privileges for the week!

OK, so maybe you should forget about being treated like an adult. In order to keep your sanity while replaying all the same scenes you had with your parents in high school, it’s important that you plan a daily routine for yourself. This will help you maintain focus and energy while also keeping your mind off the fact that your life has lost all purpose and is now seen as a mockery of the human creation in the eyes of God.

Here is a sample schedule that may work for you*:

8:00am: Woken up by mother

8:48am: Woken up by mother again, this time by her flickering lights on and off and obnoxiously pounding on the door while announcing that you are “burning daylight.”

9:01am: Stare blankly at self in bathroom mirror, attempting to pinpoint the exact moment when it all went horribly, horribly wrong.

9:04am: gentle sobbing/shameful reflection (morning session)

9:30am: Frosted Flakes!

10:00am – 1:00pm: Job search/resume creation/Internet porn/Internet porn

1:01pm: delete www.bigoldtitties.com from internet history.

1:02 pm: gentle sobbing/shameful reflection (afternoon session)

1:30pm: Hot Pockets!

2:00pm – 5:00pm: Interview for humiliatingly menial jobs that barely necessitate a frontal lobe, let alone a college degree.

5:00pm – 12:00am: Drive to former campus, drink heavily, pick fight with varsity quarterback

12:00am: pass out in a pool of vomit, humiliation, and broken dreams.

*It must be noted that this schedule is just a loose guideline and must be tailored to fit the needs of the individual. For example, maybe you’d prefer drinking heavily in the morning and devoting an entire afternoon to gentle sobbing/shameful reflection. Experiment to find what schedule works best for you – and have fun!

(Figure 1.0)
Unfortunately, your parents aren't the only people that will treat you like you're in high school again - so will women.

**In the time it took you to read this, Wilt Chamberlin would have slept with your girl three times.

There comes a point in every graduate’s life where a decision must be made. Should you continue living with your parents, where meals are prepared and rent is free, but dignity is scarce and women are to be found only on Cinemax between 11pm – 3am? Or should you move to gain your independence while acquiring the career and financial responsibilities you’ve been avoiding your whole life?

Generally, the time frame that separates “temporarily pathetic” to “lost cause” is about two years. If you’ve been out of school for more than two years and you’re still living with your parents, save yourself some time by immediately growing a ponytail and handing in an application to your local video game/comic book store. Then, proceed to have your genitals removed and donated to science. By choosing not to move out, you will have all but destroyed any chance at regaining a healthy social life, while increasing the probability that you will most likely become a serial killer.

If you do plan on getting laid again, it is imperative that you find a way to move into a place of your own. One way to produce the income necessary to achieve this is by being a bony, no-talent, trust-fund slut (figure 1.1).
(Figure 1.1)


Another way is by getting a job. In the upcoming installments of the Diary of Fools Online College Graduation Guide, we will cover the steps necessary to finding employment that will allow you to say goodbye to your mom’s basement, and hello to your very own roach-infested studio apartment.

Welcome to the Diary of Fools Online College Graduation Guide!

Graduating from college can be a trying ordeal (i.e. soul-crushing disaster). And while there seems to be an abundance of advice for high school graduates and new college students, college grads are often ignored. That's why the Diary of Fools is happy to present our ongoing Online College Graduation Guide. Our writing team of embittered college graduates will guide you through everything from moving back in with your parents, to dealing with a useless major and coping with the indignities of entry-level positions.

The Diary of Fools Online College Graduation Guide - Introduction: A Commencement Day Speech to my Alma Mater by Blaine Fridley

Ladies and Gentlemen, faculty and staff, graduates of St Cloud State University. It is truly an honor and a pleasure to be back at the same venerable, state-run institution that provided me with so many incredible memories and learning experiences. In fact, I don’t believe it would be an overstatement to say that this school played a large part in making me what I am today. It was this school that let me stand on my own two feet and live independently for the first time. It was this school that taught me how to think critically and study the world around me. And it was this school that provided me with the opportunity to witness the glory of three girls making out at the same time. I think it’s safe to say that without my bachelor’s degree from St Cloud State University, I most likely would be struggling to survive, living life well below the poverty line instead of barely hovering above it, one dentist bill away from government cheese.

4 ½ to 7 years ago, you all arrived on this campus for many different reasons. Some of you may be the first generation to graduate in your family, your diploma symbolizing the culmination of a dream your parents envisioned for you before you were even born. For others, college offered the perfect opportunity to experiment with enormous amounts of drugs, alcohol and sex under the guise of pursuing a degree in 19th century Russian literature. Some of you even came to this university to become gym teachers, and for some unFUCKINGbelievable reason they made you spend thousands of dollars for a degree in scooter-soccer.

No matter how you got here, however, you now stand on the brink of true responsibility and adulthood, known by many as the real world. Ideally, your time at this university prepared you with the knowledge and tools you’ll need to become a success in the real world. More than likely, though, your time here has taught you 3 chords on the guitar, how to execute a keg stand, and if the captain of the girl’s rugby team is the only woman left in the bar at closing time, how many whiskey Cokes it takes to convince yourself that she doesn’t have a penis. In college, these skills will carry you to inspiring heights. In the real world, those same skills translate to middle management and a previously-owned Dodge Neon.

You see, passing into the real world involves sacrifice, with very little, or in many cases, no payoff. Most things that you hold dear in college life will not be able to pass with you into the real world. Bar skanks dancing on table tops? Binge drinking on a Tuesday night? Expect to trade those in for Barb from Accounts Payable and AA Meetings. Your closet will become inexplicably filled with Hagar Wrinkle-Free Slacks and golf shirts, while your idealism will soon be replaced with job insecurity. Thursday afternoons of big bong rips and Nintendo will become a thing of the past, your days now consumed with team-building seminars and office cake parties. Graduates of St Cloud State University, as you sit here today at the crossroads of college life and the real world, I implore you to take the time to look deep inside and contemplate -- why in God’s name would you voluntarily leave this morally decrepit, liquor-fueled Disneyland?

The real world is out there, people. It's waiting for you. It does not fear your idealism or your 4-year bachelor’s degree in computer graphics. I know some of you have worked extremely hard for this degree, and your confidence is high. But make no mistake, there’s very little in the real world that this piece of paper will give you control over. It’s kind of like diligently preparing yourself to pass the driver’s exam only to have your parents hand you the keys to a rusted out Geo Metro with no breaks and a missing steering wheel. Good luck trying to parallel park that fucker.

If you’ve been paying attention to the world around you in between body shots and STD tests, you may have noticed that previous generations of college graduates have screwed affairs rather badly up until now. Don’t get me wrong, there have been accomplishments. I mean, TiVO is pretty cool, but as a whole, we have failed to realize our potential. Peace still eludes us in the Middle East, greed and corruption control the highest posts of our government, and CEOs value the price of their stock over the well-being of their own workers. These people obviously did not stay in school long enough. A few more years of ethics courses and bong loads would have done these people wonders.

Many people will tell you that without a career, your life will lack definition. These people are wrong. Few things are more noble than a life dedicated to scholarship. For most, a job simply acts as a measuring tool that tells people just how much you fear poverty and what you’re willing to do to avoid it. Take myself, for example. I'm a customer service rep for a large company, not because it best defines who I am, but because I thought it out and came to the conclusion that it would be slightly less degrading than giving $2 tug jobs at freeway rest stops.

People, what I’m trying to say is simple. Look around you. It will never get any better than this. NEVER. While it is natural to think that there is more to life than what you are doing now, I implore you to take my word – there isn’t! So on this day, the day of your graduation, I will tell you this: be proud of what you have accomplished so far, receive your diploma, thank your parents for the help and celebrate. Then, tomorrow, wipe the sleep out of your eyes, get dressed, and march down to the admin building to hand in your application for grad school.

The Intellectual Scrapheap: Not-so-deep thoughts from the mind of Blaine Fridley

Is it just me, or does Rosie O'Donnell look like a huge midget?