So I turned 22 on Friday. Nothing feels different. Just the thought of being 22 is new to me but I guess the awkwardness in my mind will go away soon. Although nothing has really changed, I just feel like I should be more responsible and be settling down in my ideal career… but I’m not – at least not yet. While many new college graduates are suffering to find a job and many career men and women are stuck in a job they despise, I feel myself lucky for being in a job that I enjoy (for the most part). Although I get paid minimum wage with essentially no life benefits, I have pretty cool coworkers that make my working experience worth this pay. My mom nags and yells at me every single minute that I’m physically awake and in the house about how stupid and worthless I am for being in a low paying job. She degrades me and my job as worse than a dog – a common Vietnamese phrase used to basically… degrade and insult something, showing that it is the lowest of low. For a college graduate with essentially no prior work experience or any type of licenses, I think I got myself a pretty good starting job. My mom keeps bringing up how her job at the post office is INDOOR with AIR CONDITIONING and how she, who does not have a college degree and only has to sit at a desk and use a computer, gets paid three times as much as I do. I mean for god’s sake (not literally God but just the common English phrase~), there’s a reason why the post office is like the number two most in debt department of the US’s federal system or whatnot. Well frankly, I don’t really care what the post office offers and how sad their financial situation is because really, it has nothing to do with my career interests. All I know is that I am enjoying my beginning in the real world as a retail clerk/sales associate (guest service associate to be technically precise to my title on the payroll) at Knott’s. Is it a job I can imagine myself at for a year? Yes. Is it a job I can imagine myself at for the next five years? Definitely not. I mean I hope that within the next five years, I’ll be well on my way to landing my ideal career or better yet, already be doing what I love! It would be nice to get paid maybe six digits but heck, as long as I can pay my bills, go on vacation once in a while, and save some money, I’ll be happy. And somehow… I went off on a tangent and ranted to nobody… LOL. Back to reality I shall go.

I guess I was lucky that I was able to be 21 for a day longer than most people. When I turned 21, I was in Korea studying for the summer at Yonsei University. Due to the time difference, my 21st birthday had actually occurred about seventeen hours earlier than it should have been. I got to enjoy my birthday for and additional seventeen hours because of the time difference. I guess the trade-off there was that I was 20 for seventeen hours less than it should have been. My poor 20 got gypped (omg I didn’t know that it’s spelled gypped… I always thought it was jipped o.o) seventeen hours =)

So all in all, how do I feel as a 22-year-old? Not much different from my 21-year-old self.