-Say “thank you” when somebody compliments you and don’t deny or argue what they say. There’s a difference between being humble and being annoying. -Don’t devalue yourself just because you’re in love with somebody and your soft heart makes it easier to explain things away. If you offer them a measure of kindness and trust, expect the same in return.  -Set your alarm clock 10 minutes fast. If you’re Korean, that means you’ll only be 20 minutes late.  -Diving is not like riding a bike. You can forget that shit in a hot second and children will not hold back their cruel, high-pitched laughter at the public pool when you try after a good 5 years.  -Yogurt with nothing else is the worst breakfast.  -Don’t accept a drink from a guy who compliments your eyes, says his favorite book is Memoirs of a Geisha and that he’s really into Japanese calligraphy these days. Oh, and only bangs Asian girls. -Nobody, in the history of people, has ever been ready in an honest-to-god minute when they’ve said they’ll be ready in “just a minute.” If somebody tells you that, go get a hotdog or find a homeless man to spit in your face because that person will take at least 20 minutes to finish getting ready and you’ll end up hating yourself and every life decision you’ve made that has led you to that point.  -Buying a house is the best investment you can make as a young adult. I heard this somewhere and it seems correct. -The memory of ex-bestfriends and past significant others will stick with you till the very end. Even if the last time you saw them was at your going away party in 4th grade or at Nevin’s while bawling your fucking eyes out in front of drunk strangers, you’ll remember them until the dementia ravages your brain. So, be careful who you let in and let close. -“I don’t know” is a pussy response only acceptable from the mouths of small children and serial killers on trial. If you know how to dress yourself in the morning, then you know how to act with purpose. Don’t waste people’s time with a empty answer and don’t let people waste yours. -Always stick to the right. -Only attempt all-you-can-eat sushi if you’re comfortable with throwing up in your mouth and chasing it down with another spider roll.  -Never cut your own bangs because some ginger-haired bitch you used to be friends with in 7th grade will, without fail, bring it up whenever you see her. You may be a grown woman, but your soul still has a soft spot—kind of like a baby’s skull—that aches whenever somebody calls you out on a cost-saving decision you once thought drastically improved your looks by framing your face. -Don’t plan your life around other people. Relationships are fallible and people change. Get used to making yourself happy without having to answer to anybody else. -Never dye your hair orange and get a perm. It is not a good look. This one’s just for me. —Jessi

We want people to cover us with a blanket when we fall asleep on the couch while watching CSI: Miami and our bodies have instinctually curled up into the fetal position in a sad attempt to conserve body heat. They know that we’re lazy fucks and could’ve just walked the extra 20 feet to grab a blanket from the bedroom, but they still make sure our feet are tucked in and that the edge of the blanket hits us right below the chin (because the people who care that our necks are warm while we sleep are the best kinds of people). We want people to not look at us when we’re crying in the movie theater. We want people to immediately Google when we ask how old Ricky Martin is in this present day and age of our lord and if the local Jimmy John’s delivers at 3 o’clock in the morning. We want people to tell us when we have something in our teeth. We want people to forgive us when we take too many shots and throw up on their shoes. We want to wake up and be grateful that they dragged our blacked out ass home, helped us put on our pajamas like a very young parent to a very old and uncoordinated infant, and laid us on our side so we wouldn’t choke on our own vomit (the one fact everybody seems to remember from D.A.R.E. and put into strict practice). We’ll no doubt slur I’m sorry’s in a hungover haze the next morning because we have some semblance of shame, but we want the comfort of knowing we have their forgiveness before we ask beg desperately grovel for it. We want people to save us a seat. We want people to answer our damn texts in a timely fashion. We want people to get enough napkins and ketchup for the table. And to leave us the last fry even though it’ll stay uneaten and buried under a pile of used napkins at the end of the meal. Because if that isn’t a measure of decency, I don’t know what is. We want people to hold us after we sleep with them even though everything is sweat and tired limbs. It might not be the most comfortable thing, but we’d feel worse if they didn’t. We want people to remember our birthday. We want people to give us a job. We want people to hug us when we’re indescribably sad and know to just shut the fuck up and be okay with the silence. They don’t get us tissues because that thought slips their mind or they see that our sleeve is doing a good enough job, but we silently believe it’s because they know that being offered tissues when we cry makes us feel even more pathetic than we already do. Instead, they use the palms of their hands and the pads of their thumbs because it’s the most human and knowing thing they can do. And when people don’t do these things, we always feel a slight pang of disappointment—the kind you feel when you turn in your final and realize you forgot to go back and answer those two questions you were saving until the very end. Or that the right answer was Great Britain and not Germany (damn you, History, you cruel, cruel mistress). I guess one could say it’s our own fault in the end because we didn’t ask, so why should we receive? But sometimes it’s nice to believe that people in our lives are good and kind and somewhat psychic and that they’d do things for us without being asked even when we forget to do the same for them.  —Jessi

In college, being respectable or adult-like is not part of the deal. Yes, you go to class and write papers and even occasionally speak to professors about things like your “thesis” or a research project on the legacy of African American literature in today’s society (obviously I have never done either of these things). But the  best part of these activities is that they can all be done in the comfort of  a baggy sweatshirt, flip flops and unwashed hair. Now that I’ve graduated, I have noticed my mother making some not-so-subtle comments about my habits and appearance; suggesting that perhaps, as a 22 year old woman, I should start taking some pride in the way I present myself to the world. Here are the steps I have determined would lead me to the life of a REAL person…or at least a less pathetic version of myself: 1) Stop wearing Juicy pants outside of the house. LA may be more casual than most cities, but lounge-wear for thirteen year old girls is not acceptable anywhere.*  2) Watch shows like Mad Men and Arrested Development. People respect people who watch respectable television. Stop watching Vampire Diaries. 3) Work out at a real gym. Walking into town to get fro-yo with your dad does not count. Neither does lying on your yoga mat for ten minutes while “meditating.” 4) Be less open with strangers. Just because the man at Starbucks asks how your day is going does not mean it’s okay to tell him that you don’t think you were cut out for the real world and you were much happier in college and you just bought a book called “What Color is your Parachute?” to help you find your true calling but so far you’re pretty lost and totally unsure about what to do next and does he have any advice about how to be happy and be a working person at the same time. He cares about your soy latte, but maybe not so much about your life.  5) Drink more wine. You know what adults do? They drink wine. I am, of course, basing this on television—but from what I can tell this is the after-college loophole for being both drunk and respectable. Another glass of chardonnay is perrrrfectly okay to ask for in a fancy restaurant, even if you’ve already had two. Things that are less acceptable at most dining establishments: asking which cocktail has the most booze, ordering a rum and coke hold the coke hold the ice and put it in a shot glass, blacking out mid-bite and subsequently passing out at the table, and lastly—puking in your own bed. This is somewhat unrelated, but I’ve heard it’s a huge hassle and you can never really get those stains out. *Loophole: NEVER wear hot pink Juicy pants in public, but wearing the dark gray pair is acceptable on occasion. —Johanna

8 am: Alarm goes off. You vaguely remember how optimistic you were last night as you set that alarm and planned out the next day’s errands. You would have time for a leisurely breakfast with coffee and the right amount of protein, maybe even go for a morning run afterward. But the deeply ingrained college habit of waking up at noon  overrides any sense of new-found responsibility. Snooze for the next four hours. 12 pm: Get out of bed feeling heavily weighed down by guilt. Recognize for the first time just how different it feels to wake up mid-day in a house filled with people who have been early risers for the past thirty-five years. Miss college. Make lunch. Go on the internet.  3 pm: The internet is a black hole of time wasting for everyone, but for unemployed post-grads it is truly lethal. What starts with checking facebook and updating twitter soon devolves into hours of online shopping for high end Olive Oil and stalking your best friend’s freshman year roommate’s friend from high school just to see if you have any mutual friends. You have no mutual friends. Look at all 138 photos from their “SUMMA IN GREECE” album anyway. Wish you were in Greece, or anywhere but the makeshift bedroom off the laundry room that you now live in. With unprecedented determination, decide that you need to make the best of this living situation and attempt to use your knowledge from hours of “Design on a Dime” to improve the ex-maid’s room/now your room. Spend a long time staring at the twin bed and matching all white furniture and become very, very tired. Take a cat nap that quickly turns into a two hour nap. 5 pm: Stumble out of the room wondering where your day went only to see your parents in the kitchen looking at you with concern and judgment. They ask if you have been napping to which you respond, furiously, that you were job searching for the past two hours and could they just realize you’re an adult and give you some space??! Grab your brother’s keys and storm out of the house. Not having your own car makes throwing hissy fits much harder, but desperate times call for desperate measures and you’re sure your brother will understand. Drive to Starbucks and sit with everyone else who is unemloyed/self-employed in Los Angeles.  6 pm: Your sixteen-year-old brother has dinner plans tonight and he needs his car. Ask him where he’s going and realize that it sounds like you are trying to get an invite. To make matters worse, know that if he had invited you, you would probably clear your non-existent schedule and join his friends for dinner at Panda Express. Feel pathetic. Drive home and apologize to your mom, tell her you’re in a post-college slump and though you’re fairly sure it’s normal you’re also losing your mind and prone to emotional outbursts. Eat dinner with your parents and spend the next few hours watching TV and talking about where your brother should go to college. Feel like an adult and also not at all like one. “Not a girl, not yet a woman.” Britney was so right. 10 pm: Get ready for bed, stare at your white on white on white room and sigh. Remember the days when you would start getting ready for the night at 10 pm and feel like college was just a four year long dream. Set your alarm for 8 am and turn off the lights. Think about how much you will accomplish tomorrow. —Johanna

Jessi and Johanna's random musings as they endure the hell that is post-graduate life.