Of my five best university girlfriends, I’m the only one who graduated after four years. All the same brunches, parties, and library sessions are going on in Montreal–just without me. And I am marooned in Toronto, in my parents’ house, with no full-time job, never to have sex again. Welcome to Recent Graduate.

I think I am officially in life’s purgatory. After completing my Arts degree and racking up some solid student debt, I’ve got no cash to travel and no excuse to postpone getting my career on. But getting a job in publishing is no easy feat for a recent grad–it’s a “pay your dues” industry where you prove yourself for a while by working for free, and who can afford to do that? Meanwhile, most of my friends are still in school, drinking their OSAP money, taking classes, and doin’ it after the bar.

My parents’ house sees so little action that it might as well be a nunnery. I certainly can’t resume my university shenanigans, like going home with a Frenchman I mostly couldn’t understand. The only English sentences he seemed to know were the lyrics to Britney’s Gimme More and “I want to pleasure you”, and I liked him that way, but this is probably not the sort of thing my mother and father would appreciate in their home. Has the time for these hedonistic delights simply passed? Will I ever earn enough money to rent an apartment in which to get my freak on? And are health and dental benefits simply out of my league? Because hear you me, do you ever miss those when they’re gone.

Commiserate with the trials and tribulations of this recent graduate as I intern, take continuing ed courses, work soul-sucking retail and sleep in tents in the park, all on the journey to that elusive regular pay cheque.