Two Roads Diverged in a Woods, and I...Huddled in a Corner

Being only a freshman, I realize I still have plenty of time before the daunting force of "reality" faces me. But I've always been a planner (except I don't have little boxes with numbers inside me). I tend to associate excitement about my future with scribbling out a schedule. Even when I was eight years old, I'd plan Christmas Eve through New Year's, hour by hour.

Side note: In a six hour period, I'd scheduled three times for eating. Man, I miss those days.

I still love to plan, but with that love comes a sense of fear. I'm no longer organizing my holidays or what beanie baby I should complete the family tree with. As it gets harder to find a job, I find myself seriously considering two alternatives for my post-college life so that I don't have to live in my parents' basement and get "the look."

You know the one I'm talking about: the raised eyebrows, the suspicious gaze. The "oh, poor baby, can't handle the heat," kinda look.

Which is ridiculous, because I live in Pennsylvania. And we all know there is no heat in PA.

An English major doesn't waltz out of college with a shiny, high paying job. We truck our way through the engineers, the mathematicians, and the ever-pressing need to have a 10,000 foot résumé before you get out of college. And while I know my general interests (writing, thinking, standing on one foot), I don't exactly...how should I phrase this...

...freaking know what to do with the rest of my life.

Oops.

So as it stands, I have two options:

1) Go to grad school. This is pretty standard for us English majors. It's always a safe idea to back up a not-so-specialized degree with more specializations. I figure, if I just keep getting degrees until there are no more degrees to get, I'll be somewhat desirable for a job...or at least, that's what I like to tell myself at night.
Plus, literature excites me, and I'd like to be able to make my job thinking/writing about literary works. 'Cause I'm white and nerdy like that.
Oh, and master's degrees are shiny and fun to hang up on your wall.

2) Live/work in an ashram.
Wait.
Wut?

How on earth, you ask, did you get from "follow the standard route and try to make some semblance of an income, to living in an ashram?"

Good question. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
It all started one fateful April when I spent a month stretching, meditating and picking up rocks betwixt the grand Rocky Mountains of Colorado. And really, really, really enjoying it. It could've been the inherent new-ness of the situation that got to me, but I tend to look for the deepness of an experience. And in that "let's look for some deeper meaning" thing I tend to do, I found happiness in that month, rather than mere contentment. It was hard, yes. I didn't know how to garden, I got sick of replacing my jeans with skirts, I missed my hair straightener. I was homesick. But I learned a shit ton about the self, others, and that it's not impossible to get up at five A.M.

Seriously, it's not.

But just to make sure I wasn't simply in vacation mode during my Shoshoni stay, I'd first apply for the 6 month work study program and go from there.

Yogi versus Academic. We'll see what happens.

Namaste.