Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving

One of my favorite games to play is "guess a person's age."
There are a few reasons for this: all of them shallow.
1. People always tell me I look around 27 (I am 22)
Now, after I tell them how old I am, they then give their reasons for guessing so many years into my future. Most of them having to deal with how I look mature, how I present myself well, how I am not an immature boy (which apparently all 22 year olds are). Regardless of the responses, I love what they tell me.
2. I always guess well.
Do you look 40? I'll guess 36. Do you look 25? I'll guess 27.
Tip: always leave wiggle room in the right direction.
Like those that tell me I look 5 years older, people don't want you to guess their age (that's boring you know-it-all, this is your chance to flatter them and get on their good side). Younger people want to be told they look older (but not too much older, and be careful around the age of 30 as there is a strange mental fixation with this number can be detrimental if guessed over. When in doubt, guess 29) and older people want to be told they look younger (but not too young or it's unrealistic and you've ruined the point).
3. Which brings me to my point: everyone leaves happy.
I get told I look 27, a 45 year old gets told they look 38, a 16 year old get told they could be 18, and grandma who just celebrated her 92nd birthday is told she doesn't look a day over 78 (give it up for grams). The point of this game is to flatter and be flattered, and everyone leaves feeling better about themselves.
You may think its shallow and pointless, I eat it up.

Related to this game I absolutely love to play, is my strange obsession with the age of 30.
Don't ask me why I'm fixated on this age. I have no idea. Some of my favourite movies and books are based around characters being or turning 30.
These include, but are not limited to:
Something Borrowed (book and movie)
13 Going on 30 (thirty, flirty, and thriving)
Plan B
Attachments (is he 30? I can't remember)
and others that I can't think of and probably won't until I actually AM 30

I was talking on the phone with my friend Amanda about this newfound love and came to the conclusion that I have this secret fear that by the time I turn 30, I will not have accomplished anything worthwhile. Maybe I'll be in a job I hate, paying bills for things I don't own, unable to shake up my routine by moving to a different city because I'm tied down by the money I need.
And I'm right: this sounds terrifying.
In 3 months I will be celebrating my year anniversary of graduating college (yay me) and I will still be paying off loans for a while. I have just purchased a new (used) car and will be paying that off as well. I make very little money since I have an entry level position in an industry that is not so closely related to my Bachelor's degree, and I've just realized I do not know if Bachelor's has an apostrophe in it because I'm not sure if it is possessive.
So essentially, I'm terrified I will be in this exact position in 8 years. (Including this question about possessive bachelors)
And this tends to be the case with a fair amount of college graduates.
What I HAVE realized, however, is this:

8 years is a long time.
That's twice the amount of time it took me to get my college education. If I wanted to, I could get two additional Bachelor's (there it is again) degrees assuming it would take me 4 years to complete each (which it wouldn't) or a few Master's degrees assuming it would take me 2-3 years to complete each. That is a lot of time.
By this time I'll hopefully be in a position at work where I can be making enough to not have to worry about saving those $10 to see that movie with Michelle next weekend (anyone else excited about The Lego Movie, or am I not as mature as my age-guessers think?), or making sure I can have a drink on Friday night with some friends.
8 years is long enough to make that happen.

My job is only as good as I make it.
I will not say anything negative about my work, but what I will say is this: work is hard, and there are many times I do not want to do it. We can all relate to this. We can all argue that our problems and challenges at work are harder and more stressful than anyone else's (no, but today I had to teach a high-schooler how to use commen sense so HA!), but think of it this way: you have that job because you have been trained to accomplish those exact hurdles. Your whole day can be completely different if before you get out of bed (heck, why not before you go to sleep) convince yourself that you're excited to see what challenges your job has in store for you today. What is going to happen in your workplace that is really going to make you get down and dirty and do some serious problem-solving. Maybe you'll be able to think up a new way to do something, or maybe it'll just help make your day go faster, who knows! But hey, it will sure keep you positive and motivated if you really figure out a way to convince yourself that you really actually ARE excited for work.
I've learned that if I stop trying to convince myself that I hate my job, I might actually enjoy it.

There are plenty of chances.
So maybe I won't be moving to Seattle, Sydney, or London anytime soon, but I can make that decision at any point. If I make goals and save my money, all I have to do is hop on a plane. Maybe graduating college wasn't the huge life changing event I thought it would be (although it was very life changing, don't let me fool you holy smokes), but I've learned that I have the ability to create my own life changing events if I so choose.

So yeah, maybe turning 30 is a big event.
Maybe I'm worried I won't accomplish anything.
Maybe I don't want to grow up and miss actually growing up.
Maybe I'm just plain scared. ( I am. I'm terrified)

Well you know what world?
I'm gonna turn 30 whether I like it or not and I'm gonna be thirty, flirty, and thriving when I get there.
(Make a mental note to go to the gym. I didn't go last week ... again)

And In That Moment, I Swear We Were Crying.

Someone once told me that crying is an excellent way to release emotion to ultimately feel good and better.

This statement is false.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a weeper. I weep. constantly. A good movie, a nice book, those Sarah McLachlan dying dog commercials, a sweet Hallmark card, it really doesn't matter. The waterworks flow regardless of how much I don't actually want to be crying.

With that being said, I consider myself quite the expert about feelings before, during, and after a good weeping. And I can guarantee you that I've never felt "good" after any of these circumstances. Most of the time I feel tired, gross, snotty, helpless, or overwhelmed. But never "good".
It is my astute observation that no one in their right mind feels "good" when their face is blotchy, their nose is runny, and they can't seem to be able to breathe in normal frequencies.

So to whoever told me that crying makes you feel "good", you were wrong. I hope you watch the first ten minutes of Star Trek* and then ask yourself how good you feel.

*seeing as how my emotional meter is somewhat broken, this may or may not actually contribute to an emotional response.

When was this decided to be legal?

I've decided, in utter honesty, that internships should be illegal.
Now before I begin, let me make it clear that I love my internship: the work, my coworkers, the office, the 9 messages on my phone, the too many emails in my inbox, the other guy named Paul in the cubical across the isle from me, all the above. That being said, it should be illegal for me to continue doing this.
Why, you may ask? Well, let me tell you.
I get paid zero dollars to work here. My work is free of charge. In exchange, I receive experience and knowledge, not money. There is a problem with this statement: it is false. I am not getting paid zero dollars, I'm getting paid negative dollars. Non-paid internships are only possible if one is getting college credit for taking the internship. My tuition for college is roughly $30,000 a year. This tuition can be divided by the amount of semesters (2) and units I'm taking per semester (16) to become $937.50 per unit. My internship class counts as 4 units. I am, therefore, taking this class for $3,750. Before I continue, let me also say that my internship is 30 miles away from where I live. I intern 3 days a week and spend about $200 on gas a month with approximately 4 months per semester.
In conclusion, I am paying $4,550 to be working for free to gain experience. Does this seem like a logical means of gaining experience? Sweat Shop.
How is this legal? I'm still confused. I feel like a company can afford to pay me minimum wage. Or even if it was less than minimum wage. If there was an agreement that I would be working here for a semester and be paid $5 an hour, I'd be okay with that. But I'm getting paid negative $4,550. I feel like something is wrong here.