It’s early July. I come home from work to find a large cardboard envelope has been shoved under my apartment door.

I have things to do (exercise, get ready for rehearsal, eat dinner, check Facebook…) so I leave it on the floor partially obscured by our welcome mat.

On my way out the door I stoop to grab it and realize that this is the moment we’ve all been waiting for. This here, people, is my college diploma.  In my hand is hard evidence of my hard work. Amy Jacobus has a BA in Dance (with honors) and a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications. She has graduated “with distinction.” She has been the most reliable, nerdy student she could possibly be. She has avoided the crazy nightlife of frat boys and girls whose dresses show just the teensiest bit of their ass cheeks. She has gone through notebook after notebook of to-do lists.

And now what?

I toss the paper in the neat stack of things “to be filed later” on my desk and run out the door. No time to be nostalgic. No time to really think about what this means.

Until now. I chose to ditch the statistician path halfway through my college career (incidentally, the NYTimes just posted an article about why that move was a bad idea) and decided to study two fields that will undoubtedly make me happy but definitely keep me poor.  When it came time to don the cap and gown and accept the end of cushy student bliss, I found comfort in the idea that taking risks is the only way to get anywhere.

Which led to the oh-so-logical conclusion: New York City, here I come. Without an idea of where I’ll live or work or play, I’m heading out of the Midwest and into Manhattan…well, Brooklyn.

I hope this blog will allow those of you outside the city to join me on this journey—-my eager quest to expand and refine my artistry, achieve a higher level of professionalism in my writing, earn enough income to pay the rent and afford some groceries, and just plain grow up.