Let the Unemployed Activities Commence..

How would you spend the Summer after you graduate from college? My undergrad experience is over..which is a pretty hard pill to swallow. From time to time I still think "wait..what??" when I realized I'm not going to haul all my stuff back to school and drag myself across campus once again. My senior year was extremely intense. I'll give you a brief timeline:
Summer 2012: Full-time internship and 1 week trip to San Francisco for the Alpha Kappa Alpha 2012 National Conference
September 2012-Began my internship, traveled to NJ for AKA Undergraduate Conference
November 2012-Start applying/interviewing for jobs
December 2012-Accept a full time position to begin in August, worked full-time over Winter Break
March 2013-Spent Spring Break in Florence, Italy
April 2013-Traveled to Philadelphia for AKA Regional Conference, inducted to Sigma Beta Delta
May 2013-Graduation, trip to Vegas, Grad Party.

Mind you, I worked two part time jobs, held several positions in my chapter, participated in other extracurriculars, and...oh yeah. Managed to graduate.

So..what now? Well, first I did the typical post-graduation thing...
Then I came home and my parents threw me an awesome grad party...

But besides that, I stayed part-time at my internship until yesterday and took a summer course for Grad School. If you're wondering why I'm babbling on about this, it's because I'm doing something really new. I will be taking FOUR WEEKS off before I enter the full-time job force/real world/doom and gloom for the rest of my adult life. If you read the beginning of this article you can understand why this is frightening for someone with an over-planned, hyper-organized, type A personality such as myself. 

I know your next question. What am I going to do? Well something that I always wanted to do, but never really had the time, is to write a blog. So even if I am babbling, or no one reads it, I'm finally getting to do something I have thought about for a very long time. Which is good enough for me!

Here's what I really wanted to share with you: why pennies are important. Meet my friend Dr. Evil Porkchop.

The good Doctor and I crossed paths in high school. Unlike some of my graduating class, we have maintained our relationship over the years. Now, high school is a dark age for many of us. Including myself. But one thing that I learned to do to take a mental escape is to count change. I spent a lot of time counting my change, because it requires a fair amount of concentration.

One of the gifts I received for graduation was this decorative mortarboard:

Initially, I thought "ok..that's a little weird, but nice". But then a lightbulb went off and it hit me. Those were REAL dollars on there. So when I had the time (and the patience) I tackled the cap and pulled it apart. About an hour later I had a small stack of bills and I thought to my self "Self, you should probably stick these bills in your pig because you will need them later". So I did. About 2 months later I shook down the good Doctor and these were the contents:

My unemployed July self is extremely grateful to the Ashley of May for this small fortune! Moral of the story? Pennies count.