What A Mess: Rob Tries Grad-School

EDITORS NOTE: In this adventure, Rob decides on a whim to go to graduate school. A few weeks of poor-itude and homelessness later, and after an awkward "casual" encounter that was never meant to be, he gives up. Here is his story. (If you have any advice for Rob please post it here so everyone can read it.)

Being a liberal arts major has many advantages and many downfalls, perhaps the most pressing of which (given our recess/depression) is the difficulty in finding a suitable job. As I was reading an article about this struggle the other day, I was disappointed that no one had shown it to me last month, that is, before the tale I am about to recount occurred. Because of this very problem, and in hopes of falling upon a Mecca of success and happiness, I hastily enrolled into the Philisophy & Psychoanalysis MA program at the New School For Social Research.

I had applied to this particular school quite haphazardly last October. The school, as it is known to do, "lost" several of my forms and finally accepted me two weeks before classes were to start; in an email-my physical letter arrived last week while I was already on the east coast.

When I arrived in New York and realized that I was poor, jobless and living on my friends' brother's futon, my spirit began to sink. The plan was to take out a student loan and use some of the money for a deposit on an apartment, or, in other words, "making New York work." Quick-fix Buzz and I resolved to find sweet jobs to secure an apartment. I figured that this would enable me to forget the fact that I was about to acrue more debt that I could swallow (as undergrad put me into a tight hole) but I assumed that I would be able to make it up in no time. Probably the biggest ego-boost was getting a call back from New York Actors Rep after I auditioned to be an extra for a Red Lobster commercial. 

I quickly realized after the first week of classes that my my jaunt into the New School had been predicated on my previous love of school, but that I in no way, shape or form ever wanted to obtain a MA in philosophy. It wasn't just that however, being in school was the "easy way" out of my joblessness and working through this economic shitstorm.

The bottom line is that graduate school should never be forced as it is NOT the answer to self-esteem problems. It is something that should be done out of genuine interest or a desire for career advancement, not out of desperation. After realizing that I had done just that and put myself into a situation of helplessness, if nothing else, I got drunk at a friend's one night and answered a casual encounter on craigslist that led me to the apartment of a haggard Brazilian located here:

It was 1:00 am, I was drunk, confused and feeling desparate; but not that desparate. When I saw this person's face through the glass door of the building, I bolted and hid in a dentist's office parking lot around the block for about ten minutes. I don't know what I was expecting but I certainly was not sleeping with what I got. The dude looked like Celia Cruz and Marc Anthony's love child. I didn't know what to do! I was alone in the middle of nowhere, it was late and I actually felt like I had nowhere to go. I slipped into a nearby bar for a whiskey while I thought. Luckily for me, none of these impositions were a problem becaue none of my friends in the New York area were answering their phones. I got into the first cab I saw, and they took me about a mile out of the way to switch taxi drivers before bringing me to Red Hook to shamefully sleep on the futon once again. If I wasn't broke before that night I certainly was now.

I woke up the next morning feeling filthy and guilty, more down on my luck than ever. So Buzz and I arrived at a simple solution; we fled back to Woodstock, for we both knew that another weekend of good times was the cure to our lament. And with that bus ride went my dreams of big-city success, education and dolla' dolla' bills. I'm currently in beautiful Delmar, NY, writing on the very computer that fell six feet to the pavement a few weeks before. I had been scared to turn it on because it's new and I thought I had fucked up royally, but it's working fine. This cheers me up a little, because I literally have no money and I don't want to go home. I guess what's next in the cards for little Robbie has yet to be dealt.