Leaving College and Entering Real Life

It was only a few weeks later that we had finals and graduation.  I had my last final on Tuesday, and had the rest of the week to hang out with my friends before we headed off to different parts of the world.  I spent that night hanging out with a few friends until late.  Some girl I had never even met ended up hanging out with us, and I stayed up most of the night talking to her.  She gave me her number, and I assured her that unlike other guys she had met in the past, I actually would give her a call.

The next morning when I woke up, I was severely ill.  Something was wrong with my throat, to the degree that I couldn't speak, couldn't eat, and could barely swallow.  I spent the rest of that week in bed, semi-conscious day and night, just trying to get through it.  Ice cream was about the only thing I could eat, because it went down smoothly and was cold to numb the pain a bit.  Needless to say, that girl didn't get a callback, since my voice was totally gone.  She did eventually find me on Facebook, where my whole getting "sick" story sounded kind of weak after all we had talked about, regardless of how true it was.  And while we did end up going to a movie together a few months later, that never went anywhere.

My parents arrived the day before graduation, but there wasn't much they could do to help me, considering how sick I was.  I attended the ceremony, walked across the stage, and got my picture taken, but then went from there to the hospital, because it had gotten to the point of having issues breathing.  But they weren't much help there, so I toughed it out for another day or two, while moving out, loading up my Dad's truck, and heading north.  We did manage to start the process of arranging an apartment for me to rent in LA, but they weren't ready for me to move in, and neither was I.

I spent a week recovering at home before we headed to Maui, to celebrate my graduation from college, and my brother's graduation from high school.  After listening to an exciting presentation about the wonderful benefits of timeshares, my parents were able to get really good deals on tickets to all of the main attractions.  So we spent the week sailing, jet-skiing, cycling down a volcano, parasailing, snorkeling, and even took a voyage on a submarine.  It was a pretty intense week, so we needed a break by the time we were done.  I spent the next week at home, finalizing preparations for my move to LA, and getting my wisdom teeth removed.  That is the only time I have had general anesthesia, but besides feeling a little strange for the rest of the day, that was a fairly uneventful procedure.

After that, I headed back to LA, and moved into my new apartment, with the help of my Mom and brother.  I started back to work immediately, with a shorter commute, which was still an hour if traffic was bad, but only 20 minutes at midnight.  My boss took a month long trip to Italy shortly after that, so I covered all of his responsibilities while he was gone.  And I was getting paid at this point, so that was nice.  I also started doing more serious work for the other company in the building, which I would continue to do until after the new company we were starting, Bandito, was well off the ground.