In just over five weeks, a whole bunch of fine people are going to graduate from this fine institution. I will be one of them.

I woke up the other day, realized this and almost had a heart attack.

“I can’t be graduating, I don’t know what to do with my life,” I lamented.

“Take a deep breath,” my inner voice said. “Nobody else has a clue either, or else they’re faking it.”

This might have been comforting, but I find the fact that my inner voice sounds exactly like Alan Rickman deeply disconcerting.

“Alan Rickman?” I asked. “Aren’t you dead? And what if I should’ve studied something other than English?”

“If you wanted to spend a lifetime being beaten down by the man, you could’ve gone into business,” Rickman replied. “Besides, you can’t be a literary hippie traveling the highways in a Volkswagen Westfalia if you have a degree in finance.”

I’ve always had a soft spot for Westfalias. Yellow ones, especially. And I’ve been described as a hippie without the hair in the past, but with over a year without a visit to the barber, I’m pretty much a match set now. Boy, does my inner voice know me.

“Point taken,” I said. The decision to make a living using words doesn’t seem quite so bad when Alan Rickman tells you it isn’t. You can laugh, but try arguing with him sometime. You’ll find it pretty difficult.

Some people tell me print and print journalism is dead, or dying. Some say it got shot sometime back in January.

I say the whole world is spinning down the toilet, but I might as well learn the backstroke while I’m here. And I sure can’t do that crunching numbers at a desk.

“But Rio, you can’t write for the newspaper without talking to people,” you say.

I sure can try. That’s why I’d like to get into fiction, because then it’s less weird when everyone you talk to is in your head. But I anticipated your complaint, and took to the streets to find out how other almost-graduates feel about the looming end of their time in the academic trenches.

“How do you feel about being four years older and still not feeling prepared for life?” I asked an unsuspecting pedestrian.

“Where are your clothes,” he yelped over his shoulder as he ran the other way.

That’s how I learned the old speech adage is intended only as an imaginary exercise. I was just trying to be helpful, and it totally didn’t work, but at least I can say I tried.

Slightly dejected, I went back to the newspaper office where my nudist tendencies are less judged.

“Hey chief,” I said, “I didn’t find anyone to interview again.”

He offered up a semi-disgusted sigh, I plopped down at my desk and this is the product of that.