i am an adult.

Alright, I just want to say this now, and I wonder at my need to say this, because no one has necessarily directly addressed this insecurity I have, yet I have it nonetheless.

I graduated from college. I am an adult now, and I will be moving across the country in under 2 months and three days. I am going to graduate school. I am moving out of my parent's house and will not be returning (unless financial catastrophe strikes and the alternative is the streets). I will be all but financially independent of them and will not be living the life of a college student in the sense that I will not be going home for every break. I will not be living on campus (unless every other option falls through). Also, I will be WORKING for the school, 20 hours a week to be exact. So although it is not a full time job, it does come with health insurance, and it does pay me a salary.

Sometimes I feel as if people get the idea that my parents are paying my way through grad school, or that I am basically just continuing the whole "college" thing. In one sense I guess I am. My loans are deferred, I will be paying tuition, and I will be going to classes. However, grad school is my dream. It is the direct path that will lead me to my dream job, and I will be working 20 hours a week doing something similar to that which I will be doing for the rest of my life (an internship if you will).

Everything is on the line for me. Yeah, I'm deferring my loans and won't have to worry about paying them in the immediate, but some day down the line they will come back, and bigger than ever. If I mess this up, I am the one who will pay the consequences. Financially speaking, I am my own person now. I have been working and saving up to fly out of the nest, so to speak, and I will be doing so in September. I will be on my own, and I really hope that people will view me as a competent adult, or at least will view me on the same level as my other college graduate friends. Because that is what I am. I graduated from college, and I could be working a "real" job now if I chose to.

It bothers me that people assume that it will be "easy" for me to move to WA simply because I will still be a student. I argue that it is harder...I get paid next to nothing and have to pay college tuition besides.

That's all...