(I realize that by labeling this “Part I,” I’m pseudo-promising at least one follow-up post. We’ll see what happens.)

I’ll start by thanking everyone who attended one of my three graduation festivities this weekend. I ate too much, drank too much, and got to spend quality time with people I probably won’t see for a while. I’m currently in Chicago to find a place to live before I start my job one week from tomorrow (cue heart attack-like breathing.) Today I only have three appointments, tomorrow I have five or six. The first one today was just a giant NO before I even saw the inside. As Natalie said, who thank goodness came with or I would have been bored and lost, “If it looks like this during the day, you probably don’t want to live here at night.”

The second place I looked, the place that is RIGHT DOWNTOWN in a great neighborhood, steps from bars, restaurants, shopping, civilization (and most importantly my office) was ok. Just ok. Not Holy-Whizbang-Sign-the-Lease-Right-Now as I was really hoping it would be. It has a lot of “Pros”– price, only on the second floor, fabulous location, almost everything included in the rent, but it’s a studio, and I’m just not sure how I feel about living in one room for at least a year. I’m also really looking into subleases because I don’t want to rush into finding a place and signing a longer term lease when I really have no idea where I want to live. Alas, I will trudge on through more appointments, more smelly hallways, more treacherous driving and parking situations. I really don’t want to be here all week. Don’t even get me started on the actual moving in part. Maybe my boss will just let me sleep in the office.

Apparently my illness is actually allergies. Harumph.

I’m starting a job in Chicago on June 1st, so the next two weeks will be full of packing, finding a place to live and moving! Exciting times. Perhaps a change of the ol’ URL? BrittneyHasSomethingtoSay is quite the mouthful. Perhaps WindyCityBrittney, or BTownInChiTown (I suppose that would work for the one person who calls me “B-Town.”) Then again, this is something I could think about while doing the myriad of actual things that need to get done on my to-do list.

And yes, I’m starting a job on my birthday. I think it’s fitting symbolism.

Someone found my blog by searching “stupid blonde German bitch.” Yes.

The day of my commencement was spent not actually attending the (what was later described as) painfully long, dull three hour ceremony, but rather bathing da Fergs, festooning a strapless dress from freshman year into a passable shirt, and hanging out with multiple surrogate families. (I told mine to stay home since I wasn’t actually walking; we’ll celebrate together this coming weekend.) I tagged along with Roomie Lauren’s hilarious, wonderful kin to lunch and lots of celebratory shots. Later, NPH’s family came and we all went to dinner, ate cake, and discussed the housing situation in the greater Chicagoland area for a while. The rest of the night was spent much more tame than you’d imagine for having something so large to celebrate, but it was raining and frankly, after doing this for nearly four years, my body is quite tired. Perhaps why, after a relatively productive Monday, the first of “summer,” the first in the awkward but glorious time between school and starting work in the real world, I got sick. It hurts. I am beyond cranky. It’s some sort of sinus thing that has manifested itself in my lungs. It burns. Did I mention I’m cranky? Knowing that my mother will straight up murder me if I dare be ill during the many graduation festivities she has planned for this weekend, I’ve been taking it easy and laying around, drinking tea, and texting outrageous soup demands to NPH every hour on the hour.

I read Tina Fey’s Bossypants in one sitting on Friday, and Portia de Rossi’s Unbearable Lightness in one stretch yesterday. I cannot wait to get my grubby little mitts on Steven Tyler’s autobiography that just came out this month.

See, Roomie Lauren– I didn’t even once mention your hot older brother in this post!

May I just point out the irony of waking up at 5:00 am on a day I was supposed to have a 7:30 am final, but said exam was deemed optional by the professor, thus if there was one day I was planning on sleeping in, today would have been that day?

I don’t even care if that’s not actually irony, or the fact that was one of the more run-on-ish sentences you’ve ever seen in your life. I’m delirious with exhaustion, yet can’t sleep. As evidenced by my overuse of commas and the made up word “run-on-ish.”

Making coffee was probably also a poor choice.

One million apologies to my most dedicated of followers who have been anxiously awaiting any sort of post while I’ve been gallivanting around town, avoiding this blog as well as most things reminding me that I’M LEAVING soon. Some slightly large news: as of 10:30 this morning, I am officially a college graduate! I only had one final this year, and while I probably could have failed and still passed the class, I in fact did pretty ok and am fairly confident I will be receiving my diploma. I’m not walking at commencement (something about my dad saying, “I’ll pay you to not make me sit through that ceremony”) so all that’s left is quite a bit of celebrating. Things are looking pretty fantastic on the career front, though I’ll save that for those of you who know me beyond my sarcastic Internet persona which is surely a front for my paralyzing insecurities.

I suppose I could update you on how I went home for Mother’s Day or how NPH had quite a successful birthday on Tuesday, but at this point: I’VE GRADUATED, BITCHES– and that’s really all that matters. If you are looking for a gift, please send cash, checks, yen, gift cards, IOUs, and spare change to my home address. I will also consider it a gift if you never ask me, “What are you doing after graduation?” “Ooh, what does that company do?” “Where are you going to live?” “Who’s going to take Fergus?” “What’s Neil doing?” or, possibly my favorite, “Are you two going to stay together while you live in different cities?” I’m quite seriously considering printing out the answers to all of the above frequently asked questions on index cards and passing them out at the graduation festivities my mother has planned that will span all three days of next weekend. Seriously, just say “Congrats” and pass me a beer. You automatically win the game.

For my last week of classes ever as a college student, the River Room has decided to serve almond chicken, my favorite. On my last journalism assignment, I was one of only two students who received grades in the A range. I will have a week off between my last class this Thursday and my first final next Thursday, and then one more at 7:30 a.m. on Friday. I would say something about the university sticking it to me one last time, but I’m just so excited about whatever comes after it that I’ve remained pretty unphased.

Currently I don’t feel like posting much about Bin Laden’s death– you can find my tweets for my play-by-play thoughts last night– though I can say I’ve never felt prouder to be a journalism major than last night. The same can’t go for being an American because quite frankly I was embarrassed by the reactions of many people, but as my professor this morning said, “Emotions aren’t right or wrong, you can’t help the way you feel in a particular moment.” So no judging, just dissimilar reactions.

For those of you who aren’t keeping track– yesterday marks ONE MONTH UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY, and today is Fergus Jackson’s nine month birthday. As his present, he will get his monthly heartworm pill. He really likes it. I have a feeling he will celebrate as he does all other days of his life: sleeping, looking out the window, and trying to catch that damn squirrel in the backyard. I’ll never tell him his legs are too short to ever catch it.

Did I watch the royal wedding live? No. Did my boyfriend? Yes. He texted me at 5:28 am “I think you’re gonna like her dress.” NPH knows me well then, I suppose, but then again I haven’t read a single bad thing about it. Kate/Catherine/Duchess of Cambridge looked HOLYCRAPSTUNNINGGORGEOUS. I’ve watched what I need to online and now feel sufficiently royal wedding-ed out. I’m not a fan of the people going out of their way to be downers about it. It’s ok that you don’t care, but this is big doings to an estimated 1/3 of the world’s population, so shut your pie hole. The bride is gorgeous, they look truly happy together, and I hope the press leaves them alone. But it’s British tabloids, so that won’t happen.

Wednesday was my last PRSSA meeting ever. I’ve been involved since the first chapter meeting of my freshman year, so it’s a bittersweet sigh of relief. We went to Hope Lodge last night to make dinner for the guests, tonight is our “downtown social”, and Wednesday is our final banquet where we exec get to pass the torch to the newly elected members and run for the hills.

Speaking of sprinting away from things: I have five classes and two finals between now and when I’m officially graduated. Let the festivities begin!

Easter was wonderful. Candy and sugar need to get out of my life, but sadly, they’ve become even more of a presence.

Today I stopped traffic braking for two ducks crossing the street. I’ve seen them fly, but apparently they felt like getting some exercise across Dodge St. I figured Fergus had terrorized them in 713’s backyard enough that I’d let them take their time.

I had two interviews last week, yahoo! I’m excited about both positions, though they’re very different. Now we play the waiting game.

Today (before said duck-saving traffic incident) I got my hair cut. Yeah. I haven’t had it cut in a very long time, and this weekend I figured, “Oh what the hey, I’ll just take off some inches.” I suppose it’ll just take some getting used to. I don’t hate it, though it makes me feel a lot younger, and it definitely doesn’t look like what I had in mind. I went in using this photo as a reference:

HOT, right?! I'm not even a fan of hers, but you gotta admit-- that's good hair.

Now I realize I’m not blonde and I don’t have those cheekbones and I have bangs and I don’t part my hair down the middle and I don’t have Tracy Anderson kicking my ass every day and making sure I only ingest 800 calories, but still. Here’s what we’re now working with:

Yes, this is the only semi decent photo in an unnecessarily long photo shoot because I was disgusted by every picture.

A side shot, just for reference. Because you all want to know EXACTLY what my hair looks like now.

Sigh. I suppose now I’ll end and go buy a handle of Smirnoff and a pack of Camel Lights so I can feel older than the 14 years I currently look to be.

Yesterday morning I opened a new box of cereal (off-brand Kashi Go Lean from Aldi, it has something called “fiber sticks” in it) and had some sort of cartoon moment. As I was contemplating grabbing a knife or scissors to hack open the unbelievably tough waxed paper, I decided to give pulling it apart one more go, and KA-BOOM– cereal exploded everywhere. In the toaster, under the coffee maker, probably into the T.G.I. Friday’s margarita glasses on top of the fridge, but I haven’t looked there yet. A good three bowls of cereal were now strewn into every tiny nook in the kitchen, and the cleaning process took minutes out of my precious breakfast time. At least the toaster’s now empty; I found a chunk of charred toast way down at the bottom when I was banging on it upside down to get all the fiber sticks out.

The girl next to me in the River Room just had the audacity to look over and judge my sanity while I was singing a song to Neil about getting finishing my article. Not many people know this, but I’ve become quite talented at making up nonsense songs and singing them to NPH, who always at least pretends to be entertained. We’ve become quite the musical duo– me making up lyrics about a little cat in a trash can, while he takes more of the Weird Al parody route. I’d like to think I’m the more musically gifted one however, as Neil just takes popular songs and replaces certain words to be about Fergus. My favorite will always be Elton John’s “Fergus Day Nights Alright,” though I am enjoying “Who’s that Hound?” to the tune of Rihanna’s “Who’s that Chick?”

As you can see, I’ve completely given up on academia. Since I have zero, zilch, goose egg to do tomorrow, I suppose I’ll troll the Internet begging for post-graduation employment. Oh, I’ve run twice more since Monday’s doomsday workout, and while it’s gotten a bit easier, I’m still not going Olympic distances. Which frustrates me greatly because I was apparently born with a much larger “All or Nothing” part of my brain than the average person.

Last night, I had the privilege of attending a free advanced screening of the forthcoming movie Bridesmaids. It comes out in a month, but I’ve been quite excited for its release for many months because I am a HUGE fan of Kristen Wiig, the movie’s co-writer and star. You know how people get really fanatical about Tina Fey? I’m that way about Miz Wiig (though I get the whole Tina Fey awesomeness as well.) My affection for the movie’s star I don’t think really affected my overall opinion of the film because absolutely everyone else in the theater shared the same reaction: it was hilarious. Seriously. So funny. So much laughing out loud– Natalie was sitting next to me and was crying from laughter at one point. From start to finish, it is a smart comedy that will have people falling in love with Wiig as much as I already am. I feel I shouldn’t give too much away, but I’ll tell you of a few qualms I had about the movie before seeing it. I had watched the full theatrical trailer online before going and was slightly underwhelmed. After seeing it, I can tell you the funniest parts are definitely not in the trailer. The trailer shows them picking Vegas as the destination of Maya Rudolph’s bachelorette party, and I was leery that this was going to be a female version of The Hangover (don’t worry, it’s not.) Jon Hamm is in the movie (unbeknownst to me before going in) as well as an unknown Scotsman who’s kind of the Michael Cera version of Gerard Butler. There was lots of squealing and “Awwwww!!!”-ing at certain points because the audience was at least 95% female. Never fear, gentlemen– a guy and his girlfriend were walking in front of me as we left the theater, and he said something about, “So much for a chick flick!” and then shared his general excitement over the fact that it wasn’t just another sappy girl-centric movie he’d been conned into attending. The movie takes some turns that you might not expect, though does end like you’d probably expect, but it’s seriously a gem the entire way through. And make sure you don’t rush right of the theater at the end. Afterward I tweeted that it was definitely in the top five funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Or top three. Or maybe number one, just because I’m so happy that a movie written by and starring so many women is so damn good. Mark your calendars for May 13– you’re going to the movies.