"Monster.com" Should Be Renamed "Meth.com"

I've become an expert in stealth job-searching.

In class, eleven windows are pulled up on my computer screen, and my class's lecture notes are minimized. Professor walks by, lecture notes are pulled up and job sites minimized, crisis averted. Wednesday morning at 2 a.m., I'm in a study group working on my senior thesis and my study-mates are doing whatever study-mates do. When no one's looking, I quickly pull up Monster.com, sneaking through listings for Executive Administrative Assistant, or Travel Associate, Medical Billing Worker, Trash Picker, Egg Donor, Unemployed Beggar With College Loans. I'm not too picky anymore.

It's painful to drool after all jobs for which you are not qualified, and to fully realize that they only jobs for which you ARE qualified pay $10/hour part-time. Too many rant-y, whiny blogs are dedicated to the despair of unemployment, but my real questions is - how can you be unemployed when there are so many jobs open? Are people picky, or am I just THAT oblivious to a super-obvious fact of the universe somewhere?

Right now, I am supposed to be writing the bibliography to my senior thesis, a twenty-page behemoth ten months in the making, but all I can focus on is the eight tabs on my Safari page advertising for very well-paying, lucrative jobs within 20 miles of my home.

I'm graduating in 17 days. I have no jobs lined up and have applied to one internship half-way across the country which will, if I am accepted, only last for 8 weeks. Instead of faithfully applying myself to finish my LAST undergraduate assignment, I'm on the prowl for a paycheck that will keep me warm at night.

It's painful to drool after these jobs....but oh, so addictive. I dream about job hunting now. And have nightmares about it, too, but it's been consuming so much brain-power that I feel like I have a legitimate addiction. My heart races when people cheerfully wave at me, wondering if they know I haven't been sleeping or doing my work so that I can job search. My boyfriend keeps me accountable to my work and tries to keep me off Facebook....which is effective, until he realizes that I've been on job-hunting sites instead.

I'm terrified of moving out, unwilling to live at home, too shy to pursue a Fortune-500 job, and too proud to pursue a no-name business.

But I am not desperate. God has always - and I mean always - taken care of me, and no amount of unemployment fears will shake that confidence, even if it means I clean houses and churches for another summer.

For hire: one copy editor, amateur chef, organizational expert, writer, nature walk-lover, job-searching, junkie, former editor-in-chief, disillusioned college grad.

Growing up is hard.