Phase In...Phase Out...

Ahem. Here we have it. My very first, real live, grown-up blog. Though I'm sure I'll have little to no faithful readers (excluding my Mom, who I know will read this religiously) I am excited about my virtual writing adventure. Man...I sound like such a communications dork.

Why would you start a blog? One may ask. Well, I need an outlet. A place to put my views on current events, random wonderments, my friends, my family, my job, and anything else that may pop up out there.

Though I pondered keeping the explanation for my blog name drapped in mystery, I have decided to reveal its meaning (lucky you).

"Phase Four," is the proverbial tip of the hat to this exciting and scary phase of life I have recently entered. My best friend's/roommate's mom once gave us some sage advice on life. And it all had to do with phases. Phase One is blissful childhood, those years that you had no concept of money or bills and your biggest concern in life was making sure you could stay up to watch the TGIF television line-up, including but not limited to Boy Meets World, Full House, Family Matters, and Step by Step.

Phase Two is adolescence and high school, which I'm sure my parents would contend was the worst phase. I consider these years my shining rebel-without a cause years. I'll leave it at that!

Phase Three is the ever-beloved college years(and the phase in which I just left not but 6 months ago).

Phase Four however, is the post-grad years...the time when you enter "real world," as some MTV execs coined it. Leave behind: merriment of house parties, "studying" in Europe, college sweethearts, never getting enough sleep, homework, and staying in sweat pants on a Wednesday. Enter: bills, waking up when it's dark outside, and those really annoying things called taxes. After working my ass off during four years of college, my plan for Phase Four was simple: Graduate college, move to New York City, meet Regis Philbin, and become famous. In that order. Well, let's just say I don't live in New York City, and the closest thing to becoming famous that has happened this year is when my Dad actually did see Regis Philbin at the Notre Dame v. USC game...but did not put in a good word for me. What is that Dad...WHAT IS THAT.

Anyway. Living the life of a post-grad in 2009 has not been what every wide-eyed college graduate dreamt of. With some exceptions I'm sure, it hasn't full of opportunity, big first-year salaries and becoming famous. For most of us, it's been full of heading back to our childhood bedrooms, and having Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com be our homepages on our computers. Because we entered the "real world" in the deepest economic depression since the Great Depression and became a job-seeker in a god-awful job market where people with Master's degrees were taking jobs flipping burgers (alright, that may be a slight overstatement, but not by much).

Now to move away from the gloom and doom of 2009, I did fortunately find an amazing job a few months ago working for the Oregon Speaker of the House and I moved to Portland. I am just love, love, loving it so far (both the job and Portland). Though I've lived about an hour away from this city my whole life, I have yet to really explore it, which is part of my new plan for Phase Four. I'm not entirely sure what all is in store for my new Phase Four plan, but I know it's going to be great.

So here goes my blogging experience, I hope you find it (at leaset) somewhat entertaining.