The End of the Affair
October 2006, Durham, North Carolina
By Natalia Antonova
“I have to pay them $500 dollars a month?”
“Yes.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish.”
“I should have gone to UNC.”
“Too late for that now.”
“I wanted to buy jeans. I wanted to eat food that didn’t taste like cardboard. I wanted to go to the state fair and look at prize-winning hams. I even planned on getting a bathroom mat. With happy-looking flowers on it, daisies, maybe. None of that is possible now. My dreams are like baby seals, getting clubbed into oblivion.”
“That’s what you get for majoring in humanities and getting a ‘meaningful’ job.”
This is the imaginary conversation I have, over and over again, with my student loan adviser at Duke University. I can’t go see her, because I am getting paid to work by the hour, and, as of right now, taking time off to weep on her shoulder is a luxury I can’t afford. I have just landed my first job, which is indeed meaningful, if not particularly lucrative. I am making four hundred dollars a week, after spending three months on the hunt and living off my credit card. I am about to enter student loan repayment, and sleazy “work from home” commercials are starting to look disturbingly appealing.
Was my Duke degree worth it? - I ask myself as I shiver at night next to my boyfriend, using him as I would a body pillow and/or electrical blanket, due to the rising energy costs. To me, the answer is yes, but the rest of the world appears to think differently.
I graduated with Distinction, a double major in English and Slavic Languages & Literatures, and a 3.6 GPA. None of that seems to matter to the ruthlessly efficient Sallie Mae Corporation, the faceless conglomerate that’s making me pony up for the privilege of attending Duke, or to the dozens of potential employers that have been busy shredding copies of my resume in recent months and offering well-paid jobs and internships to kids who studied “real things” in school.
My brilliant back-up plan involves writing the Great American novel and resting on my laurels. I have recently downgraded it to writing the Great American Romance Novel. Of course, I am busy chewing my nails (can’t afford a manicure) and tearing out my hair (spent money on a decent haircut, and have felt horribly guilty, as though instead of a bob with bangs, I purchased the services of an underage prostitute) while I think about money, and a serious creative commitment is not currently an option. Perhaps I will have to settle for writing the Great American Cereal Box Advertisement instead.
I work at Duke, and as I pass the current students, particularly the ones that stand out with their designer bags and carelessly draped cashmere scarves, I am surprised to recall that I was considered one of them, if only on the surface.
Unlike most Dukies, I never had rich parents. And, unlike those rare Dukies without rich parents, I did not study anything remotely “useful.” I blew a $160,000 education on reading sonnets and translating Boris Pasternak into English. I can’t even afford to frame my Distinction certificate now, and so it sits on the rickety dresser that a friend with a “useful” degree donated to me, crumpling around the edges.
“Stop being such a cry-baby,” my Leftist friends tell me. “Most people can’t afford to go to college.”
“But that’s my point exactly! I couldn’t afford to go to college either! I just didn’t realize it until I graduated!”
They laugh and tell me to get another bottle of bourbon out of the fridge. All this drinking is murdering my waistline. But if I stop drinking, I will start twitching from stress. And then my wonderful bosses will gently fire me from my job, and then some gray-suited agent of Sallie Mae will cut off my arm for collateral purposes. I will file for disability and live off McDonald’s, and then my waistline will really go to hell. My boyfriend will leave me. When I die, at age 25, they will have to air-lift my body out of my filthy apartment.
Bottoms up.
The truth is, my love affair with Duke University has left me feeling like a ruined girl from a Victorian novel. We had a good time together, Duke and I, but now reality is settling in. The autumn winds howl dramatically. And I can’t afford a winter jacket, or, for that matter, warm socks.
My parents, meanwhile, have moved back to the country of my birth, Ukraine. I am jealous of them. They were able to declare bankruptcy, and free themselves from monthly payments and scary phrases like “late charges” and “accrued interest.” To cheer me up, the parents send little tins of red caviar and, occasionally, money. They are very proud of the fact that I have graduated from Duke, they refer to me as the family “smarty,” and have encouraged me to place a “Duke Alumni” sticker on my used Nissan, another source of my financial woes.
Somewhere deep inside, I understand that my parents are right. I ought to stop being melodramatic. As an undergraduate, I did what I wanted. What I believed in. And that this should mean something in the end, even if I have to eat instant noodles in the meantime. Of course, a commercial for the unattainable culinary Mecca that is Red Lobster comes on the minute I start telling myself that I am enjoying said instant noodles, and I am back at square one again, pouting at my sly seducer, the Blue Devil.
Natalia Antonova is a recent Duke University graduate and an aspiring writer. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with boyfriend Khaled and mutt Zara.
Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 | Email This PostThis entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 12:01 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
16 Responses to “The End of the Affair”
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October 25th, 2006 at 4:18 am
This entry captures the sentiments of so many recent college grads. Going from the protective social environment of college into the bill infested, student loan repaying real world is a terrifying thing. Not to mention the identity crisis we all go through upon graduation.
October 25th, 2006 at 4:31 am
Hey Natalia,
I too chose the ‘non useful’ option and completed an arts degree. I met my husband at the end of university when we both had no money - he was earning seven dollars an hour as an orderly and I had a baby and no job. I am now 33, and we have since worked hard to create a life that we are all enjoying. I have taught for a few years on and off, but at the moment I am choosing to work part-time in childcare and concentrate on writing.
Life is a journey, and I think following your instinct to be creative is very important. It isn’t how much money you make that matters in the long run, but being true to yourself. All the best as you continue this adventure.
October 25th, 2006 at 9:44 am
The essay is a wee bit whiny (like most of my stuff). Nevertheless, I am proud of having been selected, and am honestly honoured to be included in such a fun, diverse group of writers, both aspiring and established. I was charmed by First Shooting Star (and reminded of all the nights my father and I spent looking at meteor showers and making out familiar constellation shapes from the jumble of stars up above), and then there’s the childhood humiliation of Spin the Bottle, and… Well, read for yourself. Really.
October 25th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Thank you for your comments, guys. Thank you for reading.
October 25th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
It wasn’t whiny, it was funny and warm hearted. I await your Great American/Ukrainian novel.
October 25th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
For a more festive meal, grate a little ginger root over that top ramen… one small chunk costs pennies and will last in your fridge for months, giving the illusion of actual food
October 27th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I can’t wait for the novel! Just the kind of writing that’s probably as much fun to write as it is for others to read.
Keep plugging.
October 29th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
this is why i dropped out, dime-a-dozen degrees, books for profit, education should be free, instead like many things it is big business…a sad state of affairs
November 1st, 2006 at 3:04 am
You all see the writer, I see the person………… Nat, you need to dump the boyfriend. In your heart of hearts you know he\’s not the one who is going to be the father of your children…………Kal, is just a blip on the road of life.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Yours was the only post I could find by searching for \”Carolina\”. (I\’m a SC native - went to USC). I\’m so glad I found yours. It totally reminds me of my life while I was a student. I hope to contribute the first South Carolina post on here.
November 2nd, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Mathyu,
I agree, education should be free.
Roscoe,
Wow, I never thought that I’d get unsolicited relationship advice when I submitted this! I thought most responses would center on, “shut up, you spoiled Dukie!” So I’m kind of weirded out.
Williesha,
Carolina pride…
November 15th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
I wish that I had it with me now, but there’s a website out there with the horror stories of all of the people that couldn’t pay their loans, accruing massive interest and collection agency fees, completing screwing with their lives as much as possible. I’m a stay at home mom who, because I’ve chosen to be a mother, cannot pay my loans right now. For some reason parenting isn’t considered reason for temporary relief from my loan payment, so I’ve been putting up with phone and mail harrassment. I was a religious studies (not theology) major at one of those respectable universities, so I sometimes wonder how it was so easy for me to sign off on those loans without even having a clear idea of what an education should be for me. It’s ridiculous what young people are expected to pay, go into debt, for an education that everyone tells them is necessary in the world today.
Anyways, I liked your story, and your writing.
thanks for submitting it
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Go to www.idealist.org and look for a meaningful job that pays real money.
NGOs are the employer of the future, and some of them are beginning to have resources that pay a living wage.
I can’t tell you how many people I know have left the US because it’s impossible to “get by” on US wages, especially with a college loan. As the economics and socio-political doctrines of the rich right gain more and more power, the US middle class is disappearing.
The US is great if you’re rich or on vacation. Otherwise, it’s a very difficult place to live. I love NC with all my heart (tho’ I’m a Tarheel–#%@$ Duke, LOL), but unless it decides to secede from the Union again, I won’t be living there anytime soon.
You shouldn’t have to choose between meaningful work and having a decent life.
December 17th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
I was on the high school newspaper with this young lady and I must say that her secondary schoolin\’ sure has done wonders for her handwriting.
Thanks for the loan help on the phone earlier, Nat.
XOXO
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I just wanted to say thanks for your story. I, too, am a recent grad, a writer and got hit with a humongous college loan bill that I had no idea was coming my way. I completely identify with the endless rice noodles and at home pedicures that don\’t do the trick. With all of the stress of ridiculous payments and mounting bills I forgot that I\’m not the only one trying to survive on a salary that barely buys me bread after everyone else has been paid. So thanks for reminding me that I\’m not alone and not the first nor the last to be in this situation. Here\’s to surviving post-college days.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Хорошо по-анлийски пишешь))) Мне бы так! Я, кстати, закончил филологический факультет в Нижнем Новгороде 6 лет назад, получив свое образование совершенно бесплатно, поэтому мой разум не очень может вместить тот факт, что в принципе за то же самое образование в Америке платят целые состояния. О то, что этот профиль в образовании ты назвала по идее “никчемным”, это спорный вопрос. Это тебе много дало, хотя бы то, что ты можешь ясно и четко выражать свои мысли вслух и на бумаге )) И вообще не сдавайся и пиши как можно больше. Я хочу увидеть в витрине какого-нибудь “Барнс и Ноублса” в ближайшем будущем книжку, автором которой будет Наталья Антонова, чтобы у меня появилась причина, чтобы туда зайти. В общем, дерзай!