The real world is staring me in the face and I’m scared sh-tless. I’m going to walk across a Kohl Center stage in less than a week and essentially enter a period of undefined length characterized by moneyless unemployment, dangerous uncertainty and a whole lot of doubt. I certainly hope this doesn’t constitute the entirety of this real world everyone talks about, but that’s all I’m seeing at the moment and I’m feeling a little uneasy and searching for my blanky.

I suppose I wouldn’t be so scared if I had a job lined up. I’d at least know where I was headed and what to expect in the near future. It would afford me the stability an insecure young man like myself needs. But hey, I can deal. I can cope. I’ll have a college degree. Shouldn’t that entitle me to something?

Actually, that degree entitles me to thank everyone who’s had a part in getting me to this point.

I suppose my parents should come first. They let me do this whole college thing at my own pace, and I’m forever grateful to them for giving me the opportunity to mosey through college and have tolerance for someone who’d rather write for a student newspaper, host a radio show or travel to sporting events across the Midwest instead of biding their time assiduously in College Library. Oh yeah, there’s that bringing me into the world and raising me bit, but that was just so long ago and I think they already know how much they mean to me.

I’ve had some really great professors and teaching assistants along the way, though I never really got to know many of them as well as I should have. That’s probably a tactical error on my part, and I’m sure I’ll see why when I need references and recommendations, or if, god forbid, I ever try my hand at graduate school.

But I need to stop. These admissions only hold adequate meaning when performed in-person. And you, the reader, certainly don’t want to hear about the time I drank six shots of orange Fleishman’s vodka in one glass, only to wake up in the middle of the night thinking my friend’s couch was eating me. And I’m sure you don’t want to hear about the time, while drunk, I drove a female friend of mine face-first into the pavement only to give her a wonderfully attractive facial scar. There’s time for all of that later, and I suppose I’ll spend a good deal of my life reminiscing about these moments before they fade into senility.

I guess the most appropriate person to thank in this manner must be the reader, and I am forever thankful. I am undeserving of the time you’ve spent reading, but thank you for picking up The Badger Herald and please keep doing so. The staff is here for you, and don’t let them forget it. Keep leaving feedback. Keep writing letters and e-mails. Never stop.

Let me leave by saying Madison is one hell of a town. There’s not a better place I could’ve spent these last four and half years and I couldn’t have possibly met better people. I was glad to come, I’ll be sad to go and while I was here, I had me a real good time.

Drew Hansen ([email protected]) would like to thank Mac VerStandig for allowing these semi-frequent rambles, Eric B. Cullen for the opportunity of a lifetime, Joe Ziemer and Brandon Gullicksrud for being the finest Sports Editors in the history of the Herald and Jake Leonard and Michael Robinson for continuing excellence in the sports page.