Series finales are so predictable. We faithfully watch in anticipation of what we know will certainly happen. However, as I near my series finale of college, I could not be more clueless.
When you come to college—there is a set plan. You know your senior year of high school where you will be the following year. You begin plans for a major, living situation and social atmosphere.
I always thought by the end of my senior year of college I would have everything figured out. I don't.
A mere week from graduation—I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life.
There is no swanky job waiting in the city, no reunion of memorable characters from my time at UW-Madison and no Ross Gellar chasing me through the airport.
Not knowing what will come has led to feelings of anticlimactic uncertainty about my last weeks on campus.
Granted—there have been some unpredictable endings to our most beloved of stories. The series finale of ""M*A*S*H"" in 1983 was more than two-and-a-half hours long and viewed by more than 105 million Americans.
Hawkeye said his goodbyes to the members of the 4077th and prepared himself for life after the Korean War. Although there will be thousands of people watching me end my college career at the Kohl Center, I hardly feel as accomplished as Hawkeye or ready to get airlifted out of Madison forever.
Despite my unwillingness to leave college behind and set out into the unknown, I have no desire to tack on a last-minute third major and prolong my stay at UW.
With the exception of ""Frasier,"" spin-offs rarely work. Memorable characters are moved across the country—from New York to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles or the certainly doomed pilot of a ""Grey's Anatomy"" doctor escaping her past. I hardly want the next phase of my life to be a faded recreation of what happened in college—with no desire to push forward with a new plot.
The series finale of ""Seinfeld"" was hugely criticized by fans when it aired in 1997. Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine are sentenced to one year in prison for violations of the Good Samaritan Law and crimes against humanity. The hour-long episode features numerous flashbacks and appearances from several memorable characters seen over the show's nine-year run.
The more I think about it, ""Seinfeld"" had the perfect ending. It did not attempt the monumental, the complete wrap-up or any concrete conclusion. The ""Seinfeld"" finale was what the show always had been—entertaining in its minute details but actually about nothing at all.
When I think about it, this is what I want for myself. I want to end college with no worries or attempts to untie all the knots, no search for a grand conclusion and no definite solution about what's to come.
I'll spend my last weeks here doing what I've always done—watch ""Entourage"" every Sunday with my roommates, hit up the Blue Velvet every Thursday, run through the Arboretum, sit on a pier next to Lake Mendota drinking with my friends and do the crossword puzzle instead of paying attention in lecture.
And seriously, what's the deal with sudoku?
