8 Things Nobody Told Me About The Real World

I've gone from being a napping, biscuit-munching student, to a 9-5 office girl designing full-time and sitting on the sofa every evening looking like a zombie...

...and I have a bone to pick:

8 Things Nobody Told Me About 'THE REAL WORLD'*

1. There are no naps in the real world. 
2. You will feel tired at the end of the day, despite having been sat down for 8 hours.
3. In the real world, everyone emails each other. I know they're sitting a mere 3 feet away. Don't question it. It just IS.
4. Prepare to be taxed. 23% of your wages will disappear before you can even touch them. Twenty threeeee percent. Think about it.
5. Going to the bank is nigh on impossible.  It's Saturday mornings or never.
6. You've got 12 months to crawl out of that overdraft.
7. Petrol is very expensive.
8. If you want to make boring phonecalls then you will have the pleasure of squishing them into your 30 minute lunchbreak.  A mouthful of sandwich, chatting to the HMRC, booking your cat into the vet, calling your Dad to check he's still alive etc etc.

A lot of big life things have happened since I last posted.  Here is the past 4 months in list form...

• I graduated from university with a high 2:1 (2 more marks and it would've been a first. Gah.)
• I passed my driving test
• I bought my first car
• I left my part-time job of 4 years at Lush
• I got my first "proper" full-time job
• My cat had 4 kittens
• I went to Paris for 24 hours
• I slept in a fire engine for 3 nights
• I had my first big proper scary terrible disaster everything-goes-wrong illustration job 
• I got a few more freelance jobs that went fine
• I became KNACKERED
• I also became skint

I'm going to try and post more regularly, zombie-like-state permitting.

My top piece of advice to take away from this would be:

University is a cushy walk in the park. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Any things to add? What shocked you about leaving the university bubble and joining the 9-5 gang?  Were you exhausted too?