Resume: check. Work samples: check. Freshly cleaned suit: check.Such is the life of a senior with no permanent job aftergraduation.

Thursday, like so many other days over the last two years, was aday to slap on that forced smile, prepare the polite laugh and hopemy palms weren’t too sweaty. The Medill School of Journalism’sspring job fair meant the situation was tougher than ever. Insteadof one skeptical recruiter, I had to face about 40, all of whom by2 p.m. had faced the throngs of freshmen trying to get the same jobas me using high school work.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I do have a job for thesummer. In fact, I have a very good job — that lasts until the endof August. Then after my 10 weeks are up the newspaper likely willsay “hasta la vista” (it’s in California) and send me packing. Orhome. Please God, not home.

The reality of losing my parents’ health insurance in less thantwo months has set in and I find myself eating healthier. I justturned 22 and realized I have no idea where I will be on my 23rdbirthday. Hell, I don’t even know where I’m gonna park mypossessions. Or if I’m going to know anyone where I live. Or whereI’m gonna spend the holidays — all the little things I have takenfor granted over the years.

So that brought me to Norris University Center, among thosetrying to schmooze the higher-echelon of visitors and those soulseven more desperate than me — those whose moment of unemploymentstarts June 20.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When we seniors came intoNorthwestern in 2000, the economy was great, people were hiring andthose glossy brochures were promising I would find a job comegraduation. Now, four years later I’m getting the degree and myresume isn’t too shabby. But my childhood hopes of working at TheWashington Post or The Boston Globe have been replaced by prayingfor a job in a place where they need another horse to be atwo-horse town.

But as I jumped from station to station, handing out copies ofmy resume like a precious commodity, I had no shame. I put on mygood face for (read: sucked up to) people from places I have neverheard of before.

I grovelled at the mid-size papers and paid homage to one of thetitans from a city in which I would actually want to live. Butmostly I gushed about my desire to live in a small town. Honestly,if it meant a full-time job come September, I’d do crop reports inOttumwa, Iowa.

Basically I was fighting for my future with only my resume,smile and handshake as weapons.

Now I have my new ammunition: the stack of business cards andfliers I collected Thursday. I am hoping in a few months thethank-you card I send will mean one of the recruiters candistinguish me from the other random guys in gray suits who reallywant to work at their newspaper as soon as possible.

That and that none of them read this column today.