Wednesday, 08 April 2009
A few of you have submitted your votes (it's a good system, don't you think? Let's me know what you think is interesting, and gives me a jumping-off point and a greater sense of purpose), so today's program will include an exploration of the landscape of my life as it has been shaping up recently. I expect by the time I finish, it will have been a long and winding hike through the mountains, but perhaps we'll find a view of the horizon and someone can claim they see what's coming up ahead. That person will probably not be me.
With every month that passes, I toss around phrases like, "It's hard to believe there are only ____ months left in Paris," if only to remind myself that this magical year will come to a close, and that Paris will not, in fact, remain my daily backdrop. Today there remain less than two months, and before long the countdown will be in days. Already I am putting off things like getting a haircut or seeing a film -- things that will be cheaper to do in America.
I have a lot to go back to, so it's not as if I'm dreading my return. But it's hard to fathom what it will mean to leave Paris, and hard to convey to others even a fraction of what I think it will feel like. I suppose the closest I can come with people my age is this: remember your freshman year of college? Your new friends, your new lifestyle, the parties, the road trips, the late nights, the sense of community. Imagine as a freshman on the eve of exams, you knew you'd go back to complete another year of high school in the fall. It's hardly a sentence; there are classmates you'd love to see again, perhaps you miss your hometown, etc. But there remains the fact that life has changed quite drastically, and returning to the same setting you found yourself in a year prior might feel a little strange. Nevermind that they literally speak a different language, don't have delicious bakeries on every corner, and have considerably less museums to visit.
I keep thinking of a Czech proverb I learned recently, "Kolik jazyku znas, tolikrat jsi clovekem." In English, it's something to the effect of "you live a new life for every new language you speak. If you know only
one language, you live only once." It's not as if Paris will vanish overnight -- a culture forever lost, a second Atlantis -- but access to French culture and language in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, can be a bit limited, even with the help of French clubs and tutoring jobs. The little songs everyone sings to each other here cannot be exported; the cadence of my usual "merci, au revoir" at the bakery door won't be quite so beautiful and effective when I take my coffee and bagel from the disgruntled old woman at the café in the bottom floor of the university library.
As for questions about the future (to touch on the high school comparison once more), it's a bit like being a junior in high school and having people ask you where you'll be going to college before you've even taken the tests you'll need to apply. So perhaps we'll start with something more immediate. I've applied to a number of internships with museums and magazines, hoping to find some work in New York or D.C. for the summer. Most of what I've applied for involves exhibit creation or research, film archiving/restoration, or art editorial work. So far I have a rejection from National Geographic in D.C., and an interview with Harper's in New York. With about fifteen applications submitted, I hope the net I cast is wide enough, but it's still a bit early to tell. I'm still waiting to hear back from others like the Holocaust Museum, the Smithsonian's Postal Museum, the Notebaert Museum in Chicago, National Geographic Adventure, a book arts internship in Brooklyn, and a number of other small libraries and publications. If I don't find anything I'll spend some time at my parents' and maybe return early to Tuscaloosa for summer school and work.
Other definites: a fall schedule that includes Intro to Linguistics, Printmaking, a seminar on ethnography and culture, Spanish 103, and a science credit I need to graduate. After missing the dark room so fiercely this year, I regret that there's not room in my academic schedule to take photography, but I can still work as a dark room monitor. Hopefully I'll have the time to create more work for my portfolio.
Which brings me to the Post Undergrad Question. What will Glynnis do with her life? I remain of the mentality that opportunities present themselves, and that one needs only to be willing, brave, and ready. And that in the meantime one should work hard and stay busy doing things one loves. This whole Paris for a year thing? A crazy opportunity that presented itself via supportive parents, two generous scholarships, and an academic advisor who asked the question, "Only for the summer? Why not go for the whole year?" Oh yeah. And there was a lot of paperwork.
So with the opportunity mentality in mind, there are a number of directions I'm considering. I'm hoping one of them will suddenly become more appealing and plausible than the others, and soon.
So that's as much an update as I can give you concerning my life, the future, and everything, without degenerating into whines about how all of it will be more difficult and competitive with today's economy. As more news rolls in and as the time inevitably passes, I'll try to keep the internet up to date on any new developments (beats repeating all this uncertainty ad nauseam via email, video chat, and phone calls). But until then, I suppose it's best to enjoy all the questions of youth, eh? The answers aren't always as important as we'd like to think they are.
