my re-adjustment to America & getting closer to real life
For the past 7 or 6 years of my life, people have always though I was interesting. Well maybe not me, but my goals, my life, the things I was doing.
Now. I'm back from Oman. And until TODAY. I had no idea what I would be doing next in my life.
I didn't get the job I wanted. Though I still don't know if I really wanted it. I think I wanted the idea of a plan. And I do want that job ... eventually. I do want a Masters in Education, but then I saw a postsecret card with the words "My biggest regret is getting my teaching certificate." Discouraging. The fact that the Minneapolis School District HR guy appeared to not even know that there was a department of World Languages for the district. I felt almost broken when I hung up the phone.
I dodged questions at Christmas time about what was next.
I told my extended family members to ask me in a week. Only a week after New Years the plan remained as unsure as ever. Though I had found cheaper tickets to Beirut, no one from the program was answering my emails to confirm what day we needed to arrive or heck if I had even been "accepted" for the spring program.
I contemplated what to do if Lebanon didn't work out. (I never did come up with a solution to that one.)
I saw my little brother freak out about being accepted into too many colleges he thought were cool.
I tried to use my facebook profile pictures to prove all the cool things I've done, to prove that I was awesome (even if I don't know what's next).
How could I feel like I was no where after everything that I have done? Learned to speak Arabic, done that whole MBU deal at school with APO, traveled to Lebanon, Ghana and Oman (not to mention Syria, UAE and Qatar), and everything else that made me feel worth while in college (OSSA, LAHSC, other APO stuff, designing GDI shirts), why was I about to end up like so many other college graduates today: no job and shit outta luck.
Sure there were some good things. I had graduated. I made at least one semi-final resume. I was (am) finally feeling more confident in my Arabic speaking. The guy across the street said he could hook me up with an interview at a design firm. I got Kareman to say she'd come back to camp (!!!!!). There is a good chance that my Minneapolis job application will still be there if they were aiming to hire for the fall. (The job has been being re-posted every few weeks or so since May and I was banking on them wanting to hire someone right away.) I've been with my best friends in Cleveland in just over a week I will be with my best friends in Austin.
It's not that life was bad. It's just that I had no plan. (Considering the whole I want to study Arabic plan started at age 14... you can see how this might be an issue.)
I felt uninteresting and unimportant.
I spent 4 hours in the snow and cold as the first in line for a ticket to see Obama speak at my high school tomorrow. The man who was technically first in line but waiting in the car was a 97 year old man who worked on Obama's campaign in 1993. The fact that he was up and moving at that age is a fact inspiring on its own. Not to mention I secured a ticket.
The tickets to Beirut were purchased. (I still don't have an acceptance to the program, but it is basically automatic, plus I'm friends with the director from the last time I was there.) I leave Jan 20th and I DONT HAVE TO TAKE LUFTHANSA! (Besides just hating the Lufthansa international terminal at the airport I also got in a fight with the guy in charge of the LH ticket counter in Oman that he threatened not to let me on my flight... whoops.) I will return on April 28, meaning that I will very likely be walking alongside my friends during graduation in May.
And I said to my friend over facebook chat that I felt like I needed a personality. Knowing me for 3 years of course she told me I was being crazy. As I began to try to explain to her how I was lazy, a bum, and had no idea what I was doing next, she interrupted. "That's just because you've had a big adjustment."
An adjustment that was finally hitting me (or not exactly but you can determine your own opinion on that).
I moved back from Austin in May, packed and went to Ghana, was home for 3 weeks which included a weekend up at the Finger Lakes, went to see camp friends in Minnesota, went and worked at camp, came home for all of one week before shipping off too Oman, studying in Oman, doing research in Oman, only to get home and head to Minnesota for the holidays, a few nights in Cleveland before New Years in Pittsburgh, and then here is now.
There has been no time for planning. No time for reverse culture shock. My schedule for summer is beginning to form but the spring was like a bottomless pit. Back in Oman we had a session on re-entry back into America, but I'm think that culture shock was only the icing on my problematic cake.
There had been no time for adjustment because I had nothing to adjust to. Home of course, but not adjusting into a working mindset not an apply for jobs mind-set. Only yesterday did I finally begin going through the tornado aftermath that my bed room resembled filled with goodies from all those trips, as well as its usual contents, and OH! my entire apartment from Austin.
So, now, I have more of a plan (maybe). Now I can relax a little because my life should continue the way I like it, nonstop and always enough moves ahead for people to think I'm impressive, but open enough for me to still feel like the world is my oyster.
I want to do it all. I want to see it all. I will find the opportunities.
I'm realizing that being at home is just a too stressful place to do it.
So starting January 12th my nonstop life restarts. Austin, 5 nights. Cleveland, 3 nights. Beirut til April. Hopefully I will be accepted into a short-term StarTalk summer teaching program, followed by a little time at home before Minnesota for friends, family and camp. And with 7 months before the unknown, I have time to apply to grad school (maybe even get accepted), get a job, or maybe even hear back from the folks in Minneapolis.
I feel at ease with my future. The future has always been my friend. She just wasn't answering my texts because her phone was dead. ;)
Hopefully 2012 can handle all that I have in store for it!
