I have a fairly good idea about the concrete elements of my future, as we imagine it now. There is the fragility of life, the giant variables that are no more likely to strike me today than they were months ago in a period of at least short-term certainty. Pausing to understand
all of the factors in my decisions, all of the possibilities and costs allows for some reflection on how things are that gets lost in times of certainty and routine.
This was going to be a travel blog. I've traveled many miles in the past few years. St. Paul to Bloomington, Indiana. A new dorm on a new street. Back to St. Paul, to Italy, Wisconsin. Turn the car around and two tears while my Dad finishes a work call and I apprehensively steer Southeast for a second year at Indiana. Devastating betrayal, a second new dorm in two years, in a different building. That move by myself, enough was enough with the family ordeals. And then, in my plans, a YEAR abroad. A travel blog for the family at home, to be vaguely personal, but mostly filled with postcard sized chunks of information. Morsels of my journey that would spark interest in others, and nostalgia in myself in later days.
So much for that. All that moving around, packing, unpacking,
settling, adjusting, crying, missing, learning, adapting. I am done for a while. Right now I am in the truest home I have ever known. A big old house (built by a B-list architect in 1888) 10 minutes from the house my parents walked into when they brought me home from the hospital. This is the place where I know the streets by landmarks more than names, where I feel safest going 50mph on a windy river road. I vigorously defy the rule of the law when I drive by the Mississippi, claiming those views, curves, thrills; that land as my own. I live here and it is mine as much as any law enforcement officer's. These are the streets on which I am not afraid to speed, not afraid to run a stop light every now and then. This is familiarity in a way that isn't at all boring yet, but still shocking. To know a place so well- to have streets I love, and streets that hurt to drive down.
I just told pretty much my best friend in Bloomington that I won't be a million miles away for his entire senior year. We spent a lot of time denying that fact, a lot of time acknowledging it by refusing to acknowledge it. Weighing the unease of the year that lies ahead- adjusting, broadening, shifting, re-focusing, with the complete comfort I feel about where I stand today makes sense.
It makes sense that I would want to move into one apartment and stay there for the next two years and finish college on the same campus I started it. Indiana University was not a college choice I made in April of my senior year. It's a choice I make every semester when I inevitably begin a transfer application, often blowing $60 on the possibility of greater happiness, only to settle with the less-dangerous known entity. I foresee the same gambles in the next two years. IU was never a perfect fit, I've told everyone as an explanation for why, halfway in, the transfer bug has bit again. (Let's not even get into bug bites. I have about 15 and they're not mosquito bites, I don't know
what they are. Oh, the unknown is so scary!!) It truly was never a perfect fit, and I will remember these years as trying ones- like a tough hike on a too-cold November fall day. The scenery is lovely, and the people you are with are happy, but you would rather be reading a book next to a fire- you know there is better out there, other choices, but I'm out on my trail now. It has been in some respects easier and in many much more difficult than I had once hoped and expected. Always, the alone-ness (which after these years, has become a distinct feeling from, yet always bordering on loneliness) threatens to send its deep chill through whatever warmth I build. I think about turning back, hiking the trail downhill and eventually nestling myself in the warmth of twin cities on a river. But I've invested a lot- and I can leave at this halfway juncture whatever I don't want to carry with me anymore. And I plan on leaving a lot.
In order to go back to IU happily
No. I did not go shoe shopping lately. Rather, I google imaged "big decisions" to pull up tonight's postcard image. One of the first images I really liked turned out to be kind of dark- some sort of unidentifiable animal consuming some really cute animal. Although that image is perhaps more fitting to the overwhelming confusion, sadness, and fear that envelopes me every time I try to make a big decision about my life, it's not something I wanted to post next to my big thoughts about my big plans. Shoes, on the other hand, might provide a much needed distraction.
This is not the first time I've had doubts about my college choice or uncertainty about my future path. In the past few weeks though, I've felt an overwhelming sense that what I'm doing no longer matches
what I love. "Do what you love and everything will turn out in the end" is one of my mother's rules to live by, and one that I haven't strayed from up until this point. Things came into focus for me during a memorable, if intimidating and unfair, interview for a prestigious and
super generous scholarship. This was literally the morning of the day I moved out of my dorm, about 3 weeks ago. I walked into a room of about 14 university professors seated around a U-shaped table. I sat in the hot seat. They grilled me on my activism efforts in Darfur.
I didn't get the scholarship, in my opinion, because it was easy to see that although I've made heartfelt and significant contributions to that cause and student group (STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition), the genocide in Darfur doesn't grip me by my heartstrings and push me to dedicate myself to action. These days, I don't know what does. Although it
big time sucks that the prestigious scholarship committee was apparently able to see through my own lack of passionate commitment to a cause that factors, how shall we say, prominently on my resume...well, it's too early to put a positive spin on that shitty rejection, but if I
were to go there, I would say that the committee refocused me on a few goals that I really do need to reassess.
Are my activities, my studies, my days filled with the things I love to learn and do? Am I making a difference in the issues that really
make me want to give my all in every effort? If the answers to those questions were yes, I probably wouldn't need to blog about them, eh?
Issue No. 1: The Majors
It is said that it doesn't really matter what major you choose undergrad. This leaves me with the puzzling question of why I spend a good part of every discussion I have about college matters with my parents wishing I could erase, rewind, and start from scratch knowing what I know now. When I started school, when I
chose a college, I did so for one reason:
Jewish Studies. Exactly what I would do with this practically useless liberal arts degree had no bearing on the fact that it was exciting and meaningful and drove most of the decisions I made between 2007 and now. I set myself up on a good path, I've gotten great grades, done research for the founder and long-time director of one of the country's best undergraduate programs in Jewish Studies...I already have at least two professors who would be eager to be my senior honors thesis advisor in the department. But now, for some reason, the awkward feeling I get when I tell people my major isn't the same awkward feeling I used to get when I told people my major. I'm sure most Jewish Studies enthusiasts with any set of social skills would agree that you pretty much feel awkward when you announce your Jewish Studies major to those inside and outside the tribe- it's not a mainstream thing to spend 4 years studying. Now though, it's less the judgements and queries of others that bother me- those never really gave me any doubts in the first place, after all- I was
doing what I loved. So it didn't really matter what anyone else thought. Even early last spring semester though, I started to sense that Jewish Studies no longer lit me up the way it used to. It wasn't as exciting or as meaningful, and when I told people, it was with a sense of entrapment. I'm a Jewish Studies major, I guess...not that I have to do anything with it after! I am now quick to add this addendum announcing my own hard-earned (well, not quite yet) degree's uselessness.
If I can't at least enjoy earning this useless degree anymore-- if my actions aren't matching up to my passions-- should I step on the brake, reassess and completely change direction??
OR should I suck it up, realize that it might not matter what my undergraduate major is, and finish up the two years at my current school?
There are a lot of options on the table- never a bad thing- but more than a little overwhelming. Let's start from tomorrow and work forward:
Summer: Work/Not work (ok, not really a choice that falls on me- more is resting here on the mercy of the job market). Because I already made one decision! I'm quitting my stupid GLBT advocacy internship- the supervisors were both disorganized, and I didn't get any sense that I would work on a single meaningful project during my summer, if I spent it with them. The jury is out on whether I will do a single meaningful thing during my summer
without them- but it's not like they were gonna pay me!
Fall:
1) Jerusalem or Not Jerusalem: I am prettttty far into going to study abroad through IU at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. That is, my housing form has been sent in. But I have big doubts, including
a) the city of Jerusalem and Israel in general are not really that exciting to me right now.
b) leaving my family, going even farther away than I was at school- SO not exciting to me right now.
c) my own general lack of jumping-up-and-down excitement leads me to doubt whether I should go ahead with some as big as a 7-month study abroad program if I'm so ambivalent about it.
d) I might hate it. I want to avoid the situation where I am sobbing to my mother on the phone and looking at emergency return trip home flights.
e) The program is notorious for its joke-like academics. Whatever.
f) If I'm making a big switch from JS to...something else... then going to Israel might not be the right next move.
If I don't go to Jerusalem, I need to figure out what I'm doing instead. I could go back to IU, live in a cute apartment (somehow living in a cute apartment is always the first aspect of this option that is addressed in the conversations with my parents), be clos
er to home (but not, we want to see you for Sunday brunch close), and not have to face the unfamiliar, and a big transition. I have, on the other hand, told everyone that I'm leaving. I would have to explain myself, and I would look like a quitter, or a big indecisive weirdo, or something. There's some anxiety around that whole, "But I told everyone I was going away!" Not that really, anyone else in the world would care about that as much as I probably would. Also, the potential of staying at IU probably means I could add another major, or concentration and get that much closer to broadening my long-range opportunities. There would be big ups and downs in another year at IU. There always are there- the weeks where I feel lonely, really down, have to call high school friends across the country 8 times a day just to reassure myself that I haven't fallen into a hole to deep to dig myself out of. Then, there are weeks where I feel so in control, I have huge academic successes on after the other, and I come home to my own space, and miraculously have people to go out with on the weekends, who slowly become friends. I'm getting more comfortable with the pace of friendships at IU- and I have a few friends that I know would be there for me 100%. It's scary to think of backing out of something so big- even if I didn't go to Jerusalem, and did something else next year- I wouldn't have to face all those IU people and explain how my plans changed. I don't know why this freaks me out so much- maybe something to look at more.
I could just slam on the brakes. Big picture things are feeling pretty out of control at this point- my interests are shifting, and right now, I don't think they've really shifted yet. They're just...in flux. Not landed on anything else yet, but definitively strayed off course from JS. About half the time, I'm absolutely sure that the solution to this ridiculousness is to pull back and stop for a while - give my interests time to land where they may. Give my head time to listen to my heart, my heart time to decide, and then give my stressed-out self enough time to meet the appropriate application deadlines given my assumed newfound interests and passions.
I pretty much see this going in one of two directions:
i. take fall semester off, work at home, do lots of yoga, maybe get yoga teaching certification, go abroad through IU spring semester, take classes, finish senior year at IU. Not really sure where this gets me. It doesn't leave time to add a new major ( which would pretty much require 4 semesters at IU...I think), and it doesn't really change anything from how things are now.
ii. take the whole year off, take classes at the U of M, do spring at Adamah (Jewish organic farm in CT), or stay in MN. Then decide what to do. Not really sure how this helps, unless I'm planning on transferring to the University of Minnesota. In which case it just buys time before an admissions deadline. That seems like a lame option, because if I transfer, I probably need 3 years to finish up degree requirements AND a new (and more passion-appropriate) major.
The transfer to the University of Minnesota option looks really appealing sometimes. Especially when you're sitting at home on the couch, sick, and your wonderful parents do things like bring you jamba juice and sudafed. Or when your best friend talks about going several
blocks, not
states south to see her family. Or when I think about that awful 12 hour drive, and packing up that car again. All of these things make me think that perhaps the requirement to take a biology class with a lab and a physics class with a lab might be worth it. There would be a
lot of effort required for this option. I think significantly more than required to go back and finish up at IU. This is the option that scares me the most, maybe, because it's the one I'm afraid I'll regret not pursuing if I don't. I
love the idea of being 20 minutes away from home. I love it every time I think about it. Since the day my parents drove away freshman year, I've believed that it's fairly abnormal to deposit 18 (in my case 17) year olds at ivy covered campuses and turn the car around. To be exact, I think it's contrary to every element of human nature and a ridiculous social norm that feeds misery and an unhealthy campus culture. So there, "normal college experience," I think you're laaaaame (but not when I'm at a fun party!)
In short, I'd like to be at the U of M to be close to my family. I can't transfer for fall, but I could for spring. But that's the big draw for UMN as compared to IU- my fam. Other than that, I'm really better off finishing up my degree at IU. It would also feel like a smooth way to shift academic direction, moving to an entirely new institution and all- but given how far along I am in my Jewish Studies and Religious Studies majors- I don't think that anything would really be holding me back from going in new directions at IU.
I don't feel any better for typing all of that out. I woke up this morning and it gave me a stomach ache to think about waking up three months from now thousands and thousands of miles away from this home and this family. It's too bad I have to terrorize them with my emotional decision making flip-flopping angst, all because I love them so much! And I've only made it through the next two years in this post. Just wait still I start obsessing about all the options after that.
My biggest problem, as I see it, is that I need some time to recalibrate my interests and passions, understand them, and then set forth to pursue those paths. If I go back to IU in the fall, will I have enough time to explore myself and then academically respond to my new interests? If I don't have enough time to add a major or minor in line with my shifting passions, will it prevent me from pursuing those things after I finish my undergraduate years?
I spent the last couple of days in Chicago with my wonderful mother! We packed in everything imaginable- gaining Italian citizenship, fighting with mean Israelis at
that consulate, dining, shopping, socializing, shopping...
It was lovely! The city was beautiful, the weather was perfect, our hotel was literally directly across the street from both the Italian consulate and the NORDSTROM. It is very exciting to have dual citizenship, my mom remarked as we took a cab to the south loop to meet my cousin and her boyfriend for sushi on Tuesday night that it will be interesting to see how this action will change the rest of our lives. It definitely opens doors and encourages opportunities that otherwise wouldn't have presented themselves. Someday we'll probably think, "X/Y/Z probably never would have happened if we hadn't hauled ass to Chicago that May weekend and made 460 copies of naturalization papers and birth, marriage, and death certificated (ALL apostilled) and presented our case to Anna at the consulate." Strange to consider. Our obscene amounts of paperwork appeared to be in order, as Anna remarked "Perfect" and entered all of our information into the computer. We are citizens by jure sanguinis law, which means that my great grandfather naturalized in the US
after giving birth to my grandfather- a pretty bizzarre law that happens to work in the favor of my famiglia!
To celebrate our new nationality, we went out for a beautiful lunch with my wonderful friend from school, Daniel. We ate at Quartinos, an amazingly authentic Italian restaurant which I found online (I am notorious for choosing the best restaurants, ever since a 1st grade trip to Paris with my family where my restaurant pick led us to the WORLD's best chocolate mousse). They, true to Italian norms, did not card Daniel or I, so by the time we finished our salami, cheese, and olive plates, we had all had enough pinot noir to make a sunny chicago afternoon that much more beautiful. We walked down to the Art Institute of Chicago, crossing the skybridge from Millenium park and marveling at the views of the city and lake. This post's postcard is from inside the brand new modern wing of the museum, which opened on Saturday. To celebrate the opening, the museum was free all of this week- perfect for us college students. Another friend from Indiana, Julia, met us at the museum right after Daniel had to leave to catch his train. We hit a few more of the galleries- the modern wing could in itself be an entire museum, found coffee (must. feed. addiction.) and trekked back up the magnificent mile.
Then we shopped. It was unanimously agreed upon that something Italian and expensive should be purchased in order to truly confirm the citizenship. Prada sunglasses won the prize, although I tried on a pair of enormously flashy Fendi ones that really cannot be pulled off by white people. At this point, I asked my mother why it is that I LOVE "black people style" so much and forced myself to suppress this love and go for something slightly more professional.
We were exhausted, the morning had been stressful, and the afternoon had been long. We rested in the hotel room, but ended up heading out for sushi with my cousin, Emily, who I haven't seen for so long, but thanks to facebook, we have now reconnected! We slept so well.
This morning I fought against the Israeli consulate. It was terrible, they made me throw away my coffee -- NEVER a good idea, and then didn't even end up giving me a student visa. I hate them. I literally asked myself, "Why am I going to this rude, dirty, mean country?" We shopped more, and I got many appropriate things to wear in an office environment for my summer internship, or god-willing, JOB someday. Then we left town. On the road I found out I didn't get a HUGE and very prestigious scholarship that I put tons of work into applying for over last semester. I'm pretty disappointed, it would have made the decision about finishing up IU, even though I'm feeling uncomfortably stuck there, a LOT easier.
On the bright side, now nothing is tying me down to IU and my majors there. I'll write more about these potential big life plan changes tomorrow- the gist of it all being that sometimes you don't get your student visa and your huge scholarship for a reason. My room still looks like 40 toddlers threw a kegger up in here, and then a cyclone swept through- I need to work on that and talk to my family now... twin cities updates and big life plan updates to come.
