Life Lesson #23

Here in these deep city lights, girl could get lost tonight. I’m finding every reason to be gone. There’s nothing here to hold on to. Could I hold on to you?

I’ve recently hit that same wall of reality that I’ve watched my older friends and siblings experience in their first few months/years as former college students. Hit is a light term. I’m pretty sure I crashed into it, which actually isn't all that bad. Crashing created a strong impact, so maybe after a few more go’s I’ll be through to whatever awaits on the other side. I just hope it’s not another wall…

It took me longer than I expected to fully acknowledge that I have to hold myself accountable and take full control over the direction of my life now. I did the whole 4-year college thing and chose not to go straight to grad school so I no longer have such structured expectations to fall back on. It’s just me and the rest of the world, living our lives.

This is all normal, from what I understand – simply a part of the whole coming-of-age process. What really jarred me was that I caught myself doing something I swore I wouldn’t do. I promised myself I would never let myself get stuck; that I would never be someone so caught up in the daily grind that they forget about the goals they had previously set for themselves. Yet, there I was, living day to day, falling into a sense of complacency, and promising myself that one day in the not-so-distant future I’d be doing something I truly cared about.

Now, it’s not like I’m about to quit my day job tomorrow and do something extravagant. This wasn’t that type of awakening. It was simply a lesson that it really is all too easy to just let life happen to you and sometimes it takes a lot of effort to hold the reins and steer. Thanks Life, duly noted.

The Life of a Professional Job-Seeker

You know how when you join networking sites like linkedin or go out for happy hour with a friend and their co-workers and there's that question: So, what do you do?

I've decided saying: "I'm a professional job seeker" sounds more interesting than "I'm [still] unemployed]" (well, maybe neither of those would sound so good on linkedin...)

My weekdays consist of waking up around 9am, grabbing a FiberOne bar or pop tarts, driving to the Greenbelt Metro station where I ride the Metro to U St.

I then proceed to spend most of the day sitting in a comfy chair at Busboys and Poets, sipping my latte (gotta make it last) and applying for jobs. I do this mostly because my roommate and I can't get our internet to work at home, but also because at least it gets me out of the house.

I have developed a fairly comprehensive routine once I open my browser: gmail, 'new tab' then: idealist, gwork, devex, washington post, washington city paper, craigslist, sometimes monster and linkedin, and then any company/organization websites for vacancies that may not have been posted elsewhere yet.

Sometimes I'll look at the traineeships, CEEDs, and MC positions on myaiesec.net longingly. A new PBOX in Colombia is about to open that would be perfect, but I'm gonna try not to get my hopes up for that until more information is available.

Around 6pm, when I can't take cover letter writing anymore or start to get frustrated, I go further downtown where I watch cash cab and jeopardy with my friends Tom and Katie before returning to Glenn Dale for dinner, maybe a movie or reading a few chapters before bed.

Wake up. Repeat.

This crazy thing...

So I've more or less decided that I'm coming home in July (I still haven't bought a ticket yet, though...). Je ne sais pas por quoi, but for a long time (I've been mulling this over in my head for the past week) I've felt...I guess guilty for wanting to leave -- well not so much leave as wanting to return to the US. I guess I viewed it as giving into homesickness, and thus giving into a weakness for the familiar, and maybe it is a little (and that's normal), but I think it's more that I've realized that I've been enjoying and living this life that I made for myself here all along. And while I never stop learning new things here, I'm ready to leave this life behind. Akahow, c'est tout, that's all -- nothing more, nothing less.

I've been keeping a list of the various things I've learned about Tunisia, life, myself, and people in general since I came to Tunisia, kind of like a cliff notes version of my journal (which I've also been keeping). I updated it the other night and saw that it's getting pretty long, and my time here still isn't over. It has been more enriching than I could have ever expected.

Anyway, the point is that it should never be so much about the time you had, or the time you think you should have in a given place or a given situation. It's about what you do with that time and understanding that you have to learn to accept things for what they are, not for what you want them to be. Life just is. It doesn't try to be anything more than that. If you go through life waiting for it to start, you'll be waiting for a long, long time. We are what give Life it's meaning, so it's really up to us to decide what we want out of it - it's up to us to give ourselves purpose.

(Why do I always feel like these realizations are so simple and obvious after I have them?)

Here’s the day you hoped would never come
Don’t feed me violins, just run
With me through rows of speeding cars.
The paper cuts, the cheating lovers,
The coffee’s never strong enough,
I know you think it’s more than just bad luck.

There, there baby, it’s just textbook stuff.
It’s in the ABC of growing up
Now, now darling, oh don’t lose your head,
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you yeah.

"Speeding Cars" Imogen Heap

Snap back to reality

I'm done!! Finals are over, the essays have been turned in and it's official, sophomore year is over!!

Now I finally have time to organize the rest of my life, ay, what a chore. I still don't have an internship/job for the summer. I think I'm back to being complacent about it, though. For awhile I kept telling myself I had time to deal with it later, then I was pissed cause I ran out of time, and thus not much luck in finding what I want, but now I'm convincing myself that having THE internship (whatever that is) this summer will not be so bad, as long as I get some stimulating job. Besides, I'm going abroad next spring, and hopefully a traineeship after that, so I'm pretty sure those two experiences combined will make up for whatever edge I think I'm losing by not having a kick ass internship at some fancy organization this summer.

Ugh, there's just so much to do, so many choices to make, and I always feel like what I do now is critical to what happens after I graduate. I mean it is, and timing is everything, but I always think about the line from Baz Luhrman's "Wear Sunscreen" song/poem/thing about how the most interesting people didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their life... I swear, that song (let's just call it a song for all intents and purposes) lays out a lot of the guidelines I live my life by. If you haven't heard it, or haven't listened to it in a while...listen to it

Alright, whatever, I'm done rambling about my concerns about the future. I know what I have to do, I can't change what I've already done, and whatever happens, happens...it'll be okay. You know, sometimes I think I'm crazy for not worrying about things like this as much as my friends do, but I guess I just feel like I'd rather save my energy for other things, maybe it'll kick me in the ass later, but who knows?

And I leave you with part of a song: "Let Go" by Frou Frou

It gains the more it gives
and then it rises with the fall
so hand me that remote
can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow
such boundless pleasure
we've no time for later now
you can't await your own arrival
you've 20 seconds to comply

so let go, jump in
oh well, whatcha waiting for
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown
so let go, just get in
oh, it's so amazing here
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown