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aruanChecked out the bulletin boards around the J school after my tutoring stint in the writing lab this afternoon and jotted down addresses, Web sites, names and deadlines of newspapers looking for interns around the Southeast, all the while swallowing past the tightening knot of panic in my gut at the realization that after I'm done with school come this summer, my life will truly be my own.
It came very close to those forty-five minutes I spent shaking and in tears in the cabin of a 747 around three in the morning about 3/5ths of the way to France this summer. I realized in a rush that I will be six thousand miles away from any people and world I've ever known and will have to make a life for myself entirely by myself, and that there's really nothing much anyone could do to help me besides give advice probably only good an Atlantic Ocean away.
You've never heard about this because I've not yet posted my travel journal, which will be quite the simultaneously awe-inspiring and depressing chronicle of extraordinary accomplishments of seemingly mundane feats.
Until that moment, I was somehow thinking of going to France as a vacation - something planned and scheduled and minus the squabbling relatives. But it never was, from the moment I stepped off the plane. To be honest, it was a miracle I survived that first day, even moreso that it was without serious incident. CEA may have found me the apartment, but in all other respects, it was me. I hiked through Montmartre with two heavy bags and made sense of the utterly nonsensical surface streets. I shopped for groceries and learned when they bundled the day's croissants to be sold cheap because they were closing. I learned the subway routes and bought train tickets in French and made sense of schedules at two o'clock in the morning. I got to know the neighborhoods and districts and where to get everything from English books to the best forearm-length hot dogs covered in cheese.
And a thousand other things, and while a lot of it was wonderful, there were nights I all but cried myself to sleep from the immensity of it. I lived in Paris for over a month by my wits alone, not as a tourist but as a resident, and it was the most daunting, exciting, frustrating, impressive, humiliating, exhilarating thing I've ever done. I didn't climb Everest or traverse the jungles of the Congo, but in a lot of ways, my time in Paris is a story of survival. And honestly, if I made it there, you'd think a little graduation and finally merging into the general populace would be somewhat underwhelming in comparison.
And yet.
It's very likely that I won't end up back in South Florida after graduation. I know I won't be staying in Gainesville. Even if it's only Orlando or Tampa, I'm going to have to relocate, probably without what few people I've managed to hang on to since high school or met in college. And wherever it is, it shouldn't be as daunting as having an ocean between me and the world as I know it was, and this time I can mentally prepare, but any less scary it is not. I will truly be on my own and having to make my way through a world no amount of school could properly prepare you for - the real one.
Finished Tourist Season. Someone patch my broken heart and make me not rage against the decimation of our fair state in the name of yuppie tourists.
I have things I should be doing, laundry and cooking and reading for classes. Instead, I'm sitting on my bed huddled over Photoshop and the angstfest of music that was 80s power balladry. It's one of those days.
It came very close to those forty-five minutes I spent shaking and in tears in the cabin of a 747 around three in the morning about 3/5ths of the way to France this summer. I realized in a rush that I will be six thousand miles away from any people and world I've ever known and will have to make a life for myself entirely by myself, and that there's really nothing much anyone could do to help me besides give advice probably only good an Atlantic Ocean away.
You've never heard about this because I've not yet posted my travel journal, which will be quite the simultaneously awe-inspiring and depressing chronicle of extraordinary accomplishments of seemingly mundane feats.
Until that moment, I was somehow thinking of going to France as a vacation - something planned and scheduled and minus the squabbling relatives. But it never was, from the moment I stepped off the plane. To be honest, it was a miracle I survived that first day, even moreso that it was without serious incident. CEA may have found me the apartment, but in all other respects, it was me. I hiked through Montmartre with two heavy bags and made sense of the utterly nonsensical surface streets. I shopped for groceries and learned when they bundled the day's croissants to be sold cheap because they were closing. I learned the subway routes and bought train tickets in French and made sense of schedules at two o'clock in the morning. I got to know the neighborhoods and districts and where to get everything from English books to the best forearm-length hot dogs covered in cheese.
And a thousand other things, and while a lot of it was wonderful, there were nights I all but cried myself to sleep from the immensity of it. I lived in Paris for over a month by my wits alone, not as a tourist but as a resident, and it was the most daunting, exciting, frustrating, impressive, humiliating, exhilarating thing I've ever done. I didn't climb Everest or traverse the jungles of the Congo, but in a lot of ways, my time in Paris is a story of survival. And honestly, if I made it there, you'd think a little graduation and finally merging into the general populace would be somewhat underwhelming in comparison.
And yet.
It's very likely that I won't end up back in South Florida after graduation. I know I won't be staying in Gainesville. Even if it's only Orlando or Tampa, I'm going to have to relocate, probably without what few people I've managed to hang on to since high school or met in college. And wherever it is, it shouldn't be as daunting as having an ocean between me and the world as I know it was, and this time I can mentally prepare, but any less scary it is not. I will truly be on my own and having to make my way through a world no amount of school could properly prepare you for - the real one.
Finished Tourist Season. Someone patch my broken heart and make me not rage against the decimation of our fair state in the name of yuppie tourists.
I have things I should be doing, laundry and cooking and reading for classes. Instead, I'm sitting on my bed huddled over Photoshop and the angstfest of music that was 80s power balladry. It's one of those days.
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no subject
Date: September 14th, 2004 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: September 14th, 2004 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: September 14th, 2004 02:38 pm (UTC)LA has loads of newspapers, as well as numerous other Major Selling Points. I'm just sayin'.
no subject
Date: September 14th, 2004 02:43 pm (UTC)You sound like you're winding up. Sure you didn't miss your calling as a recruiter for the dark side? ;)
As well as insanely high cost of living, awful traffic and pollution, the occasional earthquake, etc. Though, come to think of it, I realize I don't much know anything about LA besides Studio City and Sunset Boulevard. But you'd still recommend it in spite of everything?
no subject
Date: September 14th, 2004 03:04 pm (UTC)Awful traffic: Also true, to a large extent. Though, as with so many things, it's mostly a question of learning how to work the system. Sure, working the system sometimes means You can't get there from here at rush hour, but more often it means Take this route, not that one. And (almost) always, always stay off the 405 unless it's absolutely necessary.
And pollution: It's not as bad as it used to be. No, seriously. And air quality varies depending on where in LA you live. I'm not going to claim the environment here is pristine--far from it--but I enjoy doing stuff outdoors and I don't feel like I need a gas mask.
The occasional earthquake: Absolutely. Living anywhere has its risks. I'll take earthquakes over hurricanes (or tornadoes, blizzards, etc.) any day of the week. Sure, they sometimes kill people. But I've lived in earthquake country virtually all my life, and I've never been more than minorly inconvenienced by a quake. I'd say you've had it worse in the past three weeks than I have in well over three decades.
I'd still recommend it: Not to everyone. Hell, I hated LA for a good 20 years. Ran it down every chance I got. Then I moved back "for six months" and the rest is history. I don't know that I'll be here the rest of my life--who knows what the future will bring?--but I don't know that I won't be, either. I absolutely love my neighborhood, I have great friends here, and the entertainment opportunities are, I think, second only to New York... and not necessarily even that, depending on what it is you're looking for. You certainly never need be bored in LA, that's for sure.
Plus, y'know, boys throwing tennis balls for their puppies. Priceless.
no subject
Date: September 16th, 2004 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: September 14th, 2004 07:54 pm (UTC)We'll both be recent grads with unimpressive paychecks, but it'll be enough to get something small with a bit of careful research. Even better if we can find one or two others, of course, but definitely doable regardless. And I've done enough apartment scouting around the west LA area to have gotten pretty good at it :-) Because hell if I'm moving back home if I can help it. Just sayin'. *g*
PS. That moment of deep down terror/realization/endless possibility when you're stranded in the middle of nowhere with nobody to help you and only your own self, which you don't quite know yet, to reach for? Like, yeah. We must reconvene on the subject at a later time over drinks.
no subject
Date: September 16th, 2004 04:38 am (UTC)Re: PS. Definitely.