JET-Set

The word “wanderlust” has been popping up a lot in my life recently. This tends to happen with certain words; they suddenly emerge before me, and I start noticing them a lot more. The term “fop” was featured on the SATs, in the analogy section, and I had never seen this three-letter-menace before in my existence. I thought the test-makers invented a word to make me feel super stupid. But, shortly after I bombed that test, I ran across “fop” in books and websites and even in everyday conversation with people who never uttered that word before. I felt especially dumb by this point.

I’m not sure where “wanderlust” originated in my current incarnation of life. Might have been in a Facebook status. Might have been in a blog entry. Might have been the Bjork song. Whatever the source, I keep noticing the word “wanderlust” all around me. Someone says it on TV, or it appears on the jacket of a book I’m browsing at Borders. One band (I forget which) described their sound as “wanderlust” on MySpace. Seems like a lot of people want to go out and about at the moment.

Life’s diction seems eerily appropriate, for me at least, on first glance. I’m currently typing from home three of four in 2008, and am already picturing the places 2009 will bring. I’m not restless – I’m kinda enjoying this slight break in the action – but thoughts of travelling and seeing new sights always take up some space in my head. But most glaringly, I’m currently raging an internal debate about my most ludicrous dream yet; whether to apply for the JET Programme, unabbreviated as the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (bad English spelling intact).

It’s a simple enough idea – if accepted, I would be offered a contract to teach English in a school in some random town in Japan for a year, with an option to renew said contract for several years (though, realistically, I’d only do it two). The Japanese government pays for everything, and gives me enough money to cover living expenses. So, boxes of Pocky. Oh, not to mention I’d get to live in a country I’ve been fascinated by since my dad introduced me to Baseball on the NES when I was three.

I’ve been aware of JET for a while now, but I didn’t seriously start considering it until this year, when I became sick of my current existence and seeked out this type of stuff. JET became the ultimate goal, the big prize at the end of Northwestern, a once-in-a-lifetime experience I could try for. To some degree, it was just a tool of hope, a mechanism to help my mind out during rough stretches. But, a year and a cleared mind later, I still think frequently about JET. Even more than I used to, in fact.

The application process begins in September, and it’s quite the convuluted beast. Realistically, I’ve resigned myself to just flat-out rejection, just because that’s the easiest mindset to take regarding these types of matters. Then again, I adopted the same outlook regarding getting into Northwestern or studying abroad, and those endeavors turned out OK. Maybe I’m just trying to psyche myself out. Regardless of my inner game of Battleship, the process begins soon and I need to get my act together if I want to give this a shot.

But am I doing this for the right reason? Is this really a good idea?

Part of me thinks I’m just fighting a hopeless battle, a salmon dueling a bear, by trying to avoid the “real world” for an additional two years. And, to some degree, it clearly is. I wouldn’t see anything particularly wrong about this, if it weren’t for the mounting debt, good of my career and fact I just devoted four years of my life to learning skills I would then ignore for two years of my life. It’s like hiring a prostitute to take your virginity, and right before the big moment telling her you’d rather find true love first.

Using my Northwestern trained mind, I should know this isn’t the logical move to take. But then again, my other illogical pursuits have paid off pretty well so far. So I don’t jump into a job right after college. So what?

That worry goes down a bit easier at the moment since I’m (surprise surprise) absolutely confounded about my future career. And it’s mutated – I used to freak out about what I wanted to do. Now I’m flipping out about what I’m doing. I honestly don’t even know if journalism – at least the ballyhooed version I always see – is what I want to do anymore. It used to just freak me out – now, I look at certain aspects of it and actually cringe, no longer worrying about how I’ll find a way into it, but rather why I’d even want to do this at all.

So yeah, two years teaching children English in another country with everything paid for may not be a bad buffer.

But JET wouldn’t be a way to avoid the “real world,” regardless of how hard I try to convince myself it would be. It’s a legitimate dream, a way to achieve a life goal and improve myself in myriad ways. Europe offerred a taste of how awesome seeing the world could be, and any chance to see something new should be embraced. Most importantly, it’s no longer an escape, as I sort of viewed it last year. It’s the actual goal, something I want to do for myself. I would be looking forward, not looking away. If I got the chance to do this (the “if” being huge, otherwise shitty job here I come), I’d be more than overjoyed.

And maybe I can finally learn a language! It would make dropping Swahili feel a whole lot less shameful.

So, even though I’ll weigh the pros and cons of JET in my head for the next two months, I know I’m going to give it a shot. Because why even bother having dreams if you don’t even try making them become a reality? Especially when the road to said dream is as easy as filling out paperwork?

And maybe I can find a new word to stalk me around. I’m getting a little bored with “wanderlust,” to be quite honest. A bit too desparate for me.

I Still Write Pretentious Reviews: My First In ‘N’ Out Burger In About Six Months

As I jumped from plane to plane, terminal to terminal today on my way back to America, I couldn’t help but notice how fat most Americans seemed to be. The English couldn’t, as the fifth-graders I once tutored so eloquently states, “hula-hoop with a Cheerio,” but a lot of Americans I saw in various airports today couldn’t hula-hoop with an airplane wheel. I’d forgotten how chubby our populace could be – the Topman shops sold an extra small sized shirt, an option that made relatively thing me feel self-concious. Compared to most of Europe, we are a rolly-polly place.

And then I ordered a double cheeseburger dripping with sauce and onions from famed Southern California burger juggernaut In ‘N’ Out, and bit into the meaty creation and then chased it down with french fries (not chips). I could feel my stomach tense up.

God bless America and all its fatty food. I had forgotten how incredible it could be. If being spherical is a crime, give me death.

My Final, Rambling Thoughts On My Summer

Contrary to popular belief, you can run away from your problems with few ill effects. Now, whether said problems still linger once you return, that’s a discussion for another day. But I can vouch for the first statement being true – there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting away for a while in order to set your mind right.

That’s exactly what this trip to England was for.

I applied for the International Summer School at Sussex out of desperation for change. Jumping into the application process was one of the most spur-of-the-moment risks I’ve ever taken, a move nowhere in my mind at the start of the year but now one I couldn’t be happier about. I had resigned myself to not studying abroad during my college career. But then…I needed to get away for a bit.

I try not to think back much on the past year – I felt pretty low for most of it – so I feel no need to revisit the myriad issues that piled on me. I’ll leave that where it belongs. But this summer program became my one hope, the thing I turned to when I felt especially down to bolster my spirits. I honestly thought I had no chance of being accepted, that something would go wrong and I’d be stuck in Evanston over the summer. Somehow, it didn’t – I got in, and everything seemed a little brighter.

The wait could be a bit excruciating. Some days, I forgot about the summer completely, too bogged down by the present to really get excited for much. But I got by. I buried myself in work to pass the time (strangely enough, my fondest memories of junior year come from nights spent working in McTrib until 4 or later). And it passed, slowly but surely.

I finally got to England. And…well, there are 88 other entries that should offer some insigt into how my time across the Atlantic has been. If you are too lazy, though, I’ll sum it up; oh-so-great.

I’m leaving England Saturday morning, going into transit once again as I fly back over the ocean (and pray for a better movie, I still can’t get over the wretchedness of 27 Dresses) then spend a few hours in Cleveland’s airport before finally arriving back in California. I don’t really want to leave, as there is so many more cities and sights to observe, but everyone in my dorm goes on and on saying the same thing. It’s like the whole building caught the flu, but we’re puking up melancholy. I’ll get better soon enough.

I didn’t come to England on some grand transformation mission. I’m boarding my Continental flight tomorrow the same person who came to England back in June. No revelations or shake-ups or bodily scars. Just some new CDs and an (hopefully) improved British accent.

I did learn some valuable lessons worthy of at least a mediocre after-school special. England may not differ incredibly from America, but living in even a slightly changed culture (vinegar? on fries? I never!) offers new ways to view the world. Being in Brighton has made me come to appreciate a lot of American fixtures I once ignored (passive seagulls, Taco Bell, bathrooms that don’t cost money to get into) while exposing me to all sorts of customs and actions I’ve never seen before, or even seen parodied on The Simpson’s. Not to mention the even more radical shift in life I witnessed in Paris and Rome.

I even reaped some good lessons from my fellow American students. Being surrounded by engineering students from California offerred an interesting chance to put my student life in a new perspective. Unlike the openly competitive and intense journalism majors I know, most engineers operate in a more sneaky, low-key way to better one another. They don’t gloat about anything, they keep victories a secret. Strange. But, at the same time, they don’t take academic life too seriously. I didn’t hear any murmurs about “internships” or “class selections” or even “the future.” The people here lived calmly in the moment, breezing through classes and fitting in as many booze-filled nights on the town as possible. It was like attending a stereotypical “state school,” not like the Old School approximation of Northwestern. Everyone told me their schools back home were nothing like this, so maybe they also saw England as a fit place to go wild. Regardless, I just appreciated an atmosphere where I wasn’t freaking out every other hour of the day.

I could rattle on-and-on about the summer, about the sights and the people and the rocky beaches. All those sentences, though, reach the same conclusion; I had a blast, and learned a lot about the world around me and the people in it, and how I want to see more of Earth. Why waste the space? And more minutes I could be sleeping?

But, above all else, my time in England offerred one reward greater than all the others. Back in Evanston over the past six months, I doubted myself and revisited every painful incident in my recent memory, dissecting it in an effort to find the reasons they seemed to go wrong. In Brighton, I’ve become calm again, confident in who I am and what I do. Call it time marching on, but I don’t think about the past (and all the miscues litterring it) anymore, and when those thoughts do creep in, I know how to deal with them. Just being somewhere far away from the places that once terrified me has helped me mellow out, and helped me gain control over the things that once irked me out of my mind.

Over the past year, I’ve traveled a lot. I’ve seen more states and cities in the past 12 months than I did in my entire life up to that point. I drove through the Southwest, flew into New York City and explored various pockets of the Midwest. All those times, though, felt like I was searching for something, some sort of On The Road like awakening that would help me make sense of my life. I never found anything. It was only when I stopped looking and got away, though, did I find anything.

If I never write another heavy-handed sentence in here again (which, I assure you, I won’t stop doing), I’d sum up my English summer like this; for the first time in years, I’m genuinely happy to stare down the unknown, and am just genuinely happy all-around.

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With Brighton in the books, this journal enters a sort of transitionary stage. For the next two-and-a-half weeks, I’ll be back in California, in the barren but sorta-charming desert of Acton. During this time, I will attempt to readjust to life in America. This is the calm before the storm that will be my trip to Florida and my first brushes with one of my fiercest foes, a journalistic career.

The journal now gets a redesign for the occassion. Thank you for reading so far.

I Still Write Pretentious Reviews: Foam Parties

Pros: Dancing into a massive crowd as a foam machine spits out enough bubbly soap to roughly cover the country of Luxemburg is surprisingly fun, and does take a little bit of courage. Good drink deals. Scantily clad people.

Cons: Almost choking to death on said bubbly soap. Having strangers rubs foam in your hair because they think that’s what one should do at the moment. Realizing that you are submerged in what amounts to a giant bath shared by 200 people who are sweating a lot. Realizing your clothes are so damp you might as well just played on a slip-n-slide fully clothed for several hours. Realizing the majority of scantily clad people are actually men just covered in foam.

Verdict: I want to cut my skin off to feel clean again.

Officially Done

I just handed in my final paper for Sussex about 20 minutes ago.  And, after filling out the required forms and dropping my two copies of my essay into a mysterious box, became officially finished with classes this summer.  A bit anti-climatic, considering I finished this history paper in the middle of the day yesterday, but no stress is probably a good thing.

It’s tough summing up my academic experience this summer, since each class only lasted four weeks and featured such grueling homework as “listen to The Hold Steady” or “watch this Michael Cain film.”  But, overall, these were great classes.  The laid-back attitude of the professors certainly helped, but the real surprise was how much I actually enjoyed the material (a very rare happening). For once, I don’t think I would mind spending another four weeks learning even more about the two subjects I studied this summer. I didn’t say that after Diversity of Life, I can guarantee you that.

I now don’t have any sort of academic class until 2009, which is a bizarre feeling. If I were a hackey idiot, I would write “but the Sun-Sentinel will be a class…on life,” but I have some shreds of dignity/intelligence, and realize it’s not a class, but a job where I will basically be a free labourer for a newspaper. Regardless, no class until next year. I basically go on summer vacation now. In Florida, nonetheless.

With classes out of the way, the last two days will consist of buying gifts/eating food/saying goodbyes. I’ve already had to say farewell to one close friend today, and it wasn’t that bad, but still tinged with plenty of melancholy. The painful part comes when I realize I may never actually see this person again. It’s strange, getting so close to someone over the last eight weeks only to have all those good times reduced to pleasant memories.

But, as I’ve learned so much over the last few years, it’s completely pointless to dwell on the “why” part. It’s how it is, somethings can’t really be fought. And, on an optimistic note, maybe I’m completely wrong. I felt the same way back in 2004, after a summer program at Northwestern ended, fearful I’d never see the people closest to me again. Yet, today, I fair amount of people from that program are among the most important people in my life. Life moves strangely, and sometimes it surprises you.

Like, how I have no class until 2009. Didn’t see that coming!

A Few Random British Memories Or Yep, Not Writing My Paper Right Now

A few quick thoughts about England I have yet to write about but, now that I have a 2500 word paper on the Suez Crisis due tomorrow, will now be recorded.

- My two favorite English rip-offs of American establishments: RFC (some sort of chicken place using the exact same font and colors as KFC) and Shooters (a red-white-and-blue Hooters knock-off).

- In America, most people say I look like Superbad and super awkward celebrity Michael Cera. Cool, I’ve always appreciated that. The English, though, take it up a notch and say I look like tennis player Andy Murray. And…they are right. Except for the whole “athletic” part.

- I finally went to an English flat this week. Very nice, slightly bigger than most American apartments I’ve been in. But still tiny enough where a bean bag chair stood out as the best seat in the house.

- The local paper here recently featured, as their headline story, an article about a bunch of puppies needing new homes. The story came packaged with a huge picture of said puppies sitting in a basket, looking adorable. This was the only picture on the front page of the paper. I believe in journalism again.

- The BBC seems to only show the equastrian events of the Olympics. OK, cool.

- Oh, my free burger coupon I’ve been keeping on my desk has vanished. Sigh, guess I’ll pay for that pesto burger afterall.

- Mars bars in England taste so much more delicious than the Milky Way bars back in America. Going to miss those.

- Is it wrong Wall-E has completely made me lose interest in every other movie out in theaters?

- It’s bad enough I have no idea how to use up my remaining pounds, but how the heck do I get rid of the Euros I have left from Italy?

You Have Got To Be Kidding Me

I don’t care if it “can’t be sustained,” this shouldn’t be happening right when I’m about to leave!

Props to fellow cute animal enthusiasit Megan for posting this and making me all angry at the Pound, once again.

I Still Write Pretentious Reviews: Chips

OK, I understand being enchanted by the allures of a foreign country and proclaiming how “country X has better item Y than the United States!” It’s really exciting to see and experience a different culture’s take on stuff, especially for the first time. This explains why so many Americans at Sussex procalim Topman the best thing under the sun though it’s basically the GAP, and how amazing Sainsburys is though it’s just a typical grocery store.

But, honestly American kids in England, you can’t possibly find the taste of “chips” better than the American versions (the “fry”). At first glance, the chip looks pretty similar to the fry, a little thicker but nothing too drastic. You could almost be forgiven for thinking the British version of this potato treat isn’t different from it’s American spud counterpart.

Almost.

Touch the chips, and everything becomes clear. British chips aren’t firm and tough like the fry, but rather soggy and squishy. Throw some chips into your mouth and bite down – what do you get? Well, you certainly don’t get any wonderful crunchiness, like in the good ol’ U.S.A. You get what amounts to wrapping mashed potatos in very wet potato skin.

But every time Americans go out for a night on the town and the urge for food kicks in after one-too-many pints, everyones clamoring for “chips.”

Even the British recognize how uninteresting chips are. I have yet to witness a British person eating chips without first dousing them in vinegar. Like, drown the poor potatos in vinegar. Sometimes, it looks like they are just eating handfuls of lumpy vinegar. The last time I used vinegar was to dye Easter eggs with fifth graders. I’m not coating my “chips” in something that turns eggs blue.

No doubt in my mind, chips are the most overrated part of the British experience. They are poorly done, too small potato wedges. The British practically drink vinegar to get them down. Sure, any food at 3 a.m. sounds delicious, but why settle for this lame vegetable when Pizza King, home to the equally-stupid-but-probably-tastes-better apple and bannana pizza, waits only five steps away. Plus, you get a free pizza with every order!

You know what’s underrated? British bacon. Though still completely different than the U.S. version (not crispy at all, comes in a much larger serving instead of small pieces), the English know how to use it. I love the breakfast sandwiches here, because they are just slabs of bacon between various types of bread. Bacon baguettes. Bacon bagels. Bacon “crumpets” (English muffins). And they are all delicious. And you don’t need to slop anything on it to make it better.

But chips? Forget chips, they make Burger King fries taste like Wolfgang Puck prepared them.

Lovely Day/A Message

After the last two slightly downtrodden days (see last two entries), I decided to take today easy and have a day to myself in Brighton. I took this commitment to heart, as I set an alarm for an ungodly hour of the day – 9 a.m. But I woke up, slipped on my clothes and staked out the 25 bus to downtown Brighton, carrying only my wallet and my iPod set to Panda Bear.

Once you get used to a place, you start to forget just how cool your home can actually be. After so many trips into Brighton, the seaside city’s charms seemingly vanished, the town going from a gorgeous mystery to a place where I could get chips at 3 in the morning. Today I was reminded of Brighton’s greatness, one narrow street at a time.

I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. I walked around, sticking mostly to the streets I’ve become most familiar with. I ate a small lunch. I bought a Diet Coke from a grocery store. I went to a couple of music stores, but resisted buying anything (that can wait for another day). I walked around some more. I bought some cookies. And I caught the 25 bus back to Sussex, the top tier of the thing all to myself.

It was peaceful, roaming the compact alleyways concealing all sorts of shops and the wide-open streets parallel to the beachfront, just me. Brighton is a truly picture-esque city, ripped right out of a summer travel brochure. Even on a cloudy day like today, the sun peeked out of the grey sky on many occassions, adding a nice dash of light to a place that seems perpetually caught in summer even on a soupy Monday. I erased the shivers of the last few days by basking in Brighton, appreciating a truly lovely city all by myself.

I’m going to miss the place. I’m going to miss the colorful clusters of houses bunched together. I’m going to miss the neon-light covered pier jutting out over the ocean. I’m going to miss the CD stores, selling so many rare DJ sets I only wish I could own. I’m going to miss the tiny streets where oncoming traffic could potentially spill out onto the sidewalk. I’m going to miss the clubs, always playing The Smiths “This Charming Man” regardless of the theme for the night. I’m going to miss the “South Carolina is so gay” ads I’ve seen all over town, and their ability to send me into a laughing fit every single time I see them.

At least I have this week.

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One of my constant gripes popping up in this thing is my irrational “fear of the future.” It seems that every slightly-downtrodden entry that gets published on this lovely WordPress blog stems from me not knowing what to do with my life or reading an article on the Internet about how journalism is “dead,” a phenomenon more prevalent and annoying than even lolcats. A stranger reading this might picture me as a paranoid kid locked up in a basement somewhere, stocking up on canned food and vowing not to go outside in case mean-old Mr. Future is outside with his big Club of Responsibility.

All panic aside, I really don’t have that much to freak out about – sure, I have no idea what I want to do with specifically with my life outside of “writing,” but I’m not nearly in as horrible condition as I sometimes think I am. I’ve had two really good newspaper internships already, and a third, even better one lined up for the fall. I go to the top journalism school in the country and haven’t been thrown into Lake Michigan yet for a cringe-worthy GPA yet. I’ve won journalism awards for sports reporting, of all things (though I don’t know how much prestige they count for, but this is my celebration paragraph, damn it). Freaking Google sent me an e-mail telling me to apply for a job opening all because I wrote a blog post about how GChat was better than Facebook Chat. I mean…what the heck? I’m not the “top young journalist in the country,” but I’m not “reject on sight” by a longshot.

So, when I actually think about it, I shouldn’t freak out about that aspect of my future. But even then, one of the biggest questions I pose to myself way to often is…”was studying abroad a good choice, or should I have gotten an internship somewhere?”

Going to the previously-bragged-about “top journalism school in the country” brings with it not just dashed-hopes for a high GPA, but also an extremely competitive atmosphere. Most people recognize this, and try to operate outside of it, bragging about non-journalism endeavors and labelling the less shameful members of the school community “tools.” I do this. Thing is, we are all “tools” in some kind of way – we chose to go to a school devoted to journalism being exhibit A – and that competitive atmosphere we try to dodge just gets displayed in more subtle ways. This explains why rival campus publications at Northwestern take each other super seriously, when in fact they are just college publications filled with students who all ultimately just want to get through classes as easily as possible and have fun on the weekend. I’m guilty of taking the campus media landscape a bit too seriously, and I’m not alone.

Internships, though, are the peak of Mount Journalism. Everybody talks about them: where they are applying, where they landed an interview, where other people are going, where they would eventually like to go when they escape from the shitty local paper they intern in at now. The career counseling people extol the wonders of the internship – have horrid grades? But great experience? You’re all good! The more edgy ones – the young ones with crazier hair and more “hip” glasses – tell you not even to worry about classes, employers focus the most weight on internships. Thanks for telling me this before I made out the tuition check.

I’ve enjoyed my last two internships, and without them I would never have become a better reporter or, more importantly, discovered the greatness of Deadspin. I tried landing one for this summer, but nobody ever got back to me. Ouch. While watching all my friends land awesome internships and, using my faulty reasoning, I decided my journalism career was doomed. I looked into deep sea diving.

Three months across the Atlantic and absolutely no time spent in a newspaper office later, I have an answer to that question I posed before all those wordy paragraphs above.

Oh dear god, it was an amazing choice.

Internships are great. Internships are important, everyone should do one or two. And internships can be experiences in themselves.

But everyone should spend a quarter of their college lives in somewhere alien, preferably as far removed from journalism as possible (I’m looking at you, China). And those who didn’t do it in college – they should find some time too.

Studying abroad for the summer didn’t change my life. I’m still the same old person, I just own a few British t-shirts now. But I didn’t need an ephiany – I just needed time away and a new perspective. And that’s what England has given me. I’ve seen parts of the world once only viewable through the Travel Channel, and actually experienced cultures different from my own. I’m not new, but I’m different – in a good way, I think.

I urge everyone to find some time, whether it be during there college career or after they recieve that $40,000 diploma, to just get out. I’ve seen a lot of people mulling over whether they should apply for a study abroad program. Some of them take the leap. A lot of them don’t. Don’t even think about it – if you have even the slightest desire to get away from life as you know it, do it. Fill out the paperwork, take the required classes, get the necessary shots so you don’t develop a third arm after drinking the water. Do it, don’t even think about it. Rob banks if necessary.

You don’t even have to miss any of the school year to explore the world – study over the summer if the thought of no Wildcat football and Free Chipotle Day makes you tear up. You’ll get to rack up credits and experience amazing weather. England’s (usually) perfect summer weather, not cold but also not skin-melting hot. Italy and Greece boast warmer climates and tons of history. A friend of mine just got back from Spain, and spent an hour telling me how incredible and incredibly warm Madrid was. Did I mention you get credit for this?

Going somewhere foreign, even for three months, can seem scary and also quite detrimental to your career (especially if you choose Paris over The Plain Dealer), but don’t look at it that way. Internships are important and full of valuable learning experiences, yes, but remember that as a reporter you aren’t covering the inner workings of an office building. You are covering the world. And the more you see of it and the more you understand the people inhabiting every corner of it, the better a jouranlist you’ll become. A reporter writes about what they see and hear, and you aren’t going to witness anything interesting if you are cooped up behind a desk everyday.

The most valuable lesson I’ve learned from this experience is to not be afraid about following any ridiculous idea that pops into your head. Studying abroad at Sussex was a really fast response to my situation at the start of the year. And I’m so glad I followed that inner-panging to get out. Don’t think, just do. OK, think a smidgen, but only about how to make these thoughts reality, not whether you should do them or not. I know people who have lived on cruise ships and gone to China knowing little of the language and hiked the freaking Appalachian Trail. Follow these examples, don’t be detered by anything. Even folks who chose not to do anything of this nature during college – contrary to popular belief, life doesn’t end after college. You can still do the crazy things you want, so all those ideas you shelved in favor of more classes and internships can still come to fruition. Besides, your first job is going to suck anyway, might as well have good memories of somewhere else in the world while your slaving through it.

Go somewhere foreign to you – for three weeks, for three months, for three years. Today, while wandering around aimlessly through the streets of Brighotn, I realized how truly ridiculous and amazing my situation is – I am living in England! And I’m enjoying life! Don’t worry about the small details between you and your ridiculous dreams.

And pray that Google still has that job open a year from now, I’m going to need it.

(If you actually made it to the end of that long and preachy entry, you will now be awarded with CUTE ANIMAL VIDEOS.)

Of Packing And Responsibility

I’ve started packing for my return trip to the United States. I hate putting off packing my luggage until the night before, so I try to gradually fill up my bags over the course of a week instead. So far, I’ve only tossed a few t-shirts and socks into my bag, becasue I’m absolutely terrified about how I’m going to fit everything I have here into two green suitcases. I’ve resigned myself to paying the overweight bag fee, as I see no way I can make my bags weigh less than 50 pounds with all the books and assorted knick-knacks I have. The amount of two pence coins on my desk alone might put me over the limit.

As expected, I experience twinges of melencholy while packing smaller things into slightly bigger things. I remember being so excited and happy to be folding my shirts and placing them into the bags back in June. I don’t get nearly the same thrill now, throwing my crumpled clothes into those same bags. Contrary to how it sometimes sounds, I don’t want to go back to America. Not yet anyway. Packing just reminds me I only have a week of vinegar-doused chips and way outs and efficient public transportation left. The thought that, yes, when I do finally step foot back on American soil my money won’t be worth roughly the same value as Skittles helps a little, but even a greater appreciation for the horrid, horrid U.S. dollar can’t drive away the going-away blues.

Part of me doesn’t want to board that plane bound for Cleveland and a three hour layover because all my problems seem to be based in America. The only times I’ve felt significantly down at Sussex (and those instances happened rarely, I’m happy to say) stemmed from stuff happening back in the United States. The only significant problems England hurled at me were stupidly high prices and vicious seagulls with a taste for strawberry cereal bars I happened to be holding in my hand. Every other hurdle came made in the U.S.A.

One of those problems, the particularly morbid muse for today’s rumination, seemingly spiralled a bit out of control this weekend. My sublet situation went ugly a while ago, but became a bit more urgent this weekend. To avoid needless exposition, I’ll avoid the heavy background – this fake subletter ended up inflicting massive damage to one person’s bank account, and we haven’t paid rent in two months as a result. All of this sort of reached a critical level this weekend, and I got bowled over by it.

I’m not worried about the financial aspect of this – even though I just paid roughly $8 for a packet of cookies and milk. That will all eventually be figured off, and at the worst I’ll just need to work a few extra hours at my work study job in 2009. What gets to me is the responsible aspect of it. More specifically, my apparrent lack of responsibility.

A lot of these tribulations could have been avoided if I’d been more on top of the entire process, and now I need to cough up a lot of cash and deal with all sorts of paperwork. I always thought I was mildly responsible, no master at it, but good enough to not cause any disasters outside of leaving tinfoil in the microwave. Yet this whole incident has shaken me, and made me feel I lot less confident in my ability to maintain anything. I tie “responsibility” with the idea of entering the real of grown-ups – an idea that tends to leave me feeling like I’ve seen my own ghost. I really want to be good at life after college, but always fear I’m going to fail spectacularly at it, jobless and alone. I don’t want to end up like a Judd Apatow film. But stuff like this subletter business shows I may not be all that good at this responsibility stuff yet.

That makes the thought of leaving England even harder. I’m basically on a vacation where I spend a few hours listening to a guy talk about British colonization of Africa and it rains a little more than it should in a holiday location. I have zero major responsibilities here outside of “don’t die” and “don’t cause an international incident.” I can’t run from the inevitable, but who wouldn’t prefer endless vacation to the tedium of everyday life? That idea in itself is beyond immature, but one that’s tough to ignore when I’m actually living it at the moment.

But as much as the idea of being a homeless man in Brighton intrigues me, going home to where the weather is constantly warm and the responsibility is plentiful is probably the best thing. As much as I would love to roam around Europe living off my plethora of two pence coins, being forced to condition my responsibility skills is for the best. And I know they will get a good workout, since I’m being thrown into the “real world” for three months in Fort Lauderdale. At least I’m excited about that particular bout with responsibility.

So while I may not be thrilled at the prospect of beginning my packing with a whole week to go, it’s just something I have to face and accept. But I sure as hell am not packing these two-pence coins.