Sitting in my apartment with just my computer for company has led to a much more social day than I could have imagined. And amidst the hours and hours of IMing (and with the help of the almighty Advil tablet), the fever is gone and the appetite is back. Somehow, strangely, I had forgotten about IM. Now I am plugged in again and have talked to Joanne, Amy, Melody, Eric, and for the entire afternoon, Charlie.
As always when I talk to Charlie, it feels like a long walk on a beautiful spring day. I leave invigorated somehow, with refreshed memories of the way it used to be, who I used to be, love triangles that used to be, and fresh new thoughts about what life might become. Isn't it great to have friends who can overlook your awful typing (I am a really, truly awful typist), understand your cryptic comments like "what's my thingie? t-online.de?", ask probing questions, understand your sense humor and dish it out too, and listen patiently while you sort through issues old and new and eventually come to an insight? Anyway, thanks, Charlie, for another of those conversations that made up quite a few of the greatest of the great times in college. :-)
So: the a-ha moment in question. You all know I have been thinking about (OK, struggling mightily with) what to do next, or at all, in the grander scheme of things. I have this ethical deal about living up to my potential--that's been ground into me directly and indirectly by numerous teachers and mentors. For me it's also a faith issue--I believe I have been given certain gifts and that I should use then to the best of my abilities. But I resist the whole academic route on many levels. I am starting to realize... maybe it is just not for me. Maybe I'm called elsewhere. Or maybe I am simply scared and running away. Am I scared of being too dumb to live up to all of the expectations that are placed on me, or of getting into a PhD program but then finding that I have nothing to say? Or am I scared of being *smart*?
So originally I posted a chunk of our IM conversation here, but now I don't want to anymore, because I just don't want to make my intellectual potential (and whether I am living up to it) a huge-er issue than it already is for me right now. Suffice it to say, our conversation helped me to sort some things out, and find at least one conclusion which I think is true for me (even if there are other smaller truths lurking around too): I have been irreversibly shaped by all the institutions that I have attended. I know that my emphases on service learning and on intercultural communications and my liberal bent come not only from inside me, but from my surroundings. And I don't want to pick an institution that will bend me in a direction I don't want to go. For example, the direction of evaluating myself only on my academic ability. I am more than just a good report card or a degree from a prestigious university! (I feel like I have been shouting this at the top of my lungs since kindergarten... but on the other hand, if I all of the sudden started doing badly at things that I take for granted that I am good at, that would destroy my image of myself. I am confused!) Thanks, Charlie, for helping me wade through my confusion to get to a place of relative peace. :-)
Note: The "Lurking" post will return later; let's let this one enjoy top billing for a while.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Watershed
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2 comments:
Hooray, unsolicited but very sound advice from a career counselor!! Thanks! I would probably have gotten around to asking you directly, but my uncle is a podiatrist and he says he gets sick of his friends always talking about their feet. You know? :-)
So... about my feet... I think you have looked into my soul or something. You just asked ALL of the right questions. Man, you are good at what you do!
Yes, I want to be on a college campus. I want the energy of college life, the community feeling, the buzz that the air gets when people are constantly asking and searching and pondering, and perhaps most of all I want the academic calendar! :-) Your list of campus possibilities included at least a couple that would make my top-10 dream jobs list (director of service learning and campus ministry). Director of study-abroad programs or international students would be super-cool too.
Yeah, a long-distance marriage is not exactly on my 10-year plan, either.
Another consideration...I don't want to overqualify myself for what I actually want to do (which I am still finding out...). And just because I could get IN to a PhD program does NOT mean that I should!! Most emphatically not.
This is NOT (right now anyway) the thing that I must do.
I think MLS is not for me... but part-time, that I can definitely see. Or perpetual. Or sort of a nonchalant little PhD-fling... (an affair with linguistics, for example), now that would be fun.
And the last thing you said: "you don't have to decide today what you want to do forever. just decide what you want to do for the next 3 years." This is like candy to me. Sweet caviar (or nasty, salty caviar, depending on your tastes). This is what I have been wanting a professional career counselor to say to me since forever! Because 3 years down the road is about as far as I can see clearly right now.
Thanks a million for your chattiness. :-)
I always dreamt of becoming a professional stage designer - which requires a university degree, so it's not "one of those artsy jobs", to use Jessica's vocabulary. But I know I won't have the guts to do it and I will end up as an MD or law person instead. Sad. Sad? I mean, is your job everything? As a student, I have to answer no. Guess what? I am probably wrong.
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