the end. May 26, 2009

i catch a train to brussels in 4 hours to go home. it’s finally hitting me that i’m leaving, and part of me wishes i hadn’t changed my ticket. but i know it’s for the best – i have a lot to accomplish in my very short 2 month summer. and in the end, leaving 3 weeks early doesn’t really make that much difference.

i keep trying to write some profound summation of the last 10 months, but i don’t think i can write it yet. i’ve spent almost my entire life dreaming about france, and i can’t say that i was disappointed. yes, there are things i don’t like, but there’s even more that i don’t like about the states. i’ve felt at home in lille since day one, and i’ve learned an incredible amount about myself and hopefully grown in the process. i’ve had to deal with some weird shit here, such as what i thought was a life-long friendship surprisingly (at least, to me) coming to an end, and i’ve had to learn how to make friends and be outgoing around strangers. for me, that’s a big deal… i also got to see an incredible amount of places and fall in love with little parts of the world all over.

for awhile, i contemplated trying to stay in france and go to grad school here. in the end, it turned out that doing grad school in the states opens more opportunities for me here (a degree from france would basically be meaningless in the states) if i don’t get into a ph.d program at home. me and france aren’t done with our little love affair; in fact, i think it’s just the beginning.

so that’s why i’ll quote garden state like a teenage girl and say that “i’m not like, putting a period at the end of this. i’m putting like… an ellipsis on it.”

so there you go folks.
see you in america.

i’ll probably never catch up. May 15, 2009

i keep meaning to write about my 20something days of traveling, but at the rate i’m going, i’ll never get to it.

i come home pretty soon and i don’t think i’ll be writing in this anymore. it feels silly to keep it now that i’m saying au revoir to lille and france. maybe i’ll do something else, but i think my life back home will be pretty busy and i can’t manage to find the time to write here when i have basically no commitments. for instance, this fall, i have class on wednesdays from 10am to 6pm with a 30 minute break, teaching 4 hours a week, 4 hours of office hours a week, 1 hour with mentor group, etc…plus i need to, you know, KILL at my MA program so that i can get into an amazing ph.d prgram.

i’m still kind of in shock that i’m going to grad school, for free. actually, getting PAID to go. and that i get to teach my very own class…that what i’ve wanted to do for the last 6 years is actually happening. i used to wallow in the fact that i was “unlucky” – looking back, i’ve definitely maybe (note: definitely maybe? ha) had an unfair amount of shitty things happen in my life, but i’ve finally learned that wallowing in it only makes it worse. since i’ve tried to be more of a “you make your own luck” kind of person, i’ve gotten every single thing that i’ve wanted and worked for. i’m pretty stoked on life right now. i can’t wait to come home and see best friends and make new friends and reconnect with old friends. oh and eat a lot of chipotle.

first leg of vacation fun: through the noise. May 4, 2009

on the first day of vacation i woke up at 4:30am for a 4 hour train ride to karlsruhe, germany to hop on a tour bus for 5 days. it was pretty awesome to see so many friends all at once, but it took me awhile to shake off my weird mood – i guess it was kind of overwhelming to be surrounded by everyone at once. even though all the shows were in places we couldn’t really get out and explore, i had a really awesome time. i wasn’t sure how i was going to feel about being at a hardcore show every night – i don’t even remember the last time i was at a show for any purpose other than seeing friends – but it was really amazing seeing bane every night. the anniversary of columbine was approaching, and i told someone how bizarre it was that then, bane was my favorite band, and now 10 years later, i’m hanging with them in europe? they definitely showed me that hardcore is still relevant and maybe i’m not quite as over it as i thought i was.

what was also amazing was that, 13 years later, i finally got to see the get up kids at a huge fest in meerhout, belgium. i only really like the first EP and four minute mile (although something to write home about is finally starting to grow on me) so i wasn’t sure how much they’d play that i liked, but they played half the EP and a couple from FMM so i was pretty satisfied. while hanging out in the bar area after the fest was over, pretty much everyone punished them…they told matt, casey and i that they were happy to see other people here from the midwest, but i really think they meant “leave us alone.” the drink tickets seemed to be endless that night and we certainly brought it to the next level, after having started drinking wine at 2pm. i also met a bizarre amount of mutual friends of people back in the states. go figure.

the tour ended in haarlem and i was sad to leave after 5 awesome days, but punchy and lindsay met us there and then trip of a lifetime 2009 could begin.