Planning

So, while I enjoy the idea of making plans--lists, color-coding my calendar, browsing the internet, I am, when it comes down to it, a procrastinator.

This is not a year for procrastinating, though (she notes as she writes in her blog, ignoring her homework assignment). It's senior year. The big finish. Scary words get thrown around this year, particularly acronyms: MAT (Miller Analogies Test), GRE, LSAT, GPA, thesis, graduation, and finally, the big "future" one.

I'm only concerned with a few of these lovely words. MAT for the Miller Analogies Test which I will be taking in October for the Master of the Arts in Teaching program at UMO I am applying for (another MAT). The GRE and LSAT are things I didn't even consider taking. But people keep talking about them with a slightly panicked tone. GPA is something everyone always worries about, but doesn't actually talk about unless you were majorly slacking on your term abroad (everyone who went abroad). Then there are the last three--those three are pretty concerning to me.

Thesis. Blah. Let's not talk about that. But seriously, HOW did I decide this was a good idea. And WHO decided to make a thesis be the last year of school.

I've told several people now, "Why wasn't the thesis last year? Why couldn't they have left this year for napping and planning our futures?" But apparently, we're supposed to do it all, and we're supposed to graduate in May cheerfully, rather than fearfully.

These are snippets of conversations I've had with people about "the future". Some of my friends are well adjusted. Others are just as panicked as I am.

My fabulous friend Emily Demicco, a History major, said two things that make me feel jealous of her sureness about post-grad life. 1. "I'm going to live abroad for a few years, at least. In a big city. Probably London." I would love to live in London. Love. But I've stacked up plenty of loans that don't want to mix with the crappy exchange rate of dollar-to-pound. Emily also said 2. "Hell no I'm not taking the GRE." So I'm glad we're on the same page.

Whitney, my other fabulous friend (but let's be serious, all my friends are pretty fabulous), said to me this afternoon. "I'm going to work for the state department after graduation. Then I'll worry about grad school." She has a lovely plan figured out, after just spending several months living in Morocco. She is less concerned than I am about her need to catch up on all the TV series she missed while she was away.

Yesterday, I ran into Austin, a boy who spent a year in Kent, at the same school as me. He said, "Yeah, I'm filling out a Fulbright application. It's due Thursday... So I should probably go work on it." He, like me, agrees about the unnecessary-ness of writing a thesis this year.

My friend Sophie is an English major like me. She often senses the fear that really, we probably should have been Engineers, or something. Just probably not English majors. I mean, what are we going to do with a degree in English?

I recently have had a real interest in ESL and becoming an ESL teacher. It occurred to me then that the best way to get to live abroad, and learn how to understand how to teach ESL best would be to teach English abroad.

Cue me thinking about myself living in a Grecian paradise, teaching English to eager children, etc etc. But, with more research, the areas for ESL teaching became a little more clear to me. I could move to a Grecian paradise, if I really wanted to. But I wouldn't really make any money at it.
(Now let me interject to say that I am not doing this for money. If I was interested in making loads of money, I would have studied Engineering, or something. Medicine. I would have watched some of the Real Housewives and figured out how to be a good trophy wife. The fact of the matter is that I need to make money, because I've spent a hefty sum of cash on going to a school with some great classes and name recognition.)
If I wanted to go to South America or Africa, that would probably be through a non-profit organization. If I went to Europe, pretty much anywhere, I would be able to make some money, but it would all go into my cost of living. So, once again, I'd not really make any money. But Asia... They really want us English teachers in Asia.

I had a very Western-girl, spoiled by New England's loveliness moment. I thought, "I'm not going to go teach English in the jungle." But then I thought about it, and realized how many amazing cities there are in Asia. I wouldn't be living in a hut, or anything. So I started to do some research-- I'm not brave enough to explore the idea of going to live in Vietnam or Cambodia (I'd consider going on vacation there though!), so I started looking into Japan.

In the past few years, I've been intrigued by Japan. Not to the point of reading up on it, but I thought, "I'd go to Japan one day, if I got the chance." Flash forward to me, obsessively reading this girl's blog. She's a Canadian girl who moved to Japan to teach English, and has a lot of great stories about the culture, cities in Japan, and teaching English to kids and to adults. I'd love to teach kids (and adults), and Asia is the place to go for that.

What do you think about Japan? Excluding tsunami and earthquake stuff. I'm really intrigued, and asked my amazing god-sister, Jenn, what she thought about it. She got to study abroad in Japan, and I'm really interested in her opinion. She's so down-to-earth, and would have a great view about it.

So I guess it's time to stop procrastinating. But wait, let me tell you about my day.

I woke up at nine-ish, which is nice, because Mondays and Wednesdays I wake up at 7 (blaghh). I went to my syntax class. Now, if you don't know what syntax is, don't bother to wikipedia it. You'll probably think I'm demented for loving this class. Basically, we are constructing our own grammar for how the English language works for English speakers--just word order in the sentence, stuff like that. My teacher is hilarious, and really, really smart. She always has something witty or funny to say, and she also always has an answer. This morning, I had a difficult time in class because our board looked something like this S= NP (ADV) V (ADV) (PP) (ADV), then S= (Np) (ADV) V (ADV) (PP)* (ADV). I don't even remember if that's right... it moved so fast, and there were lots of sentences that looked like this, and people shouting out things like, "Lorenzo under the bridge runs" and "We kept Ben Bernanke in the guest bedroom." Out of context, we sound like crazy people, I'm sure. I'm sure you're also wondering who Lorenzo is. Well he's the guy under the bridge, running. When we left class, my group partner Amanda, and another classmate Zach discussed how we had no idea how people were following the class. It moved so quickly, and some people have a natural talent for syntax, while we have to think about things a little before we grasp it.

Then I went to my Survey of British Literature before 1700 class. It's about as exciting as it sounds. We were reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which is a King Arthur poem. I found out lots about the plot of this poem today, because I read poems too fast to catch that they have plot. My bad. There's like a 300-line seduction scene in this poem, where Sir Gawain is getting propositioned by this lord's wife, and he's trying not to sleep with her, even though she's naked in his bed. I thought that, finally, the poem was getting sort of interesting with all the drama, but Sir Gawain is all about chivalry. In the end, it was all a trick to make Sir Gawain look bad, which I found out in class. This is not something I'd ever read in my spare time, and I was on my way to have lunch with Emily and Whitney, and wanted out.

Wow. Okay, so those weren't even the interesting parts of my day. I really am good at this procrastination thing.

Lunch with Emily and Whitney is always fun. We eat together twice a week, having schedules that miraculously allow for us to get together at the same time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We discuss our lives, and generally gossip. We were laughing so hard at something Emily was telling us, and now I can't remember what it was, but that's how every lunch is, us just laughing at each other.

I lived with Whitney my freshman year, and so I've known her since. Emily we also knew, but I only really got a chance to get to know her better last fall, and she's definitely one of my best friends here at school. To get to see them both at the same time is always awesome. Oh, and the cashier at lunch today only charged me $1.49 for my lunch--that's the cost of extra sandwich meat, and she couldn't figure out how to get the mistake fixed, and just charge me for a sandwich, so she tilted the screen towards me, and sent me on my way with a conspiratorial nod.

I got to check out Whitney's apartment downtown, a really great two bedroom right on one of the main streets. Then I moseyed back up to campus, enjoying the warm weather. As Whitney said before I left, "Enjoy it: it's probably going to snow next week."