Rewind to the present

My year off came to an end in early August, and to mark the transition I found myself heading back to the aca-duh-me. During my year off I finally started to live a more fulfilling life. After my college escapades in NY--a state that had deceptively caputred my imagination growing up in the Midwest--I retreated back to the Heartland; back to my parents' home to regain my bearings and heal from a slew of pscyho-physical wounds. In my old room, I indulged in months of ample sleep--"treating" my body to one of the most basic necessities that our crazy society has for some odd reason relegated to luxury. (Note to policy-makers: in Constitution v2.0 please include a clause about the right to a good night's sleep for all).

I practiced many of the things that I had thought were necessary for a fulfilling life--cooking with my mom in the kitchen, eating dinner on a regular basis with my parents, spending more time with friends, going to the library every week or two to read magazines and browse through the bookshelves--and concluded, "Yes, this is good." In the summer that launched my year off and the one that rounded it out, I planted a vegetable garden in our backyard. I sowed seeds and planted small seedlings, weeded, watered, and generally tended for my plants with daily check-ups that seemed to give me an extra sense of meaning and purpose in life. And something to look forward to, because while watching the plants grow each day was fascinating the real privilege came when they decided I had been good and rewarded me with the freshest and tastiest produce I could possibly eat.

During the year off after graduating from college, I also took the time to reconnect with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents overseas. I flew over twice in order to get reacquainted with some of the relatives I had completely drifted apart from and to strengthen the otherwise flimsy long-distance family bonds I had managed to maintain through all these years of trans-Atlantic separation. I realized that six weeks of togetherness was a good start, but not nearly enough; and this reconfirmed the importance of family--that a lifelong priority of mine ought to be nurturing those family bonds in spite of the distance. Through family, I found a gateway to my own identity and my own heritage--elements of my being that had withered and I so desperately need to reclaim in this cosmo, globalized, disorienting, multieverything American life. And thus, I journeyed into the past through a family genealogy project. It took me back centuries in some cases, and to countries across the world I had never visited, and it exposed me to a few of the compelling life stories that linked generations of my ancestors to the present and somehow brought to my existence on this earth.

And then I tried to figure out what I'm doing, should do, could do with my life on this earth. (Yes, I tend to think about such things in a trivial manner). College graduation found me with no job offers, probably almost entirely because I had resisted any sort of job search. But either way, I was too burnt out to dive into something new and too uncertain over what sort of career to pursue. So during this "year off" I tried to think about it, and I tried to look for jobs, and then inevitably I got nervous and insecure. And inevitably that set off a cascade of trepidations and hesitations and disillusioning realizations that led me to feel that my BA had symbolic value, as a stepping stone, but other than that was kind of worthless. Here I am, young, (ivy league?!) educated, broke, living at home, and mostly unemployed (save a little tutoring and infrequent substitute teaching on the side).

I spent about half a year looking (admittedly somewhat casually) for work, and with no offers I conceded to the need for a backup plan. I surrendered to the notion that I might have more luck, or be more valuable in this (meat)marketplace, with another degree. A master of something or other. And I looked around for schools and programs, and I took the ridiculous GRE, and I wrote my applications essays, and I submitted them online.

So even though my college graduation felt like an exhilarating liberation from the chains of deeply disappointing, at times ineffective, institutionalized education, I now find myself back in the same system. Unfortunately, this time it was much more of my choice. I could have avoided it, or put it off longer, but I chose to go back partly to get it over with sooner rather than later, partly to reap the benefits, partly because I didn't have the gumption to make something of my life without another line on my resume. How I let myself down sometimes...

So here I am, back to where I started when the urgency of panic, frustration and despair drove me to take up blogging at the beginning of college. This time I chose to come back. I thought it would be for the best, I thought I'd be in control more, or do it more on my terms, and I thought the social dynamics would be a bit easier... However, these first few months of my first semester back in school have gradually stripped away the hope I had built up for a sane and satisfying experience. Now I find myself wondering again what in the world am I doing?