| Guess I was Wrong. |
[25 Jan 2010|11:41am] |
Why I Stayed, What I Learned, and Why I’m Going Abroad the First Chance I Get
Wellesley News, November 2009
I always thought I would go abroad. There was never any question in my mind that during my junior year I would pack my bags, buy a plane ticket, and leave for somewhere much more exotic than New England--a place that I had spent nearly two decades of my life. After months of research, I had found the perfect program, applied, and was accepted. I was going to Italy.
And then all of a sudden, I decided not to go. There were dozens of reasons why, but the most important one was this: the opportunities I had at Wellesley was too good to give up. Even for a semester. For two years, I had studied under brilliant professors, learned from my peers, and taken advantage of Wellesley’s unique opportunities. Europe would still be there after I graduated, but time at Wellesley was slipping through my fingers.
I understood why my friends wanted to get away. I watched as they explored new places, met new people, and grew into even more confident, worldly women. I wanted to experience these things too, but I couldn’t justify the cost (both money and opportunity) of going abroad.
It wasn’t easy to stay at Wellesley while almost half of my class traveled to all corners of the world. I procrastinated by looking through my friends’ Facebook albums and trying to suppress my jealously. While I was locked in the library writing papers and studying for final exams, I day dreamed about what my semester would have been like had I gone to Italy. More than anything I missed my friends. It’s not that I wanted them to be back at Wellesley with me, I just wanted to be where they were.
Despite all this, I’m glad that I choose to stay at Wellesley for my junior year. The classes I took last year were unbelievable--they challenged me to think about my studies and the world in a completely different way. I took classes at MIT and I applied for a funded internship through the CWS. I missed my friends, but I met new people and developed closer friendships with those still at Wellesley. Not going abroad challenged me to think about who I was and what I wanted out of my time at Wellesley. Wellesley students abroad were challenged to grow both personally and academically, but by deciding to stay at Wellesley, so was I.
Next year, rather than take the first job I can in this economy, I’ve decided to travel. I’ll be working an internship abroad after I graduate and in the months that follow I’m going to explore all the places I spent learning about in books during my junior year. Hopefully I won’t be disappointed.
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| reflections |
[20 Oct 2009|12:10am] |
...It wasn't just my internship that made my experience with the American Cities Program unforgettable. Living in Atlanta was exciting, challenging, and rewarding. I grew up in the Boston area, so the idea of living in a southern city was incredibly appealing to me, if not a little terrifying. I had never experienced the South before, and I didn't know when I would have an opportunity like this again. I wasn't sure if I would like it, but I decided living in the South and experiencing a new culture was too important to pass up.
When I arrived in Atlanta, I didn't have a place to live and I didn't know anyone in the area. To be perfectly honest, the anticipation of the experience was incredibly stressful. The sublet.com account that the CWS purchased didn't work in Atlanta because it had been purchased for Chicago only, and the Atlanta based alum working with CWS was going through some major life changes. She didn't have very much flexibility to view the apartments I found on Craigslist so finding an apartment proved quite difficult. I was also struggling with a heavy academic work load during the end of the semester leaving me little time to devote to my search. Luckily, I was able to stay with a friend of a friend in an Atlanta suburb when I first arrived. Once I was there, I was able to find a great apartment very quickly. While my initial experiences were stressful, Atlanta was amazing once I settled in.
What surprised me the most about my experiences this summer is that I went from believing I could never fit in or enjoy a city like Atlanta, to feeling like it was the kind of place I could call home. People I met throughout the summer were surprised that I had come all the way from Boston and asked me if I thought I would ever return. To my surprise, my answer is yes. I enjoyed learning about the city. I explored the area by running through it, going to museums, and talking to the people I met on the street. I visited the house where Martin Luther King Jr. was born, hiked Stone Mountain, and wandered through the Atlanta History Museum. On weekends, I explored Savannah and Birmingham and got a sense for Southern culture outside of Atlanta's sprawling metropolis.
I learned so much about the fabric of our country living someplace that was so different from my home. I had never been somewhere where I was so aware of the social inequality between the poor and the rich, nor have I ever lived anywhere with such a prominent minority population. Living in Atlanta also made me reflect on the history of our country. I have always been fascinated with the Civil Rights movement, but I had never been challenged to really think about what it meant to live in a segregated city. When I traveled to Birmingham, I went to the 16th Street Baptist church that was bombed in 1964, and on my morning runs I ran from my apartment to Martin Luther King Jr.'s statue in Sweet Auburn passing schools, buses, and neighborhoods that had once been staunchly segregated. I also learned about the Civil War from a more Southern perspective and about Jimmy Carter's life and presidency. Living in Atlanta challenged me to rethink stereotypes, ideologies, and historical facts that I am embarrassed to admit I had sometimes mistaken for reality...
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| seven |
[31 Mar 2009|07:59pm] |
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There is nothing a good run can't fix. I feel like I can do ANYTHING.
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[22 Mar 2009|12:38am] |
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And the other Jim Graham story I have is there was one practice here he just rode me all practice. You're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, go back and do it again, you owe me, you're doing push-ups after practice. And when it was all over, one of the other assistant coaches came over and said, yeah, Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn't he? I said, yeah. He said, that's a good thing. He said, when you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up. And that's a lesson that stuck with me my whole life. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.
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| it's notAlwaysEasy&sometimesLifeCanBeDecieving.I'll tell youOneThingIt'sAlwaysBetterWhenWereTogether |
[03 Mar 2009|12:49am] |
Last weekend so many worlds collided and I was catapulted forwards and backwards at the same time and I spent the rest of the week peeling the hot pink nail polish off my nails and thinking about people and relationships and how we're all connected and disjointed and part of something much bigger (I just accidentally typed better...maybe that's the right word) than ourselves.
I'm talking about the things between people. About the friendships and relationships and the things that hold us together in all this chaos. I'm thinking about how complicated they are but how natural they feel. I'm thinking about what they're made of and what they're worth and why.
The universe is expanding and we're all just hanging here. Take away the planet earth and the car we drive and the shoes we wear and traffic lights we stop atand everything else and imagine each of us floating with all the rest of elements of the universe. You know...like stars. We're all just hanging here and gravity has given way and we're left with the ties that hold us together. Ties of love and passion and interest and experience.
We can't escape the ties. We get angry or our heart breaks or we just lose touch, but no matter what happens, our ties are usually stronger than we are. The things between us--the things that hold us together--well, they never really break. That's why I don't think it's possible to lose love. And why I don't think it's possible to love without getting love in return. And why try as we might to run away, our past never really escapes us.
We're just hanging. By thin threads. Tugging on each other. And all we want to do is feel that pull.
That's why we keep going back for more.
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| everything. |
[20 Nov 2008|11:33pm] |
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how lucky am I? so damn lucky.
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| better than okay. |
[13 Nov 2008|11:06am] |
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it's been such a hard season and the bridges we burned might be all we had to keep us from drowning. but at least we had this time; and i'd like to think we're better off for it. i'll remember this. sometimes broken things make the best building supplies. and we'll keep on building. hearts aren't made of glass, they're made of muscle and blood and something else. and they don't so much as break as bend and tear. we have what it takes to keep it together; and move on.
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| yes. |
[05 Nov 2008|01:06pm] |
Today is a good day.
Where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.
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[02 Nov 2008|03:01pm] |
It hovered around sixty degrees in ohio this weekend, but the captain my delta flight has announced that back at home it's a lovely thirty-nine degrees. Last week it was finally cold enough for me to cave and grab my winter coat out of my closet at home. I have a problem with wearing a winter coat in October, but I also have a problem with being cold. The coat won out.
On the right side of my jacket are the stubborn remains of a sticker that I stuck onto my coat more than seven months ago when it was still cold. Seven months ago: that was the last time I was in the Buckeye state. And sometime late at night sitting in the office with Chels, I dug through my bag and pulled out the stash of stickers I kept with me incase I met a supporter in line for coffee or sandwiches on my daily run to the German Village. I don’t know what possessed me to put that sticker on my coat knowing full well just how permanent it would become, but it probably had something to do with just how deeply I believed in what I was doing. Ohio was an amazing statement of my belief--in a leader, in a campaign, in a dream--and I threw my heart into everything I did.
A few months later I peeled the sticker off my jacket. It was getting old and worn out and you could barely read the blue "Women for Hillary" text against the white background. I knew the heartbreak was coming, and sometime in early June I watched Hillary Clinton--the women who came the closest to shattering that glass ceiling that I never knew I cared about so deeply--gracefully urge me to leave my baggage at the door and do everything I can for Barack Obama. But just like this campaign isn't about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, that's not what I want to say.
Here's the point: life doesn't always go the way that you planned. Life doesn't always take the path you might in your heart. And sometimes you can throw your everything into something and not get what you want. But if the rolling stones are right, you often do get what you need. There will always be reminders of what could have been—the stubborn residue of white stickers and the feeling of broken hearts. But you don't have control of other peoples' decision, shortcomings, or success, and so you must take responsibility for your own. So trust yourself. Move forwards. Follow your heart. And the life you will live will probably be better than you could have dreamed.
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| apple wins. |
[13 Sep 2008|01:27am] |
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live blogging from baker 333. My new iPod touch is even better than anything I ever thought I loved put together and multiplied by two.
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| roll with the chaotic, unpredictable ways of life |
[15 Aug 2008|12:14am] |
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SCRATCH THAT. Nothing is out of control because everything is out of control because that's the best way for everything to be. Don't play by the rules. No more games. Just me. Me me me. I'm going to try to tell the truth more often. And I'm not going to try to catch myself before things start to spin. I like to dance until the room starts to spin and I want to spin with everything else that makes the milky way look like a spiral from a light-year away. Because gravity never fails.
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| two quick things |
[14 Aug 2008|01:02am] |
1. "Important things are inevitably cliche, but nobody wants to admit that." Chuck Klosterman.
1. a) Amen, brother.
2. The Wellesley Situation is spinning out of control.
2. a) How do I make it stop?
2. b) When will I realize that most of my life is out of control?
2. c) Define out of control.
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| I was walking with the ghost I said please please don't insist. |
[05 Aug 2008|12:40am] |
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There's this episode of Sex and the City (oh this is promising) where Miranda thinks there's a ghost in her apartment and carrie wants to get back together with aidan (this of course is a horrible idea and everyone but her seems to know it). She asks her readers when a relationship dies do we ever really give up the ghost or are we forever haunted by the spirits of relationships past? It's silly, certainly not one of her best, but it does bear the question: how long can we take this? I won't lie, there are nights when I go out of my way to torture myself, but most of the time it I wake up at 9:15 AM (I start work at 10 AM, oh new york) wondering where the hell the dream I just had came from. I take a shower, I dry my hair, i go to work and i forget about it. But there is only so much time I can take in my own company without distractions. And I open up the e.e.cummings book I take with my everywhere, and i am brave enough to pick up my phone, and I wander through my writings and every now and then i feel myself fall apart. And God, I wish I didn't. Because that's not my life anymore. But it turns out that just like Holly Golightly couldn't run without running into herself, Carrie might be right: New York is definitely haunted. Old lovers, ex-boyfriends, anyone you have unresolved issues with you are bound to run into again and again until you resolve them.
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| you must write, and read, as if your life depended on it. |
[31 Jul 2008|09:57pm] |
Maybe I can't write because all I want to write about is the truth. The real truth. Not the pretty words. Not the vague ambivalent entries about things that are wrong with my life or love or other things I can't touch. Maybe I don't want to care anymore whether my work is creative and original (otherwise known as emo and cliche). Maybe I don't care whether every entry ends with an epiphany. Life is an epiphany, get the fuck over it.
I want to sit everyone down and say here it is. Here is my life and it is amazing and I wouldn't change one thing for the world. And while I had their attention, I would talk about how I see the world from the minute I step out of my brownstone to the last thing I remember while I'm falling asleep. I would talk about how I never sleep anymore and I'm always tired and how much I HATE that. I would tell them all about politics and life and love and coffee and the importance of breaking rules and being free. About New York and DC and Detroit and how I feel when when trains pass each other underground. I would tell them about jesus christ how irreparably changed my life has become. Because ain't that the truth?
So I'm going to keep trying to write. It's harder now, because the words don't flow like they used to, and they certainly don't fall like endless rain into a paper cup but it's important to realize that there is a reason for this. I think it's because life is complicated and wonderful and I have amazing people in my life who listen to my stories. The endless emails to aco and messages with rem and late night conversations with emma jane ground me and challenge me to think deeply about the life I am living and define the life that I wish to live. But that's no excuse to stop writing--for better of for worse this is where I do a lot of my thinking. I know that it's silly to keep an online journal--even if the world of never ending bloggers--but I don't care. It keeps me honest even if it doesn't keep me completely truthful. I don't want to twist too many people into my records, I don't want to say too much. But I'm going to keep trying. Because writing is the one in my life that I have never wanted to stop doing. Not once.
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| one should only move to new york if he is willing to be lucky. |
[07 Jul 2008|10:25pm] |
I moved to New York a month ago and there still aren't enough words for me to explain how I feel about this city. I love it. There is no other way to say it. I love the way it sounds and I love the way everything is so close together and everyone is on top of one another. I like seeing the lights on the train tracks before I can hear the sound of the train rumbling through the station. I love the energy. It's tangible--I can feel it in every ounce of my being. From the drummer Mr. Prince in the 125th Street 4,5,6 station to the buzz of Chinatown. I like that I am living with eight million other people on a tiny island. I like running into people in unexpected places. I like falling asleep to the rush of traffic, I like waking up to the heat of the buildings around me, I like coming home to Harlem. Ben Lee was right, the city is living proof that people need to be together. I need to be here feeling this living this breathing this city.
My job is another story. It's air conditioned on the thirteenth floor of 55 W 125th Street. It's quiet. It's slow. Maybe I need to learn to deal with this, but I think I just need to find something that fits me better. I miss talking to people, I miss feeling like what I did mattered, I miss waking up every morning earlier than I want to and coming home later than most people do and feeling like there is nothing that I would change about what I do with my day. I have fantasies where I quit my job and work on the Obama campaign and also somehow make time to explore New York for hours. Someday I'll find an office that works for me, but this one just isn't it. And while part of me wishes it was, part of me is proud not to fall for the glitz and glam of the job.
And then I'm on a bus driving away from the city for the first time in a month. I'm flying up route thirty two and I'm talking with my parents at the kitchen table and I'm trying to fall asleep with so much silence. There's fireworks and there's family and there's food. And there's you. We build a bonfire on the dock and the stars are brighter than ever before and we tell stories and make s'mores. And all of a sudden it doesn't matter what my job is and where I live and whether or not I will ever find a way to balance ambition and reality all before I turn thirty. I feel myself melting into you and I get the feeling I could stay in this bed forever and I don't know what that means. And I think that's okay.
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