Looking Forward

As my parents help my brother spray all his clothes with noxious amounts of insect repellent for his trip to the Amazon (specifically Leticia, Colombia) and as I lie on the couch sipping a glass of wine, I can't help but finally feel relaxed. I'm done with college. I held back the tears at each of my departments' graduation ceremonies. You wouldn't have known it yesterday, but I was definitely a glass case of emotion.

See the movie Anchorman if this meme is unfamiliar

The students' speeches were so good. CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin's speech was perfect too, especially when she noted the importance of hard work and the importance of journalism in a time when the president is afraid of facing the facts. This weekend was beautiful and exhausting, exhilarating and frustrating, exciting and sad all at the same time. If I had to give anyone advice about graduation weekend, it's to go to bed earlier. Getting more sleep might have made it less overwhelming.

Graduation day! So many people graduating!

Also, put on sunscreen.

Me! I'm graduating! It's super bright out!

Oops, graduation cap sunburn. SPF 15 on my face was not enough.

Looking back...I'm not really going to miss college, not in and of itself. I won't miss going to classes. I won't miss doing homework. I won't miss the dining hall, windowless rooms, staying up until 2am to finish assignments, or the stress of finding parking on football game weekends. What I will miss the most from undergrad is being constantly surrounded by the wonderful people I have come to call friends. After today's graduation ceremony, friends I have known since my first year of college and I gave each other goodbye hugs before breaking up to go find our families. Those hugs were much too quick for telling anyone how much they mean to me. We reminded each other to post pictures on Facebook, since we might never see each other again in person, then went our separate ways. I hope we do get to hang out in person again sometime. I am grateful to have had the chance to get to know and learn with so many talented and extraordinary people.

Some of the other graduates I know have posted on Facebook about how much they wish they could stay and be a student forever. While I enjoyed it, four years of undergrad was enough. During spring semester sophomore year (spring 2015), I got a taste of what a life beyond college might be like and have been dying to graduate ever since. I was pretty sure I was going to have a plan of action by now, and I kind of do. However, it's not a plan for the immediate future, nor is it a plan for the long term. The plan is to do TAPIF (Teaching Assistant Program in France), which will officially start in four months. Until then... I didn'texpect I would be stuck in limbo the way I am right now. I didn't know I would end up turning down opportunities that other people have always dreamed of, opportunities that I never questioned I would be able to obtain, all so that I could take on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I wasn't even sure I'd get. It's weird, being without a safety net job. I still have a lot to figure out. While I don't feel particularly nostalgic about college right now, except for the community, I had a great experience overall. No regrets. Well, very few.

They say the best way to combat early onset nostalgia is to look forward, and I have been doing just that. For me, the future I am looking forward to is four months from now. If you want to learn where in the world that I will be in four months and why I'm going there, check out the posts on my new blog with the same name: http://profoundnovelty.blogspot.com/ 

Until then, I am knitting, running, and figuring out my next steps.















 And yes, I made up early onset nostalgia.

Everything Is Fine

Via Rivistastudio.com

"Everything is fine."

That has been my motto this year so far. I say it all the time. It's is what I follow up with any time I tell someone about the difficult situations I get myself into, all the deadlines and expectations I set for myself and struggle to meet.


"I have to finish this massive project by 5pm. It's only halfway done. Everything is fine."
"Two of the four actors in this scene have the flu and can't film today. Everything is fine."
"My lease ends in July but I don't have a summer job or a person to sublease my apartment yet. Everything is fine."


Everything usually turns out fine. At least, I think it will. I pretend it will.


 "Ignore your problems until they go away" has been my policy for the past few months. It's a great policy. It works really well. I'm not secretly worrying about my problems and not actively seeking out solutions for them because I don't even know where to start. Nope. I definitely have a plan of action. Everything is fine.

There are some things that are not in my control, things that maybe could have been if I had planned for it. Coordinating other people to be in the same place as me at the same time, for example, is a logistical nightmare. It's even worse when I do it only two days in advance because that's the earliest possible time I can have my own life together. That would mean admitting I am struggling, admitting I am struggling with a lot more than I am letting on, which is a lot to dump on people. Don't worry about me. Everything is fine.

This year I learned how just unprepared I am for grad school (which is why I haven't yet applied for grad school), why I should prioritize exercise more, and why I should get out more. Most of all, I learned that I wanted someone else to do hard tasks for me. I learned that I can't do everything all by myself. I can't. Celebrities have athletic trainers, managers, and personal assistants to keep them on track. If I could afford a life coach, I would hire one. If I didn't have the world's best executive team for Student Television, I don't think STV would be as well-positioned for future success as it is and I would certainly not be as sane as I am now. I learned that I never want to make another short film, or feature film or TV show for that matter, unless I have a full-fledged production crew and a sizable budget. I learned that I should ask for help more often, because unless I ask, people will generally assume that everything is fine.

Learning how to plan and break down big goals into small, manageable tasks is my new objective. The English-teaching program in France I am doing in the overseas of la Réunion in the fall will be an experiment in preparation and planning for me. That was a very casual way of threading in this new travel blog and the fact that I got a job as an English-teaching assistant in France (sort of France). I'm not as worried about being in on a tropical island with an unfamiliar culture and lifestyle for a whole school year as I am about the teaching part. As I said, it will be an experiment in preparation. If and when I blog about it, be prepared to see the phrase everything is fine or ça va.

The only thing I tell people about and don't follow up with "everything is fine" is that I'm graduating from college. That's the immediate thing I am the most excited and least worried about. I have a cap. I have a gown. I've passed all my final exams. The goal has been successfully achieved. Being done with undergrad is actually fine.