Hello again, blog, and happy Thursday! I’m in a really good mood today, and I feel like lately I’ve finally started to really enjoy my life on campus the way I did first term. Most of it is probably due to the way I’ve started thinking about the future; I’ve stopped thinking about my major as some sort of end-all-be-all for my college experience and started thinking about it as just a requirement I get to fill with interesting courses from a department I like; I’ve stopped thinking about my future career- or careers! I can do a whole bunch of things!- as some sort of crazy save-the-whole-world mission and started thinking about things that I think would be fun; I’ve stopped thinking about what is easier and started thinking about what is better, and most importantly, I’ve stopped thinking about what was supposed to be and really starting to settle into what just is, and I’m feeling a lot happier and less stressed because of it. I’m not a tv show character or a cardboard cutout of a person, and I should start thinking of myself as a regular person with wants and needs and flaws just like everybody else. It’s still a work in progress, but I think I’ve been making some breakthroughs. More to come on that in the following weeks.
Where did all of this come from, you might ask? I think a lot of this new thinking is just a result of being three quarters of the way through my first year of college and becoming more of a Real Adult, but the straw that broke the camel’s back and led to my Week of Grand Epiphanies was definitely Saturday.
As our second to last day of break, Anastasija and I decided Saturday had to be spent in a supremely awesome way, so we could go out with a bang before hibernating on Sunday to prepare for the new term. Somehow this translated into walking seven miles, spending six hours outside, and eating pizza at two o’clock in the morning. It was a good day. The seven mile walk was actually the part that inspired my breakthrough- I’m trying to think of movies with intense and impressive walking scenes and the only things coming to mind are those scenes from the Goldbergs where Beverly is powerwalking down the street- though not in any big, philosophical way.
The reason for our seven mile walk was actually our former blockmate, Katie, who lives about an hour and a half out from Wellesley and occasionally drives up to the Ville to spend some- socially distant- time with us. I was really feeling like swinging on a swing set that afternoon, so we ended up at one of the elementary schools nearby and hung out for awhile. As we were leaving, we stopped to take a picture of our feet all in the Iowa part of this huge map of the United States they had on the concrete, and I ended up glancing into the window of a nearby classroom.
A mostly accurate picture of Iowa
The sun was reflecting off the window enough that I couldn’t see most of the room, but what I did see were the books lined up against the windowsill, and I was surprised to see that I recognized almost all of them. On a whim I started thinking about what it would be like if I was an elementary school teacher. That wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it, but I realised a couple days later when I was still thinking about it that it was the first time that it wasn’t followed by thoughts of how it wasn’t “big enough” and how I had to do something that changed the whole world. Thankfully, I’ve started growing out of that phase and realizing that any way you help people is super big and important. Just because I was an ungrateful seven year old- as most seven year olds tend to be- when someone gave me those books to read doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate how important those teachers were to the person I’ve become.
I have no idea if I’ll actually end up being an elementary school teacher- though I think it would be totally awesome and fun and something I could be good at- but I think my future career aspiration cycles will be changed by this epiphany too, and I’m excited to see what I dream up next! Last week I was 100% sold on law school, and the time before that was some kind of rogue anti-fascist investigative reporter type scheme that looking back seems highly ill advised and not super plausible. I’m only a freshman, so I have at least three more years before I have to actually know what I want to do when I leave college, and even then my mom has switched careers like three or four times and it’s always worked out for her so I’m not feeling too pressured to hit it out of the career park right at twenty-two. Even my dad didn’t really figure out what he wanted to do until he had paid for half a masters degree in political science, and then he ended up going back to school again way after that so he could go from a government teacher to a high school principal. Given the odds I’m batting with, it would probably be a miracle if I somehow picked my magical perfect career at nineteen, and that’s assuming that such a field exists and won’t change as I get older and learn more about myself and the world and who I want to be; by the time I’m fifty I could totally be a completely different person and somehow end up being a high school football coach or an engineer specializing in car washes. Weirder things have happened!
A final note before the end of the blog post- look at this little snake Anastasija and I found! He crossed our path on the way to the Ville on Saturday. So cute!
Our small, slithery acquaintance
Sending you joy!
P.S. Yes, the title of this blog was absolutely stolen from the Abby’s Flying Fairy School theme song, as pictured in the header. No, nineteen is not too old to be watching Sesame Street, thank you very much.