In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins has been a favorite for a long time. There are a lot of reasons -- it's so singable, and the tune is so memorable, and maybe I heard it a lot growing up.
Have you ever had that experience, when you knew something was going to happen? You're not sure when or what or why or how, but you know something's coming and it's going to change things -- if not everything? Maybe I'm biased because of Phil Collins, but it does feel almost like a change in the air. A strange feeling all along the skin, especially on my back and the back of my upper arms. I've been feeling that feeling, off and on and growing stronger, since November.
The feeling has been so strong that it's forced me to think about some things. It's made me want to examine why things are the way they are in my life. I feel like things are changing, and I wanted something tangible to reflect that. I do a lot of things because I've always done them; I'm a creature of habit. That being said, looking back over the last year, I can see how I started subtlely changing even before this. I started wearing makeup regularly. I started trying to dress more like a graduate student. I bought new bedding. Last Saturday I went to Joann's, bought some gold craft paint, and painted a whole bunch of things gold. (Ever since I can remember I've been a staunch silver person, but in the last few months my taste began to change. I've finally realized that gold looks better with my skintone than silver does.) This last week I took off a bracelet (really a necklace wrapped around my wrist three times) I've been wearing since my sophomore year of high school. I bought a new CTR ring and tucked away my Korean one from my mission. Most seriously of all, I've actually, seriously considered putting away my comfort blanket for good. (That's still too big of a step, it seems. Maybe in a few more months.)
I'm not sure what is going to happen. Why I feel this way. Why I feel like I need to start making small changes right now (I'm still getting used to them). There are some other changes happening in my life, but I don't think now is the time to share them. I'll share when a few things have settled and I have more to report than vague, strange, and somewhat unsettling feelings. But I think the general consensus among all the various parts of my brain is that, while unsettling, yes, these changes feel good. Right. Like I'm more grounded and less anxious about where I'm going and how I'm going to get there. Let's hope this trend continues.
You know those graphics that show the evolution of man from Neanderthal to homo sapiens, going from stooped to upright? The same general principle holds for the pictures below.
I'm not even sure what I want to say about this, but the general feeling is one of disappointment. Yes, a part of that is that my waist is no longer that tiny (I can't get over how small it looks in that second picture -- I don't remember being that slender). I can't lie; I'd like to look like that again. But there's more. What I see -- and what you reading this can't see -- is all the memories and emotions and circumstances and attitudes surrounding each of the split seconds in time these pictures represent.
While I'd love to be a size six again, what I really wish I could recapture is the excitement, the anticipation, the innocence, and the hope in my eyes in those first few pictures. I miss that about myself. When did I get so cynical and fatalistic? When did I start "fixing" my problems with a large bowl of ice cream instead of working out my frustrations by going for a run? I don't know that the person I was in the first picture would recognize the person I am in the last picture.
Today is the official last day of the semester, and most of the students are long gone. That means things are slow at the office. I'm flying home for Christmas next week, and I'm starting to get (more) homesick, in more than one way. How many ways can you be homesick? you ask. I'm anxious to get home and see my family, of course, but I've been missing Korea more and more lately.
Last night after work I took the bus downtown and had dinner at the Korean place. The proprietor and I are pretty close. We chat about Korean politics (more like he lectures and I nod - my grasp of Korean-politics Korean is very tenuous), I hang out in the kitchen and chat with his mom (who makes the food), etc. And I can always count on him telling me I look like I've gained weight. (The topic is not taboo like it is in the States.) I've got to start working out regularly again, just so I can finally hear him tell me I've gotten skinnier.
I'd really like to go back to Korea soon. It doesn't look that will happen, especially not if I get into grad school this fall. The problem is that I don't know what I'd do there even if I went. I could teach English, but I don't know if that's something I'd want to do. I'd love to go to school there, but that's an expensive proposition. What I need is an American program that incorporates a study-abroad component, like the University of Hawaii's or American University's, but let's face it--I can't afford either of those places.
Actually, at this point, I'd like any kind of direction. Don't worry, I'm not all mopey like in my last post, but the frustration at my lack of direction is still there. I'm not any closer to knowing what I want to do with myself than I was three weeks ago or three months ago. It makes me feel a little lonely and pointless.
Here I am. I'm 26, barely graduated from my undergrad, working two part-time jobs (but thankfully with insurance), and I've got a GRE Analytical Writing score that could very well keep me out of grad school. (At least this year.) The kicker is that when I checked, I saw that I only needed another half-point (or a 4.5) to jump all the way to the 73rd percentile. Basically, the difference between my reader being in a good or generous mood and s/he being anxious to get home or go to lunch. When there's a-- wait, let me do the math...29 percentage-point difference in just a half a point on your scale, you need a new scale.
Mostly I'm just mad. But there's another part of me, a not-very-small-and-in-fact-growing-increasingly-larger part of me, that wonders what the heck I do now. To be honest, I decided to apply to grad school more because I'm not too keen on continuing to do what I'm doing now more than because I finally know what I want to do with my life. Having an MA at least means I can start looking for work in my field, or I could move on to a more prestigious program and get a Ph.D. I figured the U would be a good choice; I could finally take some formal Korean classes, deepen my understanding of the culture and history of the region, and yet the tuition wouldn't totally break the bank and I'd have a decent shot at a fellowship, not to mention friends and family who live in the area. And the U is thankfully in a bigger city than Logan. It would be a leap of faith, but not a huge one.
So...now what? I could take the GRE again, but that's another $175 and I'd have no more time to prepare than I did last time. Not to mention, because I waited so long to take it the first time, now I have only about two dates I could even take it -- and that close to the application deadline, there's no guarantee that they'd receive my scores in time, anyway. I could call up the ETS people and keep squeaking until they give me some grease and take another look at my writing score, but let's face it, the probability of that happening is slim to none. I could throw myself on the mercy of the admissions committee at the U and try to explain my way into getting them to admit me. Or I could just give up.
Honestly, that last option was my first inclination. Just throw my hands up and say, Oh well, there's nothing I can do about it and resign myself to being a 26-year-old BA working two part-time jobs in a small city with no real job prospects in her field (but thankfully with insurance). But isn't that too pathetic? I already feel like I'm a pretty amazing failure, but that would really take the cake, no matter how much I just want to sit down and have a good cry. It's hard to feel upbeat when I look at so many of my friends and peers and they're working on their Ph.D.s or Master's, or traveling the world, or living and working in other countries, or gainfully employed and have cars and houses and kids.
Even worse than the (not inconsiderable) blow to my pride is the lack of direction, the shattering of expectations. I don't know what I want to do with my life. The pointlessness of it all is inciting an existential crisis. I want to do something, but it's eternally frustrating that I just don't know what. I wish I had that clarity of purpose and utter conviction I had as a three-year-old who wanted to be a ballerina. I'd settle for the naive confidence of the high school sophomore who was convinced she wanted to be a biochemist. (Whew, dodged that bullet.) Heck, I'd love to even have the optimism of the brand-new college freshman who wanted to become an English professor.
What am I doing with this time I'll never get back? Nothing very fulfilling. Please don't mistake me, I am so grateful to have a way to support myself, somewhere warm and dry to live, good food to eat, a little expendable income for fun things and to pay down my student loans a little faster, a family who loves and supports me, and an education. I am tremendously blessed, and even if that was all I had I'd still be one of the richest people alive. I've been trying to concentrate on those things, and I've been glad to be here in Logan for some things happening in my life and in the lives of people around me, but I feel like I'm stagnating here. The problem is I don't know where I want to go, let alone how to get there, to get myself moving and cease stagnating. I have no idea what the future holds or why this happened to me when everything suggested it wouldn't. I don't know what I want. I don't know what God wants me to want. I feel like every time I think I do know, it turns out not to be the case...? At this point I just want to stay in bed all day and stare at my ceiling.
The annoying thing about life is that it's impossible to do perfectly.
As much as I would like to be able to, I can't. And sometimes, Life throws you a curveball just to drive that home.
When I graduated earlier this year, I had no idea what I was going to do next. I'd kind of decided to move to Korea to teach English, and so I hadn't worried about doing silly things like taking the GRE or filling out a FAFSA. Well, Korea didn't pan out, much to my disappointment, and so I spent the summer pretty much lollygagging around until I finally got my act together and found a job. Then I got a second job because the first job was only half time. I vaguely figured I'd work for a year, pay down some of my student loan debt and regain my sanity, then plunge back into school the next fall.
It was a good plan. Okay, at least it wasn't a bad plan.
The only problem was, I forgot that grad school is not something you decide to do and just do in the spur of the moment. You have to plan ahead, waaaaay ahead, and do silly things like take the GRE and fill out a bunch of applications and ask a lot of people to write letters of recommendation and fill out the FAFSA. By the time I realized, Crap, I have to take the GRE and start looking at schools stat if I want to go to grad school in the fall! it was already early October. But the whole thought of that (and all the money it would require) was so overwhelming I procrastinated dealing with it. Finally, in early November I bit the bullet and went for it...but many of the places I was looking at had application deadlines on 1 December or in the middle of the month. If I wanted to even have a shot at applying to them I'd have to have my GRE results in to them by then, which means I'd have to take it in the middle of November at the latest. So I registered, paid my money (watching $175 go out of my bank account just for the pleasure of taking a test hurt a little bit), and took the test on 15 November at 8:00 in the morning.
I spent the lion's share of what little prep time I invested reviewing math concepts I was supposed to have mastered in middle school and the first couple years of high school. I'm sure this will not come as a shock to any who know me, but my mastery of math concepts basically stops at multiplication...if that. My grasp of even basic math was pretty rusty at best. I was not terribly worried about the vocabulary sections, since I knew about 90% of the words on the vocab lists in the prep book I borrowed from the library. (Let's face it, with my parents and my bookworm childhood, I'd be worried if I didn't.) Likewise, I was pretty confident about the analytic writing portion; if I managed to procrastinate every single paper I'd ever written at USU (some pretty spectacularly) and still not lose any points, I figured a half-hour to write one one-page essay was not going to be terribly taxing.
The morning of the GRE I wasn't feeling too bad about life. Nervous, but confident. I'd said my prayers, and I figured any Asian Studies program probably wasn't going to look too closely at my math score anyway so I'd be okay. The analytical writing section came first, and I felt like I did a good job on the two essay prompts I'd been given. I asked the Lord for the inspiration and guidance of the Spirit and for His help in doing my best, and I felt like I'd received it. I moved into my first math section feeling confident. (I didn't end it feeling confident, but that's a whole 'nother ball game.) The rest of the GRE went pretty quickly, especially the verbal sections -- I finished those with almost half the time to spare. The new computerized version of the GRE tells you your raw scores for the math and verbal sections as soon as you're done taking the test, so I knew I'd done okay with a 163 in verbal and a 154 in quantitative. I left feeling pretty upbeat, which was only confirmed when I looked up the table that converts your raw score into the percentile score grads schools use for admissions. I was 91st percentile in verbal and 60th in math, definitely good enough to satisfy admissions requirements. I was sure that when I got my writing scores I'd get a 5.0 or a 5.5 (out of 6.0) and be fine.
I realize that sounds incredibly cocky, but nothing in my education to that point had ever given me reason to disabuse myself of that notion, so you can imagine my utter shock when I opened my official scores Sunday morning to see a glaring "4.0 -- 49th %ile" staring back at me. I've never been hit with a 2x4 before, but I imagine the feeling of stunned bewilderment and disorientation is somewhat similar to how I felt at that moment. In case your math is as bad as mine, the 49th percentile is 21 percentage points shy of the 70 I needed to be admitted to the program I was most seriously considering, the Asian Studies MA at the University of Utah. The 49th percentile is average. Average. I went down to my room and sobbed.
The thing is, I realize that I'm being compared to other takers of the GRE, who are on average a smarter bunch of people (or at least better test-takers) than your average US citizen. I know that, I do. Yet I find it utterly incomprehensible that my math score could be higher than my writing score, ever. Maybe back when I was two and learning to count but couldn't read yet. Definitely not now, not after not taking any math class for more than two years and not having a "real" math class since my second semester at UTM taking college algebra (and I got a B, by the way) more than six years ago. I felt like calling up ETS then and there and demanding to know how the heck this had happened. But I'm a chicken so I didn't. Now I'm desperately scrambling to find a way to fix this and I feel like my life has just been knocked into a flat spin. This post, however, is getting long, so I'll talk more about that in my next post.
Not long ago I was talking to my dad on the phone. With a very few, rare exceptions this is an activity I enjoy immensely. While I no longer think my dad knows everything, he has the advantage of years of experience and has struggled with many of the same things I do. On this particular occasion we were discussing life, and how it never seems to go the way I want/expect/hope/plan for it to. I am hard-pressed to come up with even a single example of life working out that way. On the other hand, the list of things that have gone in a completely different direction than I thought they would is long.
During this talk with my dad, I brought up something a friend and I had been talking about previously, about how very little of what we want for ourselves seems to be what the Lord wants for us. We both confessed to being concerned about this -- are we too stubborn? too prideful? not in touch with the Spirit enough? Surely I should be concerned that every single big life-changing event in my life has included a long period of denial before I finally resigned myself to it, and that none of my life plans have unfolded remotely like I wanted them to.
"How fundamentally different my life is than I had sought to plan. My professional life has changed. My personal life has changed. But the commitment I made to the Lord -- to put Him first in my life and to be ready for whatever He would have me do -- has carried me through these changes of eternal importance... It never ceases to amaze me that even when we plan out our lives to match up what we think would please our Heavenly Father we very rarely get the plan quite right. It's a good thing he is willing to make changes to our plans even when we don't understand the changes. It allows us to grow and become so much more than we ever would have made of ourselves had we stuck to our original plan."
It struck me upon rereading it today: If an apostle of the Lord hasn't had his life work out the way he expected, I'm certainly in good company.
The difference is, I'm sure he has handled it with much more grace and faith than I have. Particularly lately. I have been struggling so much with finding purpose and direction in my life when I know whatever plans I make will ultimately just get interrupted or derailed. I struggle with flexibility and adapting myself and my goals to situations that are thrust upon me. I feel overwhelmed with the magnitude of the choices facing me and paralyzed at the thought of somehow screwing up and loosing opportunities I desperately want, personally and professionally. But, as my father has told me repeatedly throughout my life, making no choice is still making a choice. The irony of the situation is that by procrastinating or shelving making decisions I end up losing all the opportunities before me I'm delaying having to decide on and am forced to choose things I would never have wanted for myself.
The truth is that no one's life works out exactly the way they thought it would, because no one can know what's waiting for them just ahead, invisible around the bend in the road. We cannot control the decisions of others or the Lord's timing, both of which have tremendous impact on our lives.
However, Elder Oaks addressed this in another version of those same remarks:
"Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ prepares us for whatever life brings. This kind of faith prepares us to deal with life's opportunities -- to take advantage of those that are received and to persist through the disappointments of those that are lost. In the exercise of that faith, we should commit ourselves to the priorities and standards we will follow on matters we do not control and persist faithfully in those commitments, whatever happens to us because of the agency of others or the timing of the Lord. When we do this, we will have a constancy in our lives that will give us direction and peace. Whatever the circumstances beyond our control, our commitments and standards can be constant."
As much as I'm resisting what I'm being taught, I know that this is what I'm supposed to be learning. To let go of my rigid, detailed expectations and trust that the Lord knows what is best for me, and the best time for those best things for me.
"It is not enough that we are going in the right direction. The timing must be right, and if the time is not right, our actions should be adjusted to the Lord's timetable."
Not that that faith and trust is a passive thing. It requires me to make those preparations so that I can take the opportunities that the Lord would have me pursue. And I also need to remember something my father said wrote:
"The lesson for me is that, certainly the Lord shapes us, but he does so chiefly within the circumstances we are handed and we choose. He helps us make the best choices based on his vision and our willingness to be shaped and to be patient. The lesson is that “this is a test,” and that as a test, it will hurt sometimes. In the end, however, the atonement is large enough to “wipe away all tears.”"
I'm a little mad at the world right now. Doesn't that sound so petulant? Sadly, I think petulant -- "childishly sulky or bad-tempered" -- is the most appropriate word for my attitude right now. I shared yesterday about my "compelled to be humble" experience, but apparently I'm still struggling with the humility, because the logical and grown-up part of me is rather appalled at the bad attitude of the rest of me. And it isn't that impressed with stupid excuses I'm making, either. See, the thing is, the solution to my current situation is simple. It involves getting a job. As it was pointed out to me yesterday, people who are much less qualified and much less intelligent than I am have jobs, so obviously my hang up is not getting a job, but getting a job that I want to get. The humility part of this is in acknowledging the truth of that statement. Admitting it's true puts responsibility for my current state of unemployed-bum-hood squarely on my own shoulders and breaks up the little pity party I'm throwing for myself. People will feel sorry for you if your woes are inflicted on you by the Universe or the vagaries of the economy, but they tend to be much less sympathetic when it's your own fault. The cause of all this stubborn pride is an assumption that's been lurking in the back of my brain for years and years -- probably since I was old enough to realize that "one day" I'd be grown-up and out of school -- that my life at 25 would include a husband, a kid or two, a house, and me at home taking care of all of them. I went through a "I want to be a fighter pilot / astronaut / ballerina when I grow up" phase, but by high school I knew I wanted to be a domestic engineer -- a stay-at-home mom. It wasn't that I didn't have any dreams, or that I was somehow less ambitious than girls who wanted to be doctors or the next president of the United States or small business owners. (See this for a fantastic post on the topic.) I firmly believe that the greatest good I'll ever do and the highest calling I'll ever have is as a wife and mother. That doesn't preclude any other contributions to society, of course. But all I have to say on that subject is a post for another day. The main point is that I never expected to find myself in this position. I don't really want to be in this position, either. It's not that I don't want to do other things, because I do. I'd love to be able to travel all over the world. I'd love to live in a big city here in the States for a while, maybe NYC or DC, and explore all it has to offer in the way of food and museums and parks. I'd be ecstatic to move back to Korea and eat all the Korean food I ever want and finally become fluent. I want to have an environmentally friendly car, a small but nice house with a yard someplace safe and quiet, all my student loans paid off and a nice cushion in the bank, a fantastic bed, and one room in my house devoted totally to books. I most definitely do not want to stay here in Logan and work some boring job that isn't very stimulating, rewarding personally or financially, or likely to set me on the fast track to some amazing career if I don't end up getting married and having a family. I don't want to be paying off my student loans until my oldest child is 16. I don't want to live 1.5 hours from the nearest city and have no car. I don't want to live in any more apartments or in someone else's home. I want my life to follow my plan for it. But it just doesn't work that way, and sulking about it isn't going to change anything. The AnnMarie I dreamed up when I was 12 doesn't exist. She never existed. She's never going to exist. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, and being jealous of someone else's opportunities is not very becoming. Neither is refusing to deal with reality. It's one thing to realize all that intellectually, and quite another to actually believe it and act accordingly. Of course I knew all this, I'm not stupid or totally ignorant of the way the world works. I certainly don't lack examples of these principles. If I came to me with my attitude, I'd've given me the same dressing down I got yesterday. Quit whining and just get a job, moron. Unhappy with a paycheck is better than unhappy without one. (I paraphrase.) At least then you'll be able to pay your bills and be independent. Life is unpredictable. I think that's been pretty well established, and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It shouldn't come as a surprise, either, that sometimes the best experiences of our lives grow out of other experiences we might not be so thrilled about having. We lack the perspective to see, in the moment, how our difficulties and challenges will make us better people and perhaps even bring us greater blessings than we could have ever imagined. I am reminded of a Chinese proverb I learned in some of my classes at USU: 塞翁失馬焉知非福 (Saiweng Shima, Yanzhi Feifu). Since that probably means nothing to 99.9% of you, I'll share the story of the old man who lost his horse. (There are several different versions of the story, but the one I quote here you can find here.) "During the Han Dynasty—in the third century B.C.—an old man living on China’s border one day lost his horse. His neighbors all said what terrible luck that was, and sympathized with the old man. But Sai Weng said: “Maybe losing my horse is not a bad thing after all.” Lo and behold, the next day the old man’s horse returned, together with a beautiful female horse alongside him. All the neighbors exclaimed: “What great luck!” But the old man responded: “Maybe this is not such good luck after all.” The old man had a strong young son. The boy fell in love with the new horse and rode her every day. One day the new horse got spooked by a wild animal and threw the boy from her back. He broke his leg very badly and was permanently crippled. All Sai Weng’s neighbors said: “What a tragedy, your strong son will never walk without pain again.” But the old man again said: “Maybe this is not such a bad thing after all.” And so it went that when the New Year came, the emperor’s army passed through the border region and recruited all able young men to fight in the frontier war. Because the old man’s son was crippled he could not fight and was left in the village to farm with his father. Sai Weng said to his neighbors: “You see, it all turned out okay in the end. Being thrown from the horse and breaking his leg saved my son from fighting in the war and almost certain death. So it was in the end a lucky thing after all.”" I admit, I don't like it. I'm not thrilled about possibly having to get a job doing something I don't love. I'm not excited about staying in Logan. I'm not happy at maybe having to spend the next ten years of my life making small payments on my student loans and worrying about insurance and living in rented apartments or rooms. I'm mad at myself for not doing unpleasant things earlier that would have put me in a better position right now, financially, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, educationally. I hate the thought that I might never get the life I think I want right now. I'm still feeling stubborn about it all. It's not like my attitude about all of this is going to change overnight, but I hope some of the compelled humility will worm its way into my perspective and I'll be more willing to do what I need to, rather than stubbornly holding out for what I want.
I have a talent for wallowing in self-pity. I'm not totally sure if this little character quirk is a factory default, or if it's one of the bugs I've acquired sometime in the last quarter-century of life. In any case, it's mine to deal with now, and I've noticed I'm all too prone to it. Mopiness is something of an automatic reaction to difficulties in my life. It's as if, when the little avatar in your Nintendo game runs into a brick wall, it sits down and pouts rather than backing up and trying to find a way over, around, under, or through it.
At various times in my life I've handled it better than others. I usually do best when I have a clear goal in mind--a reason to scale that brick wall, if you will. But all too often I find myself (metaphorically, of course) sitting at its base, depressed about how I can't get over it. This point in my life is the latter. For the first time in my life I find myself without a clear goal or milestone toward which to work. I'm out of high school (thank heavens), I moved out of the house, been on a mission, finally finished college--now what? Obviously, the two big choices are a career and marriage. I can't make the second happen all on my own (something about other people having agency or some such crazy notion), and I'm surprisingly unsure about the first.
"All Blues" by Miles Davis
After moving past the "I want to be a ballerina! An astronaut! Robin Hood! The President of the United States! A movie director!" stage, I finally settled on one day becoming a college professor. Thanks to my father's career, my family has always lived in a college town, and I love the atmosphere of education and learning that imbues them. My family went to museums and libraries the same way other kids went to sports games and amusement parks. (Literally. Never once did my family go to an amusement park; I remember we went to a water park once, though, when I was five or so. But we went to plenty of museums and galleries and art fairs and libraries.) I'm confident I still want to live in such an environment, and perhaps one day it would be lovely to teach at a university, but I can't really see myself doing the five or six or eight more years of school necessary to get a degree and be qualified to teach. At least not right now. Plus, your chances of being hired fresh out of your Ph.D. program at the moment are dismal.
There are a few things I am confident about. First, I want to help people. Not necessarily large groups of people; I think I work best and feel most fulfilled when I work with people in small groups or one-on-one. I also would like to work with people who need opportunities, or opportunities to take advantage of opportunities. My experience in Korea and my studies have helped me see that I have the desire and perhaps the skills to work with immigrants and refugees, a group of people who definitely fall under the "people who need opportunities" heading. Second, I'm not too worried about making scads of money, which is lucky for me. I don't think working with immigrants and refugees will make you big bucks. What I really want out of a career is personal fulfillment. I've worked jobs just to make money, and almost always I was miserable. I don't need to be rich, I just need to eat, have a place to sleep, be able to do a few fun things, keep clothes on my back, and be able to pay off my student loans. Third, I'm pretty sure I want to somehow be able to use my Korean language skills and cultural experience at some point. I didn't spend all that time and shed all those tears learning Korean just to watch Korean dramas and rock out to Kpop. Lastly, I'd like to go into a field or at least develop skills that will allow me to eventually become a full-time mother, while also allowing me to still contribute and serve.
"Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin
So you can see that my problem and my opportunity are exactly the same thing: a very broad idea of what I want to do with my life. It affords me an incredible amount of flexibility to pursue whatever might present itself, but at the same time it's so broad that trying to decide which direction to go feels rather like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant. There's lot of water to slake your thirst, sure, but it knocks you flat on your back in the process and not that much water ends up in your mouth, anyway. (Disclaimer: I have never actually attempted drinking from a fire hydrant, that's just what I imagine would happen if you did try.)
Back to the "wallowing in self-pity" thing. Being the Type A person that I am, I'm more prone to see my situation as a problem than as an opportunity. That part of me demands I find the "perfect" opportunity that will meet all my wants and needs and set me up for life. The realistic part of me rolls its eyes at the Type A part of me and sarcastically remarks that that's a load of bull and totally impossible in the bargain. That just makes the Type A part of me curl up in a metaphorical corner of my mind and start whimpering. This is about the time I start the "woe is me" song and dance. Then the self doubt part of me gets in on the party and starts a whole refrain about how I haven't really done anything and don't have a lot of experience and why would anyone want to hire me (etc, etc, ad infinitum)? By this time, just to get away from all the arguing and the massive pity party going on in my head, I've decided to give into another of my vices, procrastination, and deal with it "later" by going to watch a TV show or a kdrama. Thus dooming myself to a repeat performance sometime down the line, without ever solving anything.
"Blue" by Big Bang
I realize that some of you (if you've made it this far) are asking yourselves, "What is this woman's problem? Stop whining and just do something already!" Trust me, you're not thinking anything I haven't already thought myself, many times over. But just like you don't understand why I don't just "do something", I don't understand why some people can never remember when to use fewer instead of less. My point is, we all have our own struggles. I'm not debating that I should get out and do something--I'm really working on it. I'm working on not wallowing in self pity. I'm working on seeing things in a positive light and taking steps to do something. What I'm saying is overcoming this part of me is a real challenge in my life, just like trying to control your chocolate cravings or your swearing habit is a challenge in yours. It's not going to change overnight. Maybe not even in a few years. Maybe it'll take my whole lifetime, and I'll still struggle with it when I'm eighty. (I really, really hope not.) But I'm resolving to do better, from this point on.
The world has been weighing heavily on my mind and heart lately. I'm sure if you've been reading this blog recently you know that the question of What Happens After Graduation has been on my mind a lot. That stress, plus the stress of trying to find a job for before graduation (you know, so I can pay my rent and feed myself and all that trivial stuff), some good ol' fashioned chemical and hormonal imbalances in my brain, and other random stressful things have all been wrecking havoc on my piece of mind.
Tonight after pouring my heart out in a rather desperate prayer, I felt prompted to open my scriptures, and this is what I read:
"HEARKEN unto the voice of the Lord your God, while I speak unto you . . . my daughter; for verily I say unto you, all those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my kingdom.
"A revelation I give unto you concerning my will; and if thou art faithful and walk in the paths of virtue before me, I will preserve thy life, and thou shalt receive an inheritance in Zion.
"Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called.
"Murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen, for they are withheld from thee and from the world, which is wisdom in me in a time to come."
I'm grateful that the Lord has preserved His words so that we can read them today. I'm grateful that the Spirit can make those words, spoken in another time and place to another person, completely relevant and powerful to me in my life, just as if those words were spoken directly and solely to me. It seems a fantastical claim, but I know that it's true that God knows each and every one of His children - that would be all of mankind - intimately and personally. Furthermore, I know He has a plan for each of us, a plan meant to make us the best and the happiest we can be. And I know that by embracing the gospel and following that plan that "the best and the happiest we can be" is so much more than anything we could ever possibly imagine.
I need to get a handle on my life. This I-don't-know-what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-my-life deal is stressing me out to the point of mini panic attacks when I think about it. Which, obviously, does not help me deal with things at all, since I tend to compulsively avoid things that cause me stress. Which, as a friend once pointed out to me, only makes the stress more stressful, because when you finally get back to what was stressing you you now have less time to deal with it. But the older I get, the more my Type A need to have control over things is frustrated by the increasing complexity of the multitude of variables that makes up my life.
It's okay, though. I can take a step back, take a deep breath, and explore my options. I'm not completely alone in this; not only are there lots of people at the school and in church who are trained to help with these kinds of things, the Lord will help me - if I ask for it and I'm willing to work to help myself. I just need to keep that in mind.
That's the question I'm asking myself right now. I'm graduating from college (finally!) in May, and I don't really have a plan for after. I have a broad, this-is-what-I'd-like-to-do idea, but for the first time in my life, I'm really not sure where I'm going to be in six months. Oh, there have been periods of a few months when I was at loose ends, but this time I'm looking at a big, fat question mark right over the part of my future labeled "the rest of your life".
People keep asking me, "Asian Studies? What are you going to do with that?" I'm rather sick of that question, to be honest. I understand why people ask it - who really knows an Asian Studies major, after all? - but it's annoying when I don't know myself. And then there are those who have a thin, polite veneer over their "What a useless degree!" faces when they ask it, which is even more annoying.
The only real, concrete goal I've ever had for my life is unattainable at the moment. I'm working toward it, but it's not something I can achieve on my own. In the meantime, I have to do something with my life. I have a feeling my parents aren't that anxious to let me live at home while I spend my days watching dramas and waiting for "someday". I can't say that I'm that anxious to do that, either.
Why are we so quick to embrace the worst about ourselves? Where does it say that who we are at our worst is a more valid who I am than who we are at our best? Aren't we more often somewhere in between? Why is it that when I do something truly good or self-sacrificing, I brush it off as an anomaly, but when I lose my temper and yell at someone, I wallow in how horrible I am for days?
I've been rolling around this idea of identity for the last week or so. Is who I am defined by what I do? I balk at saying a child is "bad" simply because they misbehaved. But I think most would agree that Pol Pot or Stalin or Hitler were bad, if not downright evil. Obviously these are two sides of the extreme. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.
I think the relationship is more complicated than a simple one-to-one correlation between being and doing. Intent has to weigh in there somewhere, too. Isn't intent the whole distinction between manslaughter and murder one? The outcome is the same no matter what you call it: someone is still dead. But in the eyes of the law, why you killed them is just as important as the fact that you did.
There's no denying that what you do impacts who you are, but I don't think it defines you. I'm not sure exactly what it is that does define you, but I'm sure it's not as simple as one aspect of life.
Still jobless. Still place-to-live-less. Still carless. BUT! Purposeless no longer.
A couple of days ago, Tuesday to be exact (that would be 9 August), I finally decided what I'm going to do after I graduate next year.
I'm going to Korea, people.
Crossing the Han River running through the middle of Seoul in the morning on the train
Ever since April, when the whole question of what I was going to do after I (finally!) graduate in May 2012 first presented itself to my mind, I've been worrying this like a dog with a bone. Should I go to graduate school in the fall? In America? In Korea? What about working for a year and paying off a good chunk of my student loans? In America? In Korea? What the heck would I go to graduate school for, anyway? Something to do with Korea, yes, but what? Literature? Language? International politics? Should I try to work for the government? Should I teach? What should I do? Underneath this whole debate was the fact that I very much want to start a family - preferably before I die of old age. Or, you know, I turn 30. And let's face it, the odds of finding someone to marry in Korea are much smaller than they are in Utah, or even in the DC area (which is where I was contemplating going to grad school).
Kimchi pots at the historical village Minseokcheon
I finally took the question to the temple when I went on Tuesday. As I sat in the celestial room after thinking about it from many different angles, I concluded that there were really two things I want in life: First, I want to have a family and live with them in such a way that we can be together forever. Second, I want to serve the people in Korea in some fashion. Right now, I don't have control over the first one. But I do have control over the second one. And honestly, I don't want to do the "responsible thing" and go to graduate school; I want to go to Korea. This whole debate was ultimately just that: a debate between what I wanted to do and what I thought I should do. When I finally decided to go with my heart over my head, I felt so much better. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not open to a change of plans. I still trust that God, possessing the Big Picture, knows what's best for me better than I can. And so I'm willing to make a course correction if I need to. But at the same time, who's to say that what's best for me isn't going to Korea? Just because the odds of finding someone to marry in Korea are small doesn't mean that I won't find someone; after all, if that person is in Korea, it doesn't matter how good my odds are here, because he's somewhere else.
So there you have it. That's my plan. I'm still not solid on any of the specifics, like when exactly I'll go, or if I'll teach English or go to grad school in Seoul, or even if I might end up doing something else entirely. But I'm going. And I feel good about that. ^_^
Looking down on Seoul from one of the surrounding mountains
I've been thinking a lot recently about what I want. Lately my head has been such a mess that it's been driving me crazy, thinking about what people are thinking about me not having a job yet and not having found a place to live next semester yet, etc, etc, ad infinitum. Sometimes I wonder if they think I'm just being lazy for the heck of it, "freeloading" off my grandparents, like my grandpa sometimes accuses me of doing. It boggles my mind to think that some people really think I enjoy being like this, or that I don't know just how much of a loser I'm being, and so feel compelled to point it out to me. Trust me, I am infinitely more intimately acquainted with the situation than anyone else. Except maybe God. But anyway.
So, I've been thinking about what I want. The thing is...I'm not sure what that is. I have long term goals - I want to have a family, I want to live in Korea, I want to help the people of the world somehow - but the problem is, I don't have short-term goals to act as stepping stones to get to those long term goals. I don't know what to do. I don't know where I'm heading, exactly. Honestly, beyond the desire to have a family, I don't really have any other specific goals at all, really.
Thinking about all this has been making my head spin around and around until it literally gives me a headache. One morning I was in the shower, and I started thinking about all the things I've been pondering the last month or so: getting a job, paying for school, paying off my loans, finding a place to live, my relationship with my grandparents, my complete lack of any romantic relationships (ever in my life), domestic politics, international politics, feeling almost guilty about being full when millions of people are starving, using running water so casually when millions don't even have it, various and sundry character flaws, graduate school, taking the GRE, studying for the GRE, whether or not I should go to Korea and work a year before starting graduate school, contemplating what the heck I'm going to do with my life...etc. After a half-hour+ of this (I take long showers), I was ready to scream and desperate to find a way to just SHUT IT OFF already. I told a friend once that I felt like all my worries were roped together, and every time I started trying to think about one in an effort to find a solution, it gave the whole string a tug and everything came crashing into my brain all at once. It's enough to make one go insane.
I think I could handle all of this a little better if it wasn't for the fact that in the last year my entire life has totally changed. I moved all the way across the country into a very different cultural setting, left behind all my friends and my comfort zone, radically changed my educational environment and my expectations for my future, and live in an environment fraught with emotional pitfalls and guilt trips. My response to it all hasn't really done a lot to make me love and admire myself, which in turns feeds the cycle of think-get overwhelmed-avoid-reap the consequences-self loathe-repeat. And yet, I don't think much of all of that shows on the surface, except for maybe as it manifests as a bad attitude, increased touchiness and sensitivity, and an increased penchant for snapping at people and using hurtful sarcasm.
I need to find my iPod and start running again. Maybe that will help me sort out my head a bit and give me a little motivation to be up and doing. Only, I haven't seen my iPod in two weeks...I hope it didn't get stolen. ~sigh~
I am driving up 85 in the kind of morning that lasts all afternoon just stuck inside the gloom
Four more exits to my apartment but I am tempted to keep the car in drive and leave it all behind
Cause I wonder sometimes about the outcome of a still verdictless life
Am I living it right? Am I living it right? Am I living it right? Why, why Georgia, why?
I rent a room and I fill the spaces with wood in places to make it feel like home but all I feel's alone It might be a quarter life crisis or just the stirring in my soul
Either way, I wonder sometimes about the outcome of a still verdictless life
Am I living it right? Am I living it right? Am I living it right? Why, why Georgia, why?
So what, so I've got a smile on me but it's hiding the quiet superstitions in my head Don't believe me Don't believe me When I say I've got it down
Everybody is just a stranger but that's the danger in going my own way I guess it's the price I have to pay still "Everything happens for a reason" is no reason not to ask myself
Am I living it right? Am I living it right? Am I living it right? Why, why Georgia, why?
People keep asking me what I want to do with my degree, and the truth is, I really don't know. But people don't want to hear that you're almost 25 and have no life plan.
The thing is, I did have a life plan. It's just that life didn't work out according to it, and now I'm scrambling to make a new one. In a world where everything worked out according to how I would like it to, I'd get married, move to Korea for a few years, have some kids, and work from home with a partner writing dramas that would be amazingly well-accepted critically as well as popularly. And then (to placate my mother and sooth her fears that her grandchildren wouldn't speak English if we lived in Korea) we'd move back to the States for a bit and live somewhere not too far away from my family so my sister and I can have our kids play together. And everyone would be happy and everything would be peachy and my husband and I would retire and have cute grandkids to spoil and serve a mission and just have a lot of fun.
Of course, I think the actuality might end up just a teeny bit different. But just a teeny bit.
I've become increasing more anxious over the last month or so, as I've been thinking about the future. I always thought I knew what I wanted to do, but I'm finding out as I'm studying at USU that I'm less and less sure. I've been so focused on just graduating from college for the last six years that I'd never really worried about what would happen after. Or I just assumed I'd be married by the time I graduated so I'd transition naturally into what I really want to do with my life: being a mother. Well, graduation is getting closer and my marital prospects are still in the "extremely slim to nonexistent" category, and I find myself faced with having to do something after graduation. The problem is, now I'm not so sure what that is.
Should I go to graduate school? If so, which one? And for what? And what's my end goal, that I'd go to graduate school to become or accomplish? Should I take a year off and work? Where? Should I go to Korea and teach English and gain more cultural and language experience while paying off my school loans? Should I go to Korea for graduate school? And how do I avoid becoming too focused on my career in the interim before I get married and start a family, while at the same time working hard and providing for myself and my family's future?
All of this makes me just the teensiest bit anxious. Or more than a teensy bit.
Fall has been lovely this year. It's hard to believe that it's the middle of November; it's been unusually warm and bright this year. Green leaves have lingered on the trees far longer than I can ever remember them doing so before. Of course, I've mostly experienced it through the window, since I spend the majority of my time at home with B, but I still appreciate the sunny days and the splendid view outside.
It's hard to imagine that five weeks from now I'll be leaving this area for good, at least for the foreseeable future. (What a funny phrase that is -- how much of the future is actually foreseeable? None of it, really.) I'm not really thrilled about starting all over -- again. In the last five years, since I left home to come to SJC, I haven't lived in the same four walls for longer than six or seven months. Moving yet again isn't exactly thrilling, as I said, but hopefully I can stay in one place for at least a year and a half this time, while I (finally!!) finish up my undergraduate degree. I've even decided not to reapply for the CLS program and try to go back to Korea next summer, which I would love.
I'm nervous about starting over, honestly. I don't think I'm good at making good first impressions, or friends, for that matter. I think I am a good friend, at least I try to be, but I always find the initial stages very difficult. I think part of it is that I lack confidence that I'm an interesting person, someone that other people would voluntarily choose to be around. It's amazing how far-reaching the effects of a few years and some bad experiences in elementary and middle school can have. Plus, being a 24-year-old junior in college, when most people my age have already graduated and gone on to jobs or graduate school or families, doesn't exactly make me feel better.
But I am grateful to be moving closer to my extended family. It's been a decade since I've lived in Utah, and almost four years since I've been back; it will be good to see my cousins, uncles and aunts, and grandparents again, and more regularly. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to save money and help my grandparents out at the same time, as well as the chance to be in a place where the influence of the Church is strong, learn about my family history, and take the time to learn about Church history more thoroughly. Not to mention, I have the chance to study what I want to study. (Though sadly, despite Korean being in the USU catalog, they don't actually offer those classes at the moment.) Who knows what other opportunities lie waiting for me to discover them?
