Such a long time it has been since I posted last. I think I failed to finish my stories from the Sturgis trip, but I'll come back to that eventually. I had to set that aside for a while because when I got back from South Dakota the defecation really hit the ventilation with my boyfriend and he asked me to move out, so I did, and shortly thereafter he broke up with me. I have since been relearning how to be alone and how to be single. Some days I love it; other days I cry for the loneliness in my heart. I found a studio apartment in Chicopee, just a few miles from my old Alma Mater, Mount Holyoke, and moved in on October 1, 2010, just a few weeks after beginning my new not-job (it's technically a "service position") as an AmeriCorps Legal Assistant at a Legal Services office in Springfield.
For the past five months I've been helping impoverished immigrants file pettions for legal status in the U.S. and most of my clients have been women who are victims of domestic violence. It's an incredibly difficult job, emotionally, but not especially challenging mentally, so I've slowly grown to dislike it. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful to have a job in this difficult economy and the people I work with are wonderful, but I've decided in my heart that I was not cut out to be a lawyer, as cool as it might be to put "Esquire" after my name.
I had a bit of an existential crisis this morning, as recent college graduates are wont to do. In my heart, I know I want to cook and to go to culinary school and learn to be a great chef, but I haven't yet accepted the drawbacks that come with that particular territory: low pay, grueling hours and no days off, no health insurance or benefits, very little room for career advancement especially in the current economy, etc. I know that becoming a lawyer or getting another desk job would have its own drawbacks, though: I wouldn't be as passionate about it, probably, it wouldn't be as much fun, I run the risk of becoming bitter and cynical in a job I might hate, and I'd be doing something for the money because I'm up to my eyeballs in student loan debt, not because I'm following my heart. Plus, sitting in a desk chair all day is wreaking havoc on my back.
I ended up having a decent day at work, which was encouraging, but I haven't made much progress on deciding what I want to do with my future. Do I apply for a second year with AmeriCorps because it's easy and safe and I can postpone/help pay off my student loans and put off making a real decision for another year? Or do I decide I can't take it any more and have to woman up and find a new job? Grad school is another option on the table, but I'm just not ready to go back to school yet, I don't think. Got a pep talk from my best friend from high school, Kyle, and feel a lot less panicked now, but eventually I have to decide, and eventually I have to tell my father about it. Horrors.
I had a dream a couple weeks ago that was a sequel to Mary Poppins all drawn in anime, including a flashback prequel to how she became a nanny and met Bert. I gotta lay off the sauce.
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