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Aug. 19th, 2012 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lesmisloonyI feel good again.
Well, physically I'm absolutely suffering because it's been about 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the past several days and air conditioning barely exists here. Thank the sweet Lord I have a fan in my room, but right now I'm in a chair with the fan blowing straight at me on high and there's still so much sweat rolling down my legs it makes me wonder if I peed myself. It seems so dumb to me that people here don't have air conditioning in their homes. I spend the whole day feeling light-handed and chugging water.
The problem with my life is, I'm more socially lazy than anyone I know, because to be more socially lazy than me you're probably a hermit and NOBODY knows you. Given the smallest opportunity, I will spend any day in pyjamas. It's Sunday and I haven't left this house since Wednesday and that was only because I'd completely run out of food. I'm kind of proud of that, actually.
HOWEVER, that's not a good way to be when you want to start a new life for yourself and make new friends and stuff. I could have made new friends here if I'd been more outgoing and pushy or whatever, but I'm not wired that way. For me, there's "best friends for LIIIFE" and "acquaintances", and I feel weirdly abandoned by anyone in an in-between category.
When I was a little kid, my parents pressured me into joining a local soccer team. I thought the sport was okay, but obviously I wasn't athletic so I seem to recall I spent most of my time wandering around on the field, more interested in the CapriSuns we were going to get at half time than who was winning the game. The other kids were cruel to me, constantly telling me how much they wanted me to quit and how I was the most useless person on the team. I left practices and games alike in tears, and at the end of every season my concerned mother would pull me aside and ask if I was sure I still wanted to play. I would always say yes, just because I didn't want those girls to have their way and get to play without me. One year I finally realized that I was making myself miserable and changed my mind. I never regretted leaving that team, but it was hard for me to admit that, deep down, I did want to. I wasn't as strong as I wanted to be.
That's what's happening here in Paris, in a way. The world acted like I wouldn't be able to do it and I should give up, and in my determination to prove them wrong I stopped thinking about what I wanted.
The last time I left Paris, I didn't want to. I came back to muggy, humid North Carolina and found myself in a living situation I couldn't afford with no idea what my next move should be and no desire to move forward when, as far as I knew, my glamorous groupie life was on the other side of the ocean. So I fought and I dragged myself back over here, only to find that my groupie life wasn't in Paris, it was in the past. Not only did I find that out, but I learned that as a foreigner my rights to employment were limited, and as a product of the American education system I was considered borderline talentless. According to my host family, kids start figuring out what career they want in high school and they study the same subject straight through to their masters or higher, then funnel directly into the job and stay there for life. According to them, my being a college graduate with a broad area of study and no clue what I wanted my life to be was abnormal. It wasn't until recently that I remembered that that mindset was pretty much specific to what I've seen since coming here, and in the US people in their 20's are still considered young and are told they have time to make mistakes and figure things out. I'm 23, and my host family was nagging me about how I needed to find a career and start planning to have a family! (We won't get into how I've never wanted a family and always been skeptical of the idea of marriage right now.)
So yeah. Maybe I'll perk up working for a new family this year, but it won't change the fact that I'm lonely, unwilling to invest in making new friends, and blocked from the locals by both differences communication and background. Here I'm already expected to have marketable skills at my age, so unless I want to get into many years of schooling surrounded by younger people, I'm only slightly qualified for a couple of jobs, and even in those situations I will immediately be passed over in the event that a French person or EU citizen could do it instead.
Worse, I've never been a great student, and here I would have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get a masters because the classes and coursework would be in French. My knowledge of French is an amazing advantage in the US and a crippling disability here.
NOT TO MENTION AIR CONDITIONING EXISTS IN THE UNITED STATES. JESUS CHRIST I'M MELTING.
I've been crying over missing my friends since... late May, I think?
I don't know when I decided New York City was my dream... it must have been about the time I first saw Les Mis on Broadway, when I was... 14? Then when I was 18 I spent a week there with just my friend--my first big trip without my parents, planned and financed entirely by me!--and after that I was obsessed. Everyone told me it was hard to "make it" in New York but, stubborn me, I was going to prove them all wrong as soon as I graduated.
Except then I accidently a France. France and MOR and Flo and a D-list celebrity who wanted to bang me! Obviously I wanted to keep all that attention and positive feedback and admiration and stuff. But then I found out the hard way that that stuff wasn't coming from France, it was coming from the Troupe and MOR fans. And that's done. Now I'm just another immigrant, literally a second-class citizen.
Ever since I decided to consider going back to the US and taking on NYC with my girls, my whole mood has changed. I keep thinking of things I would be able to do there: Halloween, for instance, and AIR CONDITIONING UGHH THIS IS INHUMANE and buying groceries I recognize and shopping at stores that carry my size and just everything, oh gosh. Spending Christmas with my family.
Do I hate Paris now? Absolutely not! How could I? Will I miss it? Almost definitely.
Is going back the right choice for me right now? I feel pretty sure that it is.
Then I found out that NYU is the number one ranked school for getting a masters in translation... so I made up my mind. I can't stop thinking about how great it will be to be in my own country again, surrounded by people I love and capable of hugging my mom and petting her stupid dog Flossie till she pees all over the driveway.
My mom is trying to pretend to be very level-headed about this decision, but I can tell she's absolutely freaking out with excitement and relief at the idea of having one of her kids back (my brother has gone to Chile to teach English, and he's currently got one week to find new housing or he'll end up on the street, plus he already spent all his money on concert tickets or something and can't afford food, also did I mention he doesn't speak Spanish?).
I'll miss this city. I'll miss the métro. I'll miss muesli crostillant cereal and cheap fancy cheeses and weird animals being served up as acceptable dinner meat. I'll miss Flo constantly. But it's not worth it. I've frankly been unhappy for months now, and this decision is what's turning my mood around at last. So I guess I was right when I figured everything happens for a reason, and there was a HUGE reason for me not to get into a masters program this year: not only was I unprepared for housing and financial aid and part-time job things, but I also didn't have it in me to set up a future so far away from my people. I never would have imagined that it was the idea of making a life for myself in Paris that was making me cry myself to sleep all the time, but that's what happens to us stubborn kids. We don't want people to think we're giving in.
Did I tell you, I'm in the process of dumping the first host family I agreed to after having been contacted by one with two kids instead of four that will give me my own apartment that's so far away from their home that they're going to give me a meal plan as well? So I'll get that apartment in Paris after all. Just... maybe not the venus flytrap and cactus, unless someone wants to adopt them from me when I move out. Or I could go illegally plant them in a park somewhere... haha.
Anyway, now I'm getting together a Europe bucket list, and London and Vienna are definitely on there. I hope I can get that stuff done without blowing all my savings on travel!
Well, physically I'm absolutely suffering because it's been about 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the past several days and air conditioning barely exists here. Thank the sweet Lord I have a fan in my room, but right now I'm in a chair with the fan blowing straight at me on high and there's still so much sweat rolling down my legs it makes me wonder if I peed myself. It seems so dumb to me that people here don't have air conditioning in their homes. I spend the whole day feeling light-handed and chugging water.
The problem with my life is, I'm more socially lazy than anyone I know, because to be more socially lazy than me you're probably a hermit and NOBODY knows you. Given the smallest opportunity, I will spend any day in pyjamas. It's Sunday and I haven't left this house since Wednesday and that was only because I'd completely run out of food. I'm kind of proud of that, actually.
HOWEVER, that's not a good way to be when you want to start a new life for yourself and make new friends and stuff. I could have made new friends here if I'd been more outgoing and pushy or whatever, but I'm not wired that way. For me, there's "best friends for LIIIFE" and "acquaintances", and I feel weirdly abandoned by anyone in an in-between category.
When I was a little kid, my parents pressured me into joining a local soccer team. I thought the sport was okay, but obviously I wasn't athletic so I seem to recall I spent most of my time wandering around on the field, more interested in the CapriSuns we were going to get at half time than who was winning the game. The other kids were cruel to me, constantly telling me how much they wanted me to quit and how I was the most useless person on the team. I left practices and games alike in tears, and at the end of every season my concerned mother would pull me aside and ask if I was sure I still wanted to play. I would always say yes, just because I didn't want those girls to have their way and get to play without me. One year I finally realized that I was making myself miserable and changed my mind. I never regretted leaving that team, but it was hard for me to admit that, deep down, I did want to. I wasn't as strong as I wanted to be.
That's what's happening here in Paris, in a way. The world acted like I wouldn't be able to do it and I should give up, and in my determination to prove them wrong I stopped thinking about what I wanted.
The last time I left Paris, I didn't want to. I came back to muggy, humid North Carolina and found myself in a living situation I couldn't afford with no idea what my next move should be and no desire to move forward when, as far as I knew, my glamorous groupie life was on the other side of the ocean. So I fought and I dragged myself back over here, only to find that my groupie life wasn't in Paris, it was in the past. Not only did I find that out, but I learned that as a foreigner my rights to employment were limited, and as a product of the American education system I was considered borderline talentless. According to my host family, kids start figuring out what career they want in high school and they study the same subject straight through to their masters or higher, then funnel directly into the job and stay there for life. According to them, my being a college graduate with a broad area of study and no clue what I wanted my life to be was abnormal. It wasn't until recently that I remembered that that mindset was pretty much specific to what I've seen since coming here, and in the US people in their 20's are still considered young and are told they have time to make mistakes and figure things out. I'm 23, and my host family was nagging me about how I needed to find a career and start planning to have a family! (We won't get into how I've never wanted a family and always been skeptical of the idea of marriage right now.)
So yeah. Maybe I'll perk up working for a new family this year, but it won't change the fact that I'm lonely, unwilling to invest in making new friends, and blocked from the locals by both differences communication and background. Here I'm already expected to have marketable skills at my age, so unless I want to get into many years of schooling surrounded by younger people, I'm only slightly qualified for a couple of jobs, and even in those situations I will immediately be passed over in the event that a French person or EU citizen could do it instead.
Worse, I've never been a great student, and here I would have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get a masters because the classes and coursework would be in French. My knowledge of French is an amazing advantage in the US and a crippling disability here.
NOT TO MENTION AIR CONDITIONING EXISTS IN THE UNITED STATES. JESUS CHRIST I'M MELTING.
I've been crying over missing my friends since... late May, I think?
I don't know when I decided New York City was my dream... it must have been about the time I first saw Les Mis on Broadway, when I was... 14? Then when I was 18 I spent a week there with just my friend--my first big trip without my parents, planned and financed entirely by me!--and after that I was obsessed. Everyone told me it was hard to "make it" in New York but, stubborn me, I was going to prove them all wrong as soon as I graduated.
Except then I accidently a France. France and MOR and Flo and a D-list celebrity who wanted to bang me! Obviously I wanted to keep all that attention and positive feedback and admiration and stuff. But then I found out the hard way that that stuff wasn't coming from France, it was coming from the Troupe and MOR fans. And that's done. Now I'm just another immigrant, literally a second-class citizen.
Ever since I decided to consider going back to the US and taking on NYC with my girls, my whole mood has changed. I keep thinking of things I would be able to do there: Halloween, for instance, and AIR CONDITIONING UGHH THIS IS INHUMANE and buying groceries I recognize and shopping at stores that carry my size and just everything, oh gosh. Spending Christmas with my family.
Do I hate Paris now? Absolutely not! How could I? Will I miss it? Almost definitely.
Is going back the right choice for me right now? I feel pretty sure that it is.
Then I found out that NYU is the number one ranked school for getting a masters in translation... so I made up my mind. I can't stop thinking about how great it will be to be in my own country again, surrounded by people I love and capable of hugging my mom and petting her stupid dog Flossie till she pees all over the driveway.
My mom is trying to pretend to be very level-headed about this decision, but I can tell she's absolutely freaking out with excitement and relief at the idea of having one of her kids back (my brother has gone to Chile to teach English, and he's currently got one week to find new housing or he'll end up on the street, plus he already spent all his money on concert tickets or something and can't afford food, also did I mention he doesn't speak Spanish?).
I'll miss this city. I'll miss the métro. I'll miss muesli crostillant cereal and cheap fancy cheeses and weird animals being served up as acceptable dinner meat. I'll miss Flo constantly. But it's not worth it. I've frankly been unhappy for months now, and this decision is what's turning my mood around at last. So I guess I was right when I figured everything happens for a reason, and there was a HUGE reason for me not to get into a masters program this year: not only was I unprepared for housing and financial aid and part-time job things, but I also didn't have it in me to set up a future so far away from my people. I never would have imagined that it was the idea of making a life for myself in Paris that was making me cry myself to sleep all the time, but that's what happens to us stubborn kids. We don't want people to think we're giving in.
Did I tell you, I'm in the process of dumping the first host family I agreed to after having been contacted by one with two kids instead of four that will give me my own apartment that's so far away from their home that they're going to give me a meal plan as well? So I'll get that apartment in Paris after all. Just... maybe not the venus flytrap and cactus, unless someone wants to adopt them from me when I move out. Or I could go illegally plant them in a park somewhere... haha.
Anyway, now I'm getting together a Europe bucket list, and London and Vienna are definitely on there. I hope I can get that stuff done without blowing all my savings on travel!
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 10:43 am (UTC)I'm scared with this entire European story, too. Of having to start a family before 30, implying you can manage a home, a job and a culture. Although I'm european myself, I think our society demands something our governments don't give us. I can't see myself having the money for a proper home, a husband and a child while managing a job and not ending up age 50 and completely exhausted and deprived of all sense of fun.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-25 10:52 am (UTC)Just remember you're not doing anything to prove yourself to other people (again, standards?), you are always living your life for you. And if something makes you miserable, the best thing is to quit.
Also, if you somehow wondered around here, you are always welcome to crash at my place, okay? ;3