Hey Mom, it's Allie. So you know how I sometimes make huge and potentially life-altering decisions at the drop of a hat? Well, guess what.If you are reading this, you know who I am and how spontaneous I can be. I've switched majors more times than one should proudly admit, started a bell choir with extraordinarily little ringing experience (sorry, Meyer, but it's true), and have decided to learn new languages and musical instruments simply because there was nothing good on TV. And as with most of my ridiculous decisions, my decision to go to Spain began with a late-night phone call to BHoff. But why, in the midst of my second semester of graduate school, did I decide to transport myself halfway around the world to become certified for a job that is not not my intended career?
Because I felt trapped. As ridiculous as it sounds, I'd been in Boston for 4 1/2 years, in school the entire time, and I felt as if life was just happening around me while I had been floating through it. This spring semester, however, the vehicle gods had apparently replaced my boring, yet floating, life-raft for a bumper car driven by an 8-year-old hellbent on hitting everything in sight. This past year was the hardest year of my life thus far; it repeatedly pushed me to my academic, professional, and emotional limits. I didn't know what, if anything, I could do about it.
By February, I was done. I contemplated applying to the Peace Corps and various other volunteer programs, but realized I didn't want to put my degree on hold--just take control of my life again for the summer. That night, I saw some photos of a friend from BC who was in a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) program in Florence, Italy, and I decided right away that this was exactly what I should be doing with my summer. Even better, there was a program in Seville (which happened to be the very first city I'd heard of in Spain, thanks to my 6th-grade Spanish teacher's obsession with ¡Sevilla!). Even my obsession with Latin America couldn't turn me away from this opportunity to live in Andalucía for a month--and so I signed up for the program, coughed up the deposit, and booked my flight that night.
Yes, Dad, it's ironic and slightly ridiculous that I'm traipsing halfway around the world to get a certificate in the same field that I originally went to BC to study for an actual degree. Things like this are why you love me. And don't worry, roommates, I already bought my return ticket; you know as well as I do that if I hadn't, there's too good a chance that I'd up and move and become española with the other cool kids. But for the next month, especially considering the state of transcontinental phone calls, the six-hour time difference, and my own flightiness, this is going to be my way of ensuring the people I love that I'm still alive. And haven't run off with a gitano or decided to become the Spanish Maria Von Trapp.
I jest. Kind of.
1 comment:
You lead an interesting life.
But you already knew that.
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