A number of incredibly fortunate things have happened to me over the past two months—so many that talking about them out loud feels like bragging. I’ll skip to the highlights. First, I’ll be working here this summer. Still in shock about this, but super excited. In between work, I’m planning on filling my time with library books, East coast trips (to NYC, for the Whitney and the Met; and to VB, to see old friends), museums to reimmerse myself in American art/history and the best of D.C.’s bar/food scene. I’ve also promised myself I would read Ulysses in preparation for a comp lit seminar I’m taking in the fall and finally, finally build the Web portfolio site whose domain I purchased, I don’t know, a year ago. But this ambition/goal-setting thing—man, it’s really not fitting well on my post-European self.
I’ve met so many people over the past few months, of all different countries, races and languages. I’ve shared drinks, cooked pasta and eaten breakfast alongside folks from Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, England, Colombia, France, Portugal and the Netherlands. Looking back on all those names and faces, it’s hard to believe there was a time in my life when I hadn’t stayed in hostels, traveled through a foreign country alone or visited a city where I didn’t speak a word of the language. (That would be Paris. Je ne sais what?)
I never want to stop meeting people. It’s dangerous to get too comfortable with a set group of friends from high school/college or a significant other—you limit yourself. You stop growing. So this summer, instead of living by myself in an apartment, I’m sharing a room with other similarly young, ambitious, goal-getting interns whom I have yet to meet. They could be moneyed and pretentious, but that’s just a risk I’ll have to take. Come fall, I’ll be moving from Sherman Hall to Wolf House, a small co-ed co-op on Southside (by which I mean, of course, just a few blocks away from the Daily Cal). It will be my senior year, and I’ll be overworked and underrested just like my first three years of college. But it’ll be worth it.
Lastly: I cannot wait to get my hands on the new Bob Dylan, Passion Pit and Wilco releases. Cannot. Wait.
