So yes, this is my quarter life crisis. While many questions run through my head, I also have come to many realizations and understandings...
1. I hate humidity.
2. I hate teaching children...they're cute, but they need to listen. I now
understand why the nuns in Catholic schools always carried a ruler.
3. Frank's Red Hot is undoubtedly the best hot sauce ever. EVER!
4. I will never be happy with a 9-5 job.
5. I could give up expat life following the next election ~or~ may not consider it
until 2012.
6. True friends and family will provide the support and help for you when you need
it the most, and expect nothing in return.
7. I am addicted to watching Desperate Housewives.
8. I think I killed myself in a former life due to lack of air conditioning.
9. I could live on fresh pineapple.
10. The existence and availibility of Lavazza espresso and Merlot is proof there
may be a God.
11. While the majority of foreigners who choose to live abroad are quite
interesting, there are an equal number of socio paths and those rejected in
their home countries seeking refuge abroad. That, or they're running from the
law.
12. Choose friends wisely as sometimes it's the one ones you thought would be there
forever who are the first to forget.
13. Duct tape can repair just about anything.
14. Money is not everything, but it sure does help when you have some.
15. Nostalgia is a double edged sword...you feel bad to remember and even worse
when you realize you've forgotten some fo the details.
Much more can be added, but those I'll keep for myself. These rambling thoughts of nothingness were conjured up from my over-availibility of time on my hands. I have been ordered by the doctor to rest while my back recovers from surgery. As a result, I am not allowed to be as active as I used to be...at least not for another couple months. Time has been spent reading, sleeping and meditating and I have had time to reflect on what it is I actually am doing with my life now and have come to the realization that I am currently going through a quarter life crisis.
Up until this moment I have studied, traveled and worked my ass off on what could be dubbed, the 'Road Less Traveled'. I know that I should be able to land a job easily with my language and experience...problem is that the careers I'm bound for don't exactly list help wanted ads in the Sunday Classified Section.
Taking time away from constant Arabic study was wise just in the fact that I now understand what area I want to focus on...a professor once described our perception as a gold fish in a bowl. Unless you take the fish out of the water and say, 'hey look that's water...it's what you live in', you never come to a complete understanding as to what your surroundings are.
Now the question remains as to where I am headed. My contract is due to expire in March 2009, and I highly doubt that I will be staying in Taiwan longer than that. One of my main goals next year is to get to Damascus and hopefully find work there...most likely I will first return to Cairo and then go to Syria after.
At the same time I am attempting to break into the world of writing...which at the moment feels like I am bouncing a tennis ball off the wall and having it repeatedly hit me in the head. I'm preparing an application for a Fulbright Grant, planning to take the exam for entrance into the famed Arabic language CASA program and tossing the idea around of grad school. I know that I can return to Pittsburgh for a Master's Degree with funding provided for...but my heart is set on programs at NYU, Berkeley and Georgetown.
And I'm planning to apply for the Foreign Service...between 2004 and 2005 I was both an intern and contractor for the State Department in DC. At the time, I said it was an introduction to everything I never again want to do again in my life. hating the buttoned up bureacracy, political round about negotiations and having to provide a face for the Bush Administration. However, I'm registered to take an upcoming entrance exam, which requires that I travel to Mainland China to do so. I don't understand how there can be a testing center in Phenom Penh, Cambodia; yet not one in Taipei, Taiwan or Hong Kong. So yes, working for the MAN could be an option.
And then I have to think of family. I love to be abroad, but I love and miss my family, too. And what am I going to do when I get older??? I mean, unless I find that rare guy who at the drop of a hat would move with me to Afghanistan...well I may have a bit of difficulty there. I mean, I don't want to be the sixty year old cat woman!
And I'm sure when I hit the mid life crisis I'll look back at this all and think it was peanuts compared to what I'm up against then.
