I remember when I was finally tall enough to lie back in the passenger's seat of the car and stick my baby feet out the window. Yea, it was a stretch, and yea, my seat belt was technically useless when I slid underneath it like, but it made me so awesome, being able to stick my feet out the window.
Big people had forearms that could reach from rested elbow on bottom of window to large hand grasping the top of the window, and in my mind, people that huge could do anything they ever wanted to do.
My solo venture out into the Med. and Italy starts soon and I have realized what scares me the most about it - In India, (here comes another sweeping generalization...) nobody knows what they are doing, where they are going, how they are getting there. It was easy to hop on that train, boat, plane, bus. It would take you somewhere and ta-da, you were good.
But now I am going to Europe, where people have agendas, and set destinations, and fixed prices. And I don't know how to navigate places and people that have their lives together.
I'm going to be floundering because it is what I know and how I know international living. I mean, I'm pretty sure being there will whip me into what I need to be to survive in Malta and Italy... but it is going to be weird. Because currently, I'm going without knowing anything. It worked for India.
I do not know if it will work for Italy.
Saw a musical tonight and the usual happened - internal dialogue went about like this:
Why am I not doing Musical Theater? I love singing and dancing and I love costumes and cool fashion - why didn't I go into fashion or costume design? I know French somewhat... Paris would be an awesome place to live and work!
Wait - how did they figure out the background information for all of this? Maybe I should go into History... be a historian. I could talk to Dr. Rashford and draw world maps and talk about how you don't know anything if you don't know how the world is all interconnected.
I should brush up on my geography...
That said, Dr. Rashford does everything and he is an anthropologist so... I'm pretty glad I'm an anthropologist because it isn't really stopping me from doing anything I want to do... I wish I had gone to Mexico with him... at the same time, I don't really know Spanish and I do prefer studying the Middle East and Asia better... but I really want to go to Africa next... yea, Sudan or Nigeria. Study the Lost Boys and see how Islam has affected their lives and do social work and dance with them and do tribal things, like go into trances and paint myself... I really enjoy having zero inhibitions... which is different than having cultural/religious barriers and traditions. Maybe I can do that while in the Peace Corps. But if I join the Peace Corps right out of school... how will I keep up my dance? How will I be prepared to go to grad school to get my masters/PHd in dance and anthropology?
I guess I'll do that in London, go to the Laban Contemp. Dance school.... I do love choreography so so so much... I hope RIB and Gretchen will let me do more choreography this year.
I have some great songs that I would love to work with.
Oh, ew. That scene just didn't work.
Ok. This musical has had 2 songs too many.
Ok, I am seriously the youngest person here by 30 years.
And yea, it just goes like that for awhile.
But I like the trend in my thinking that whatever happens to me will put me in a new place in the world. And for some reason, strangely enough, I don't feel like it can't happen. Even in this economy and given profession, I feel like I will always be able to manage.
I bet my mother is rolling her eyes right now.
Anyhow, I saw 2 Buddhist monks at Walmart today. In Spartanburg, SC.
I followed them through the facewash aisle.
Reminds me of the time I naively asked why a place would only have 200 female lamas, while internally thinking that lamas would go extinct if they keep that weird technique up.
I had forgotten we were talking about actual religious lamas, as in the Dalai Lama.
ah, Gangtok, Sikkim.
And I miss Samir, my little kitty baby.
I wish I could pick him up and hold him right now.
