LALTing and other things

it seems to be a right of passage thing, being a senior in college and having no idea what you want to do with yourself. and it also seems to be a strange thing that we have classes and information sessions and workshops to attend, all designed to help us answer that question. i am currently taking a senior proseminar class where we spend a lot of time talking about what we might want to do with ourselves someday, eventually, whenever we might get around to it. yesterday, we did a "LALT" or "life after linfield trajectory" in class. it was a funny exercise for several reasons, not least of which that i diverged quite largely from the approach taken by my classmates.
i like to approach big changes step-wise. it scares me to think too far ahead, even with things that i am pretty certain about wanting to do. so, while my peers' LALTs were large webs of possibilities--6 different paths they could take after graduation, and where they eventually might lead--the most ambitious claim of mine was that i want to intern on an organic farm for the growing season of 2011. i have a rough idea of what i might want to do for the next year or so, but not the faintest clue after that. sure, grad school might happen in there somewhere, and i will probably do some traveling, and i will probably have some random adventures... but hell if i know what order they will occur in.

lately i have been struggling a bit with why i feel so un-ambitious. my friends are studying for the GRE and applying to grad school, turning in research proposals for fulbright scholarships, are applying to go abroad to teach english after graduating, etc, etc, etc.
i really just want to get an apartment somewhere here locally and give myself some time to figure things out. there's this whole side of being an adult--insurance, rent, loan payments, full time jobs--that i have no idea how to do, really. i want to have time to do not a whole lot besides figure some of that out. especially before i move somewhere, or go abroad, or re-complicate my life with school and deadlines again.

once upon a time i was ambitious: i wanted to go to medical school and work for MSF. those days are long-gone however, and now what i want more than anything is TIME. i want time to read and write and send letters and grow vegetables. i need some time to reflect on the whole college thing. i want some time to explore my options. i want some time without major stress (like moving to a foreign country or entering a graduate program), so that i can straighten out my brain a little bit. is that such a bad thing? who knows, maybe i'll come up with a new grand plan when my life is finally quiet enough for me to consider the possibilities... but maybe i'll just work in a coffee shop for a while, and read all of the books i have been accumulating of late, hang out with erik, volunteer, and finally write letters to friends i have been neglecting so badly. is it bad to be un-ambitious?
our society certainly would say so. and it does. "what, you mean you're not going to do anything with your degree?" is a much hated question i have had to defend against lately. well... not right now... but does that somehow make my four years of study worthless? i hardly think so, but in a world that demands concrete results, the personal growth that cannot be translated into a graph or excel spreadsheet just isn't going to cut it. i don't know if i want to "cut it."


i do know a lot of things that i want. and maybe that is what all of this is about: defining what i want, often by recognizing what it is that i DON'T want. i am not a patient person, but i am willing to wait and figure out what might be coming my way. in the meantime, here are a few things i do want to pursue:

1. reading for pleasure
2. long bike rides
3. trying new recipes
4. baking bread
5. Powells trips and coffee dates with friends
6. journaling and writing time
7. working on my thesis
8. spending quality time with erik
9. taking ceramics in the spring
10. learning to brew beer

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