October 10, 2008

Yeah, I live

Apologies for being a horrible friend who doesn't keep in touch. Seriously.

Wow. I haven't updated here in about a couple million years. I think I need to write something, just to prove that I'm still able to. Seriously. I just haven't been keeping up with Facebook, or my own blog for a bit. Call it a thinking hiatus.

I realize that I didn’t write anything since my European trip - mostly, I got absorbed in the offline world and in Madrid - in Paris - in Luxembourg - in England. It was fantastic, and I moved on just in time to go to Aceh for my next assignment.

Aceh was alright - there were some pleasant moments with my team - I did manage to blog some then, thankfully so.

And then there was the summer leave during which I went to a family bash in France and got in trouble in England for being a bad packer. (Not a backpacker, though it could have been that too.) People, that swiss knife? Just leave it at home.

Then there was Haiti, again, otherwise known as Hell. I spent weeks and weeks locked up at work or in my room, waiting for it to be over - and still sort of traumatized by my English experience. I didn't update - I honestly had little to say or to tell. It was just a waiting time. Jachere. It was a good thing I had a long leave of absence planned after that.

So I had a long vaca - it wasn't lost, though. I made some decisions - mostly about ending my current gig, and going on to uni. I need to be in the world of Academia again. When I see those dorky professors and musty classrooms, I get all emo. So. Instead of going on like an idiot about how I need to change my life, I did.

I quit. I'm going back to school in January. One last gig, and I'm done with this slave trader of a boss. I admit, I'm going to miss my friends at work, though it's only a matter of time before they move on too - it always is in this business.

It's a big deal - it's my second degree, I know. I just need to be intellectually stimulated again. I want to think of Edgar Allan Poe's translations of Baudelaire. I want to reflect on the contruction of Finwean linguistics. I want to take time to write essays about how Jane Austen was repressed and how she is just like Madame de Cleves.

I'm going to be a lit professor.

Fuck joining the corporate world. It was never a life for me. It doesn't work for me, it never did.

And I also say, blah to trying to change the world. It's impossible - even the best intentions get twarped by politics. It's time to face the fact : I want to do things I feel like doing - not things that I have to do because I should fit in a mold.

I don't want a white picket fence.

I don't want 2.5 kids.

I don't want to give up my freedom just because it's a condition of being like everyone else.

I don't want to be like everyone. I want to be me.

In the meantime, I’m in Rwanda for another month and a half. I’ll live.

The Beaver
My guest map is wonderful ! And you'd all be wonderful to post, all of you lurk mode readers!
Thanks and may the winds of Fate blow your way !

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmmn... how do we know this is the REAL Traveling Beaver? You could be a cleverly disguised decoy... you could even be a Republican... hmmnn...

Qalamana said...

Nice to read your news :)

Beaver said...

Wow, Merry. No, it's me. Just me, as evidenced by my next post up.

Qalamana, thanks for your continued friendship. I'm sorry for being so awful at keeping in touch. I adore you.