Great Expectations

No worries, this is neither a book, nor a film review. Besides the incredibly fun run I had writing bookish posts during the MegA Readers Blog Hop (still remember that?) I've pretty much given up on actually writing about distinct cultural experiences (which didn't keep me from bitching about unrealistic schmomance movies, which was a concept I had to explain to Wengle after dinner the night we watched The Kids Are All Right at the house).

No, this is about the niggling fear of what to do with my life. I know, I know. I'm barely twenty - why should I be having an existential crisis? Well, it's not really a crisis yet, but we all know how if you leave my mind to fester about something long enough, I'll hit panic mode. And with friends in their final year making sure they're covered for life after university, and friends who already went through all of this talking about it with me, I just feel like flailing around helplessly in my bed.

My parents aren't helping the cause. Do internships. Keep in touch with your old colleagues. Get a part-time job. What are you doing in the summer break? Is there any way you can improve your resume? How are the academics going? Will your degree ever get you employed? Instead of letting me be, it feels like they are harassing me worse than I am myself - because I know all of these points are important. Only sometimes I wonder when they'll let me be a teenager (fine, I missed that boat) a student, finally. Apparently wasting away last summer by doing nothing was the last time I was going to get away with it.

This summer I am hoping to work in an American summer camp, for the entire time that I'm off from university. I just want to get away and live from one day to the next and do things mundane and unrelated to whatever the future has in store for me (lately I've been fantasising about becoming a PA in a big corporate office environment, just because I've been reminded of how excellently I am at putting together Excel sheets, running to the printer and collecting things, and most of all keeping up with gossip and contributing just a little every now and then to feed the stream of gossip from others). I can't wait to spend days by the lakes, watching out for kids, and sleeping in bunks and seeing a bit of a different continent. Because when will I ever get that chance again.

If things go the way my parents hope, I will be successfully established in some kind of profession by the time I hit my late twenties. The desire to have a family some when down the line also will eventually kick in, and after that happens, it will probably be necessary or desirable to go back into the workforce. So where would I find the time for summers wasted there? Nowhere, that's right.

So while I'm currently assessing my eligibility to work for the UN, worrying about how I need to learn French fluently (and get back my Spanish, and maybe add something like Amharic for the fun of it), trying to get business cards off people in the PR industry, and so on and so forth, I am also daydreaming of June. Because that's exactly the kind of thought that soothes me right back into (relative) normalcy after a flailing session in my bed.