Two days down and I am feeling pretty good about life. Despite a few hiccups here and there, I am managing. I won't starve to death and I have a roof over my head. I got this!
Unbeknownst to me, there was some sort of holiday going on the week I arrived in France. Mireille, the woman in charge of my studies, was off vacationing somewhere and left me to my own devices to get settled in the residence. It wasn't ideal but I figured it out. She also told me to come to campus on Monday, but gave me no specific time or place to meet her. But, ah, this is Europe, so I tried not to worry about it. The holiday may have also accounted for the lack of anyone...anywhere. Even the mall seemed pretty dead.
When there is literally no one around, it makes it difficult to make friends. And when you have no phone, no internet, and no friends, it can get pretty lonely, especially when you are as pure an extrovert as I am. I also had no computer because the fancy converter box I bought to change the voltage shorted out the adapter for my laptop. Apparently, you don't need to convert a MagSafe adapter and trying to convert something that is trying very hard to not be converted equals electrical failure. I had some battery remaining, but in hopes of getting a phone by Sunday, I was saving it for a video chat with Jason. With my iPod busted and back in Rochester, this also meant I had no music. Really??
It's okay. I'll just read some of my book, Three Cups of Tea. A book about impoverished children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while inspirational, is not exactly the fun first Saturday I had envisioned, but it was raining so I wasn't going anywhere anyway. After several hours of reading and snacking, I decided to pick up my old journal. It's been a while since I wrote anything so I thumbed through some of my old entries. As I was re-reading the episodes of my life, which spanned the entirety of my time in Baltimore, I ran the gamut of human emotions. I was disappointed in myself for countless silly mistakes that I needn't have made twice but also truly impressed by instances of foresight and humility. I laughed until I cried at some of the ridiculous situations I managed to get myself into and wept unapologetically as I remembered the death of Aunt Dorothy. I was infuriated all over again by the inefficiencies of the Baltimore City School System, but felt a tremendous warmth in remembering the relationships I had formed at my school, both with students and staff members.
There's a quote from an episode of Ally McBeal that has always struck me: John Cage says something like, "If you look back on any year in your life and it doesn't bring you to tears, either from joy or from grief, consider the year wasted." My time in Baltimore was a remarkable era in my life and all of it, the good, the bad, the great, and the awful, every single second of it has brought me to this point, this next chapter in my life. And while I may not be building schools for poor Muslim girls in the Middle East like Greg Mortenson, I think it will make for one hell of a story.
Next time: More about how I got into this gig in the first place.
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