This twenty-year-old is ready to conquer the world. Sort of.
Let me conquer the City of Lights first.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

schedule


jan 23: depart boston
jan 24: arrive in paris
jan 30: classes begin
march 18: spring break begins
march 26: spring break ends
may 19: classes end
may 21: finals end
may 22: program ends

i am the first from my program to find out this information, as I called the office yesterday, and after about half an hour of conversation realized that i still had no idea what my schedule looked like. Angela, the program's coordinator, told me that it was "hot off the presses". The other thing that I realized after half and hour, that between me and my mother, they probably have about 20 red flags on my application with "pain to talk to" "don't answer the phone" "lots of questions" "annoying" or something to that effect. Although, it's more my mother's fault than mine. And as long as I don't have to deal with her... well, sucks to be them.

other things we talked about was whether the program would be cancelled if the riots continued or the situation worsened, not that i'm concerned, (and it wouldn't), what the best airlines would be for buying open-ended tickets, how to ensure that I was paired up with a roommate who was outgoing and social like me, what's the best way to get a job abroad, how long i can travel after my program ends...

but the question that tops the cake, since it's really the reason I called in the first place, was how urgently they needed my six passport-size photos. I got them taken last week at Kinkos for $25 but they came out horribly; they are quite possibly the worst pictures of me ever taken. So obviously I don't want anyone to see them, and I would hate for them to be on my student ID. The program had sent a deadline of November 2th to send them in, and since yesterday was the 9th, I figured it wouldn't hurt to give them a heads-up. Well, Angela told me that not only was it not urgent ("just send them in by Christmas"), but she also told me that they don't really have to be passport pictures, just sized that way, meaning that I could go to a $3 movie photobooth machine and get them done there! I was not happy that I had already spent $25 on pictures I was going to throw away anyway!

Saturday, November 05, 2005

consumption

so the problems that have been consuming my life lately are pretty unglamorous .
  1. i need to buy a roundtrip plane ticket. i want to travel after i'm done with my program. no one knows what their plans are after their programs end. which means that i can't tell my mom when i'll be returning because i don't know. i don't know who i'm traveling with, i don't know where i'm traveling, and honestly, i don't even know if i'm really going to travel. maybe after four months of being abroad, i'll just want to come home. or maybe i'll be satisfied by the travel i do on the weekends. really, i never realized how hard it is to try and plan your life out six months in advance. i don't even know where i'll be next week.
  2. usually, people figure out in the spring where they are going to be living the next year. i won't be here in the spring, so i need to figure it out now. well, no one knows what they are doing because it is so early. so i feel like i am pressuring people to commit when, really, they can't give me any answers.

both the situations are the same because i have to depend on other people who can't tell me what i need to know. but i get more and more frustrated because i can't control the situation. fuck.