I Want to Do Something Stupid...

A friend of mine wrote a poem that stuck in my brain.

I want to do something stupid
While I can still blame it on being young -

I want to go to New York to study literary translation.  I'm not good with strange places and strange people, I grew up in the suburban Midwest and went to school in a medium-sized town - I don't think I can handle New York.  I have been assured by my professors - as well as the program director at NY - that I will not be able to make a living with literary translation.  Not to mention that it is a dual program in Translation AND Creative Writing - and while last semester I proved to myself that I can handle a Creative Writing class, it's still not my favorite thing to contend with.

Really, I should just forget about that program as impractical in every way, and just go to Kent State, like my professor advised.  (I told her I wanted to get out of Wisconsin - believe it or not, there is a translation school in Milwaukee - and she gave me Ohio.  Well, perhaps I should have been more general.)  The program there is technical translation, legal and medical and computer, all sorts of things that people actually pay translators for, and while it's certainly not the best field, I will likely do as well as can be expected.

But that's the safe option.  I've always taken the safe option, and frankly, I'm sick of it.  Not many people know this, but I almost applied for UAA - the University of Alaska, Anchorage.  If I'd done that, I'd probably be looking at Applied Linguistics and native language preservation by now.  And I'd probably know how to dogsled.  It was a pleasant dream my junior year, but when I actually started applying, I thought of so many logistical and practical barriers, that in the end I never even applied.  I went to safe, 90-minutes away, whitewashed, Midwestern Eau Claire.  And I met so many wonderful people here, and have enjoyed myself immensely and grown so much, and I have pushed my boudaries, really.  But Eau Claire is not Alaska.

I almost went to Graz, Austria, for my semester abroad, instead of Marburg, Germany.  But no one else was going to Graz; besides, the Austrian dialect is so thick it's hardly even German.  There, it is a complete immersion experience, and you take classes with native speakers in the native language.  Marburg, on the other hand, gives you German-for-foreigners with other foreigners.  Safe.

That was a mistake.

Long story short I was bored out of my mind and depressed for about six months straight.  That's what comes of taking the safe option.

Granted, I haven't even applied, much less gotten in.  The New York program is very competitive, and I'm going up against people who are already professional translators and want to expand their horizons a bit.  There is, however, another translation school with a good reputation in Monterey, California.  Monterey, from what I can gather, is the Eau Claire of California - there's nothing to do, and you're only there if you're a student or retired.  Monterey is the compromise option.  Monterey is the Eau Claire between the U of M and Alaska (though it is a bit closer to Alaska than the U).  So I can safely go there without feeling like a coward.  And I think in typing this I just convinced myself to go there after all.

But I'm going to at least try for New York.  I have to.  If I don't get in and end up at Monterey, that's fine, but if I never even try...well, that's just pathetic.  And if I do get in, and end up going there, and it ends up being a horrible mistake, at least I made an interesting mistake instead of a boring one.

Filler Post

My reader has been clamoring for a new post.  Yes, I only have one reader.  I can see how many times my posts have been viewed.  I'm thinking about starting a new blog.  One that has more of a theme, i.e. ranting about books/movies/TV shows and generally being a pretentious hipster.

Am I still a hipster if I admit I am one?  Because I do like some things just because they are obscure.  Granted, you need a critical mass of fandom for it to be fun, but things that everyone likes just aren't the same.  So yeah, I'm a tea-drinking, Mumford and Sons (they're actually on the radio) Frank Turner listening, Galen Beckett reading (I liked him better when he was publishing under Mark Anthony, though I get why he went to a pseudonym), German speaking hipster.

That wasn't what I was going to post about.

Well, it was, I think.  One of the things.  Summer is a time of idleness and reflection, a time of setting goals you never achieve, but at least you have enough time to do them if you wanted to.  Usually.

This summer I am taking two summer classes.  One is an online class about language development and its for my minor.  The other is an upper-level queer theory class that involves two weeks in San Francisco and making a documentary film.  And lots and lots of angry readings about the heteropatriarchy.

(My reader knows this already, but since it's on the internet I feel like I have to make this coherent to the general public.)

This summer I am also living off-campus, on my own (i.e. not under adult supervision, because I am an adult, or so I've been told). 

This summer I need to start seriously looking in to grad school applications.  It's not just a distant dream to get me through a depressed phase - it's my actual future that I hold in my own hands, and I'm terrified I might drop it.

This summer I hope to start an etsy shop and sell crocheted My Little Ponies (no, seriously, those things go for $20-$40, and you know what?  Yarn is cheap) in lieu of getting a real job.

See, my original goal for this summer was to get a real job and my driver's license.  Then San Francisco happened, and I put growing up on hold.

So maybe this post is about growing up, and how it's not happening, only it is happening.  I'm not reaching milestones, but I'm learning more about myself - not changing, but becoming more who I am (coughhipstercough yeah, what of it?it's true).  I'm a hipster.  I'm a brony (that's for another post).  I'm queer not a lesbian, and I don't give a damn about dismantling the heteropatriarchy, I'm going to change the world in my own small way by writing books.  If I ever finish the damn things.  At least I'm writing again.

I stopped writing.  And then I started again.  And then I stopped.  It's like when I used to get depressed (used to?) - so depressed that I felt like I would never be happy again.  I went through so many cycles, eventually I realized that I would always feel happy again.  And I would always feel sad again.  And maybe that was the first step in my growing up and leaving behind the adolescent woes, because once I stopped fearing my depression it had less power over me.  Until extenuating circumstances, but even that passed.

I'm going to stop before this gets any more rambly.

So, my dear reader, I hope this was enough to break the monotony of your North Dakota wasteland for a little while, and I will be sure to keep you posted on my future activities in the blogosphere.