the real world is scary

This past Friday my internship ended. I have been enjoying my status as a free woman very much. This has probably been the busiest weekend of my summer; during the internship, I didn't do much with my weekends except "relax".

Friday night, a small group of interns went to Ravinia to see Los Lobos and Los Lonely Boys, dispelling my belief that the two were actually the same band. (LOS LOnely BOyS = Los Lobos? Seriously, I thought it was some pithy abbreviation. Guess not.) At any rate, it was a lot of fun. I tend to avoid Ravinia because of the crowds and intense waiting in line, but for once, the drive to be social won out.

Yesterday, after sleeping for 5458427654867 years (15.5 hours--hey, I didn't get much sleep this week!), I watched some of the Olympics (sadly, not Michael Phelps) and then went to a party hosted by one of the interns. The party was in Chicago, and I normally don't like schlepping out there by myself, but I made an exception because 1) all of the international interns were going to be there, and I don't know when I'll see them again and 2) Facebook said 12 people were going to be there.

The party started around 8, but I knew that people weren't going to be getting there on time, so I left my house at 8:30, directions in hand. Mapquest got me to the area pretty quickly, but deposited me several blocks north of the apartment, and nowhere near street parking. I proceeded to try driving around in a circle to hit the street in a different place. When I finally found the street again 30 minutes later, I pulled into the first parking garage I could find. I might have had a 10 minute walk, but fuck it, I didn't care at this point.

When I arrived at the party at 10:25, I was happy to find that all (4) of the international interns were in attendance, there were only a small handful of others. Once again, Facebook lied to me. At any rate, it was nice to see people in a non-internship setting.

At 12:30, I left. Here is where the REAL fun begins. While I had been freaking out while I was lost earlier, at least I was in my car with a full tank of gas, as opposed to being on foot. I knew the intersection where the garage had been (and I printed out new directions home from this location). I found the garage quickly enough...but I had no idea how to get in. This led to me walking around for a long time, looking for the entrance, because I was NOT going to run up the car entrance like an idiot and get run over. I finally found an entrance...to a different parking garage. Eventually, I said, "Fuck you, pride!" and ran up the ramp to the (correct) parking garage at full speed. Luckily, at 1:00am, nobody seemed interested in pulling into the garage. I took the elevator up to the 5th floor. Unfortunately, I parked on the 4th floor, so obviously, my car was not on P5. I searched P5 thoroughly, but when I got to P6, I knew I had gone too far. I then proceeded to the ground level, searching P3, slowly making my way up to P4. By the time I finally found my car (1:20), I had never been so happy to see that beautiful red Volvo (which, by the way, was completely unharmed). So happy that I didn't mind paying the $30 parking fee. If I had had more common sense (ie, remembered where I exited the parking garage as well as the actual location of my car), this wouldn't have happened.

In a twisted way, this was refreshing. This proved that when I am alone in the Real World and nobody can help me, I can take care of myself...it just takes me awhile. Maybe in the future, I will have more common sense.

Last night, when I finally got home (around 2:15--first I had to do a little manipulating with my written directions, using a combination of the 2 routes I had found, then I hit major traffic at around 1:40) and finally went to sleep, I had an interesting dream. I was back at band camp, but as a composing student. This isn't so strange, because this is what Roberto did this summer, and I heard a lot about the experience from him. I was composing a piece for a woodwind quintet to play. Towards the end of the dream, a theme came into my head that I wanted to use in the quintet. The theme was beautiful, rich and melodious, and in the perfect range for the French horn (which is in a woodwind quintet, ok?). A few minutes later (I think), I was woken up by my alarm. Once I turned that fucker off, I thought back on my dream and realized...that I still remembered that theme. I sang it aloud, and it still sounded pretty. This was almost as if I had gone treasure hunting, found a pretty bauble, then survived a massive storm (my subconscious) to find the bauble in my possession and still intact.

Hopefully this is a good sign for the week to come.

101 Things in 1001 Days

I read about this thing called "101 Things in 1001 Days" (That's about 2 3/4 years). It's pretty self-explanatory. I thought it would be interesting to do one of my own. Here is what I have so far:

Start: 8/4/08
End: 5/2/11

1. declare my majors
2. work in a museum
3. study abroad in Israel
4. take an ulpan in Israel
5. fall in love and have it not suck
6. participate in summer research
7. intern in Israel with JPost
8. get something published
9. make jello shots
10. take the GRE
11. apply to grad school
12. get into grad school
13. go on a road trip with friends
14. go to Mexico without my parents
15. travel to a country that isn't North America, Mexico, or Israel
16. perform a Hindemith French horn sonata
17. go to California again
18. get a "real person" job
19. go skydiving
20. visit every major museum in New York City
21. visit Mara
22. tailgate at a football game that I'm not playing in
23. go to every Ivy League School
24. go visit Mike at Penn
25. successfully make fudge (with or without help)
26. successfully make my chocolate chip cookies in NYC
27. conduct anthropological research
28. write a thesis
29. buy a houseplant
30. get my ears double pierced
31. start a portfolio of all my newspaper articles that have been published
32. organize my room at home, throw away everything I no longer use
33. drink an entire bottle of champagne by myself

Not that it matters, but

I'm really sick of thinking about "what I'm going to do with my future". I could be doing so many more productive things with my time, like...I dunno, accomplishing something with my life. Or at least enjoying myself. Something!

If I was at school, I wouldn't be focusing on this. Maybe.

What with spending the summer interning for a newspaper, I've been thinking a lot about journalism. Of course, if I were the enterprising sort who thinks about my future, I would apply to The Spec to write articles or do something productive. But at the moment, The Spec is this behemoth that I'm too afraid/lazy to approach. Also, I'd like to give less-serious writing a try, in a place where people would actually see it...even if that would open me up to criticism. I could probably live with that.

At some point along the line, I want to find gainful employment that involves writing. I think that's one of the reasons why I like anthropology so much, and why I enjoyed "The Ethnographic Imagination" so much. The narcissist in me (and...well, pretty much every part of me) gets a little thrill whenever I see my name in print...even on an assigned paper for a class. When I see the writing, I think, "That's my name and one day, maybe it will mean something (good) to people other than my parents and friends."