Kearney after Cambodia

Yesterday I made a much-needed trip to Kearney. I was craving Barista's coffee, but I was hungry for a reality check from my Writing Center friends.

The month I spent in Japan was "time-off" enough for me. I am ready for the next project, the next plan. The Japanese life counselor who gave me an incredible perspective on my personality, my health and even my past life suggested I look for a career that allows me to be creative while helping people. An assistant, she said, or better yet, maybe a counselor.

At this point in my life, any plan is better than no plan. I've always been that way. I took the counselor's advice and began researching the counseling profession right away. Working one-to-one with people who need help was very appealing to me. I excelled with these interactions in the Writing Center, so why not as a counselor? Upon my return to my parent's house, I asked my mom to help me get interviews with counselors in the community. We e-mailed into her social network, and the response was tremendous. So many people were willing to help me get started on my next adventure (and some even helped me with summer job opportunities!).

I had my first interview with a counselor this week. She gave me a realistic summation of her education, training, and experiences as a Licenced Mental Health Practitioner. Somewhere between the 3000 hours required for the license and the prospect of clients in crisis, I realized that counseling is a lot more than talking about life's little mysteries. This isn't to say that it's off my list of possible careers. The only things that have been crossed off so far are: actuary, accountant, surgeon, and professional athlete.

Back to Kearney. Inside Barista's with a soy latte lighting up my brain, I was catching up with Collin, my other half from the Writing Center. In the midst of our future plans and current relationships, we started reminiscing on our work in the Writing Center. I confessed that I would be happy to be a writing consultant for the rest of my life. For the rest of my life--that sounds like something worth pursuing. Maybe my youth and lack of experience are showing, but I can't imagine a job I would like more. I love writing, I enjoy the writing process, and I have a knack for working with people.

At lunch, my pseudo-mother from the Writing Center gave it to me straight. You can be good at anything, but you should do what you love. If you enjoy the WC, don't fight it--direct it!

This whole self-discovery business is really exhausting.

Claiming the WC for Ourselves

The WC has a new energy. Our director, the always-planning, often-stressed woman in charge of us, was chipper this morning, admiring the graffiti wall we began yesterday on a whim. My little white board with greetings in various languages sparked a spontaneous graffiti session on the wall by the check-in computer. Raquel from Brazil, a woman from Mexico and Yumeko from Japan all happened to be in the WC at that moment. I thought I was dreaming as we came together on the wall, uniting, it felt like, the world. We wrote in our respective languages with thick black sharpie on the blank wall. It was everything I love about the WC crammed into 30 seconds. We were smiling and laughing, speaking a handful of languages, and enjoying our diversity.

Since then, Collin and I have been recruiting everyone to write something on the wall. I took the liberty of writing my favorite Collin quote right above his workspace: "Do you feel closer to the clouds?" There's something wonderful about a slightly off-center, could've-been-better-written string of words on a wall. Every time I look at Collin now, I remember driving on I-90 watching the big sky, and Collin's expressions filling our quote log.

Above my workspace, I took Toni Morrison to the wall. Everytime I look up, she challenges me to write the story I want to read, and every time, I can't wait to be the well-groomed, female version of Anthony Bourdain (check him out on the Travel Channel).

One of my regulars had an appointment today--Ayumi from Japan. She's a Phys Ed. major who is working hard in English Composition. At the end of the consultation, she found out that I was graduating in December. She expressed her disappointment, and told me how much she would miss me. Then she told me how popular I am among the Japanese students and how they talk about me sometimes. It was so satisfying to hear that kind of feedback. Between the graffitti wall and the compliments, I couldn't have been any happier. I think I actually hallucinated for a while.

I should enjoy it while I can. The WC is my home for another month, then I've got to move on.

Mid-Morning: New WC

Collin and I christened the new Writing Center space today with a pot of coffee and a continuation of our major-life-decision talk. It turns out that both of us are unsatisfied with our respective chosen majors, but that we both eventually want to pursue higher education. As I often do, I immediately suggested that Collin study abroad to take a break from the dismal world of academia, and he countered with his customary, "but I'm a castle-builder" explanation. He is indeed a castle-builder—that is, one who prefers to create a web of relationships, commitments, and aspirations that center on a single geographic location. He wants to build his castle and enjoy the kingdom. I, on the other hand, am an exemplary wanderer. I'm never satisfied with my current location, and I am inclined to circumnavigate the globe in search of some higher meaning (or at least stories worth telling).

Surprisingly, Collin and I face a very similar dilemma, except I am one year further in the process. I have no advice for Collin, because my solution to the question of graduate school and beyond was about as pigheaded as they come: To heck with it all, I'm going to Cambodia. I need more time, a new space and deep-fried tarantulas to help me figure out my future (although if deep-fried tarantulas are in my future, I might need to rethink this…). I hope Collin doesn't have to go through the misery that was my lamentable fourth year at UNK. Attempting to be an überstudent, I took on far too many extra projects that left me exhausted, not to mention medicated. Sure, academia can be a very rewarding place, but the intense self-pressure to publish material or to create a project that will be satisfying may recklessly eat away at relationships, motivation, and stomachs. I have the holes to prove it!

On second thought, maybe To heck with it all, I'm going to Cambodia isn't such bad advice.

9:45 am UNK Writing Center

Amidst the piles of packed boxes, carts of writing handbooks and general dishevelry, I sip coffee with Collin. Our director, a superwoman of sorts, though wonderfully disorganized, stews in the other room over her own cup of coffee, cursing the company in Wisconsin responsible for our current snarl of an online appointment book. She is the one who brewed this coffee--Shurfine brand from last semester if I'm not mistaken. I've doused mine with off-brand hazelnut creamer until tolerable, and I now turn my attention to the conversation with Collin, my brilliant co-worker.

He drinks the coffee black, an admirable and self-sacrificial task. The way he drinks it fits him: straightforward and untainted by the hazelnuts that have overthrown so many of us. We talk about the pieces of paper that have been thrust onto our desk in a whirl of confusion as our director paces back and forth trying to figure out how to make this writing center functional in its half-way-moved-across-the-library state. She's asked us to write a little blurb about the Writing Center for a University newsletter, but the directions were hazy at best. We sit, cups in hand, staring at a blank screen and several seemingly arbitrary sheets of paper from her desk.

Collin and I are the yin and yang of writing, the decadent and the trim, the functional and the superfluous. Neither of us embodies any of these characteristics consistently, but we are always in opposition. We spew quips and sarcasm, adjectives that would make any English teacher jealous. Our Writing Center is provocative...yes, that's the perfect description.

Our coffee cups are empty, and neither of us dare to enter the director's office, for fear of the next strange and ambiguous busy-work assignment. It's the end of the shift. We leave the cups on an empty shelf.