It All Begins Again
So this is it: the end of winter vacation. Tomorrow begins the spring (and final) semester of my master’s degree with a bucket of ice cold reality being poured over us in the form of last semester’s grades in the morning. I should have been more academically productive with my time over break, but life got in the way. I’m not sorry, it just means I’ve got more reading to do this semester; c’est la vie. It might have been unproductive, but it certainly was fun! I got to see most of my friends back in the States, visit with my family, spend loads of time with Donna (and her cute friend with the curly hair), finally really talk to and befriend krazy Kate Billingsley, and to actually enjoy Paris for a week without the same feeling of the Sword of Damacles (or Paoli as the case may be) hanging over my head.
I don’t have anything particularly deep to say tonight, so I’ll keep this brief, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to do when June rolls around, and I’m sort of at a loss. Do I move to Boston to be near my family and friends on the East Coast? Do I move to NYC and try my hand in the Paris of the West now that I’ve become accustomed to life in the big city and want to keep it going? Do I move to California in preparation for a Ph.D. program at Berkeley? Maybe I just move back to Burlington where you can rent a fantastic apartment at unreasonably low prices. Or should I go really crazy and move to Puerto Rico so I can work on my Spanish in an organic way?
More importantly than where I move, what will I do when I get there? With the economy on shaky foundations that have been ravaged by financial earthquakes and which could be toppled by future aftershocks, what will I do with my M.A. French? Naturally I could teach at a private school or perhaps as an assistant or adjunct professor, but will that provide sufficient remuneration? No, probably not, but it’s still an option. Does anybody have any suggestions as to go about finding a good school to teach at? If I skip the teaching, do I go back to hospital administration which pays well and which I know fairly well, but which gives tedium new and more Hellish meaning? These decisions are not easy, my friends, and applying for jobs is not precisely what I wanted to do while working on my thesis. Le ugh.
Maybe I should just stay here in Paris. Sure it’s expensive and far away from home, but it’s still pretty great! Naw. After all my friends head back to the US or to whatever new and exotic place they might be going, Paris might be a pretty boring place. Besides, I miss my friends back home and as most of them are young professionals in their 20′s just starting out, they probably won’t be taking too many European vacations to come visit me. Add to that aging grandparents and it seems like living in North America might be a better option. That is, of course, assuming a high paying job doesn’t fall in my lap. If that happens, all bets are off and Paris could easily become chez moi.
Life would be boring if it were straightforward, right?
Oh! Before I forget, I wanted to mention Le lustre noir (The Black Chandelier) which is a lesser known club that Donna and I got to visit over the weekend in the Third. It’s kind of a neat little place that had German punk pop blaring when we got there, and whose eclectic East meets West decor, Woody Allen movies playing from plasma TV’s, and good selection of wine and pizza make it a must see for a low-key evening on the town with friends. I hear they even serve spaghetti dinners with sauce and garlic bread faits maison (homemade sauce) on Saturdays. It’s worth checking out if you can get past the doorman!
