but maybe i should recap since june 1. location wise:
greece, copenhagen, paris, zurich, bern, nurnberg/erlangen, vienna, amsterdam, brussels, dublin, edinburgh, london, and barcelona. then all of a sudden, its july 17 and i'm exhausted after 38 hrs of travelling home. i had a great time.. hard to really describe. seeing all my friends (i think i hit up ~15), getting a local's view of the cities, lots of beer, and sharing some good times.. most of which i documented. some of which i regret i forgot to take pics as usual.. damn. but in any case, around 2000 pictures and $2000 later.. i am back at home as if i never left. time flies you know?
but i should also recap another big decision: peace corps. cut to the chase: i ended up saying no. why? i will never know... never know... i had 10 days to decide, then had it extended to monday, july 20. so that turned it into 1 day to read through the materials, talk with friends/family, and make the biggest decision of my life thus yet. and unfortunately, i blame friend-sickness and just wanted to settle back in at home before leaving on a new venture.. i get cold feet the night before and decline my invitation to serve in tanzania as a secondary school math teacher, leaving sept. 21. what was i thinking? i've been wanting this for so long. and last minute, i say no! its all a blur to me now. but i felt so undecided at the time; no gut feeling either way. and i'd rather be 'safe' and say no, instead of leaving and then not finishing my service. ah, sucks being a moral person. i think about other people before myself. the selfish option would have been to say 'yes' and keep the option open. but at the time, my mind just wasn't right, i honestly wasn't thinking straight. i had delusions of returning to berkeley to join friends and that it'd be just like it was before. but obviously, everything has changed. if people haven't moved on to different locations and jobs, they have different friends and new things in their life. everything's changed. and in the past few weeks, i realized i have changed too. just wish, regret with all my heart, i had realized that before july 20. i could have been going to africa in a month! i blame no one but myself obviously, but i just wish one person, just one friend i had called or family member, just one person had talked to me straight. 'its not my decision, you have to decide this for yourself' is some bullshit. i needed just one person to say 'you cant do this, are you kidding?' or 'of course you can do this! you'll be great and have an awesome time!' but no one would talk fucking straight to me. and look where i am now, regretting this decision for the rest of my life. perfect.
well, after making the worst decision of my life, i continued to be a nomad. not sure why; just needed to check in with friends, have a bit more travel til i start interviewing for jobs seriously? or have some time to think about other options besides just starting to work. so.. i went to berkeley for a few days, drove to my dad's then spent a week on a family vacation in niagara falls/adirondacks cabin (reflection time KILLED me), went to san diego (helped jake fix his boat and stayed at his hotel of a house), LA for Hard (didn't happen), then back up to Berkeley for almost two weeks, living in derek's room/applying to jobs/working out a lot. its strange how fast a day goes by when you have nothing to do. you busy yourself with random shit, TV, car battery dying, bars, lunches, cooking, cleaning, running with BKim, and chatting. sigh, the last time i'll live in berkeley. but i think everything happens for a reason. in my last couple weeks, i was finally able to close a difficult-to-close chapter of my life. the neighborhood seemed foreign, and everywhere i saw a stupid freshman or lame-o college student. ha, i'm above that. ha. in any case, the bums seemed anew and shitty ass apartments no longer special. i want a new life, a new challenge, and to start over again. i dont think i really want to be a new person, but i want to move on and feel the excitement of moving forward.
its sort of a tiny bit nice to be at home.. i keep telling myself i need to refocus. its true though. refocus on what i want to do as a job, my job search in general, and how i want to keep the special people i have in my life. if that makes sense. and even though i dont really have tasks on hand that need to be completed like i did during school, the constant worry of getting a job, health insurance, working out, keeping in touch with friends, thinking about grad school, using my network to get a job, deciding where to live, and so forth keep me down. to be perfectly honest, two weeks ago, i was the most depressed i have been for a very, very long time. 'i just waste other people's oxygen'-kind of depressed. i think thats what happens when you dont have goals. nothing to look forward to. in combination with failing at life left and right (no job, no africa, no friends, no home), its quite hard to maintain a happy demeanor. even my mania moments ('travel/volunteer in south america and learn spanish then go back to school!') soon fade. it doesnt help to get the 'job' talk from parents. i feel like an angsty teen -- 'they just don't understand! they don't understand how hard it is to get a job!'. but it's true.. i've never been rejected this much from anything before in my life. you try your best, study the companies, say all your accomplishments and goals.. then nothing. i feel like i'm doing something wrong. but i don't want to lie in an interview or resume, i am who i am. and there just has to be somebody out there that will hire me.
i just can't believe how berkeley left us out to dry. i can't even access the career center job listings, i'm using a friend's login. can't go to the career fairs either.. unless i buy a special one year package. wtf is that shit? some other recent grad, i heard, is suing her school for doing this sort of thing and letting her down in the job search. i agree.. resources could be a lot better! but even my professor said, they usually get a bunch of emails from alumni asking for new hires in our dept., but this year.. hardly any. sucks!
but i dunno. i'm trying to keep a positive outlook in this all. i definitely have taken this off-time forgranted! it's like my summer vacation, but the stress of job searching has ruined it! i've also learned that time is everything. and everything takes time. emotions, especially. i can be such an emo kid. i know i take things personally and really hard, but sometimes the seeming 'finality' of things hits me really hard. the idea of the end of something is extremely scary. not seeing someone again, not being in this place again, not having these feelings again? i hate it! i don't want to lose anything or anyone. or have to end something before its time has come. there are just certain things that you can just tell, only are supposed to happen for a short period of time, where lives cross temporarily and that's all you get. but there are others that you just know are meant to last, destined to cross again or are worth working for. i don't trust my intuition as much anymore, after the peace corps fiasco, but i think i should try to. because its all i got these days.
and so here i am, no longer a nomad. but not at home either. its just a continued limbo of sorts, but one where i don't want to go outside and see anyone i know! and although some things never change, a lot has... most of all, i don't like to see myself here. bleh.. please find me a job, please find me a job... i'll probably miss the good old days of unemployment and having free time once i do start working.. but at least i'll have a schedule. and hopefully a new city, and new experiences!
alright, pictures?
athens club with leonidas and anisia. paris.. good day.
vienna crew. sleepin on an edinburgh train.
