summer
Already : Hatachi Archives
summer Tuesday April 20
i'll be in new york city this summer and in champaign next fall. i'll be working for my brother, and for myself. yet, the process of how i arrived at these conclusions is far more noteworthy than the facts themselves, so i will detail herein:
since november, i have assumed that i will be in champaign for next fall. i need to take two 300-level ealc courses, and there is no way around that. if i am going to be in champaign for school, i might as well take a full load: there's no reason to be at a fine university and not try to explore other interests. thus, my fall schedule includes beginning mandarin, but i couldn't make ice skating fit.
when i decided to go to new york this summer, i knew that i would live by myself. i would not live with michael. that is what i did two summers ago, and i have grown since that time. i am opting for a more expensive route of going it on my own because i believe that a key step in growing up is being able to fully support myself. this summer will be a good litmus test, and i can return to loans in the fall if necessary. for tuition, i am sure that it will be necessary, but i would like to think that i can sustain my living expenses otherwise.
as i looked for apartments, i found many that would not accept short-term (i.e., summer) leases. these were year leases. they were nice, close apartments, and i could afford them. this began turning gears in my head, and it occurred to me at the end of last week that returning to champaign is not my only option.
when i registered for fall, i noticed that a couple of the 300-level ealc classes are individual study courses that are privately arranged with a professor, and such classes do not require campus residency. thus, completion of two such classes could enable me to graduate away from campus, and i thought about the possibility of signing a year lease in new york city. then, i began looking at jobs. full-time jobs. programming positions.
enter mass confusion.
do i stay in champaign and take the easy semester, using that time to find out what i want to do for nine months before going to japan for the JET program?
or do i stay in new york city for a year, get a cool job, make a lot of money, graduate, and then go to japan for the JET program?
the latter certainly sounds cooler. but there are a lot of variables in that equation that aren't as good as they sound. for example: mark's sitting in a job interview 3 years from now. "so, we see that you left xyz company in new york city and worked in japan as an english teacher. why?"
what am i supposed to do? lie? say, "because i'm young, and i don't want to tie myself down to any company or anything yet, so, uh, i just quit and moved on"? i don't think that'll score me the job. but there is one job i can just quit and pick up again: my own -- and so i've decided to continue with pitchpipe in lieu of a full-time job in new york.
there's a host of other issues, too, but that's the gist of it. oh, and it's hella cheaper in champaign.
