Culture Curve (Amended)

Positive feedback thusfar from yesterdays installment, and I thank you for that, but I looked it over and I felt that I needed to complete it a bit.

Two things that I wanted to say on the topic: The first is that, while this kind of travel is the way everything should be, it is not the way things are.  I love having this experience, but I’m starting to miss my real life just because I had a plan.  In the past few weeks I have strongly considered picking up a second locale and continuing my research in South Africa in the fall.  This is not in the plan and I understand that having “a plan” is entirely against the point of what InterFuture strives to create and perpetuate, but I think something that gets lost is that, while such an experience would be ideal, InterFuture truly exists to give students who will appreciate it, the opportunity TO live like this for a semester; the opportunity to make their lives something utopian, if only for a year at most.  South Africa would be amazing, but would completely put my life on hold and probably overwhelm me to the point of life-ruining if I DID do it.  My plan the last three years has been as such: Go to college, go abroad (junior year), get degree, try to make it as an umpire, *succeed: become umpire* *fail: fall back on the number of fail-safes created in college*  That plan has surpassed all expectations: go to college turned into go to Washington for a week, be inducted into two honor societies, go on a self-directed study abroad, graduate with honors in English; fail-safes include becoming a journalist.  I love my project. South Africa doesn’t fit. I would have to pick up summer courses which would interrupt other parts of my life plan: umpire high school ball and return to Boys’ State yearly.  These too are things I love, they make me who I am and help to define my passions, they have for the last 5 years.   What is life without passion, Ashlee and I discussed this at the June conference.  You need passion for InterFuture, but you don’t need InterFuture for passion.  I will return to staff InterFuture, I love it too much, and I always give back to a program that gives to me.  IF is up there with Boys’ State and umping in Cooperstown, and going to Suffolk it has become something that exploits my strengths and helps me overcome my weaknesses.  Most importantly, I am always learning with these programs.

South Africa also plays into the second point I want to discuss.  The other thing past scholars warned of was that, while we may be homesick, it will come at a time when it hits us that there are only three weeks left in our travel (17 days until the conference to be accurate) and that fact has become overwhelming.  My plan for this trip is still right on track: Feb – project month, March – travel month, April – Holland month.  I wanted to do Holland when it was warm and nice out.  The tulips are in bloom.  I realize already how much I will miss Holland as soon as I step on that plane and there is so much I still want to see.  I will of course, I am the efficient tourist (will explain that in my trip post) and I see what I say I am going to see, it’s just hard because when I said I was going to see Rome, I knew that when it was over I was coming back to Amsterdam, when I’m done with Amsterdam, my visa expires.  I think South Africa was me trying to avoid coming home, realizing that I was doing this well and not wanting to leave, but I HAVE to leave.  You can have an experience coming abroad, but I don’t believe that you can LEARN from it without returning home and I am excited to learn from it and see how this HAS improved me.  Picking up another semester would be me trying to claim permanence; trying to make this my real life, but it never can be.  Because of that, it’s not worth giving up Boys’ State, giving up umpiring (as I would need work around school), and giving up my plans.  In the end, I just want to do this time right, to KEEP doing it right and as well as I have so far.  In June I said I didn’t want to do a second locale for so many reasons that still apply today and now there are even more reasons, the chief reason being that I care about my project uniquely in Holland, not somewhere else. Now it is time for me to recognize that, see Holland, and attend opening day next week. 

Then back to the real world.