The Janus Effect

There is a greek god (or entity, something like that, my knowledge of Greek mythology has lapsed somewhat, which is a personal embarrassment) called Janus. He has two faces: one looking foward and one looking back.

This summer looks like it is going to have that dual-quality.

In the wake of graduation, I have been particularly moody and happy at the same time. Moody because I GRADUATED. I am DONE, FINISHED, FINITO, TELIOSA, OWARI.

Comprende?

According to Mel, I am somewhat depressed and bitchy precisely because I have graduated. There is no looking back, unless you look back on what happened in the past four years. Mel can relate, because he went through the same process last year, combined with the anxiety of going on more than ten interviews for a job in the finance world and getting rejected every time. He gave himself 6 months to get the "dream job."

The lucky stiff. He got the job that all of his classmates covet (as well as the bankers at Citibank and Chase). Without having to go through the hell known as the MBA (though he might do it in the future, but not for management - he thinks its a load of bull___. He likes to play with the real thing, hence the reason why he uses four computer screens at work to track the stock market. He gets to play in the dirt).

As for me, I have to go through six or seven more years of school to get that shiny Ph.d, maybe a post-doc somewhere and try and pray to get a job as a professor at a decent school in the NY-Metro /Tristate area. My top choices: Fordham, NYU and Columbia. I obviously do not need to explain myself why.

Not that I mind going to school - the routine of it is so ingrained in me that I like it. I am a geek, though I do not wear thick glasses and pocket protectors. I do dress like a prep though.

However, the Ph.d field seems highly overpopulated with equally amibtious people which is why I need to work extra hard to stand out so I can get that job. I want to make sure that I get a turn to play in the sandbox, too.

For example, applying to that East Asian Urban/Architectual History Conference in Kyoto this coming December - if I get selected, then my paper (the joy and bane that is my thesis) will get edited and PUBLISHED. I WILL BE 22 YEARS OLD. Mega cool. (I have a good chance at being selected - I corresponded with one of the people in the commitee and I sent him the thesis, and he was floored. I have the emails to prove it - to the point that he is trying to recruit me to study with him for my Ph.d at the University of Sydney. Mum is the word - my priority is to come back home.)

Mel was originally not too happy at the situation that I have presented/am presenting to him:

1) a year in London
2) 1.5 years in Japan
3) The prospect of 4-5 years in a city outside NYC for grad school. (However, my top three are Harvard, UPenn and Princeton, so that's not too bad. If I go to either of the latter two, Mel would probably come with me, as it is east to commute via car to his job in Jersey City, aka "Wall Street-West" (after 9/11, most of the financial big-wigs jumped ship and crossed the Hudson into presumably safer territory. Goldman-Sachs built a whole new building for themselves along the Newport/Pavonia waterfront).

My friend Cat told me that UPenn has off-campus housing in these old converted mansions in the historic-college town part and that just makes me drool. It's my dream to live in a townhouse in the historic part of Brooklyn and have an office with those bookcases built into the walls.

You can imagine it was rather difficult to part, especially when I left for London. However, Mel does understand that I have to do what I have to do in order to get "my dream job."

I am babbling. There is a lot of fog in my head.

There is this social stigma that says "after you graduate from college you will enter the 'real world'." What is the "real world" per se? I was told once by a classmate (who was an older student, already tried and tested in the "real world") that I am never entering "the real world" because I am going into academia and in a way its still like staying in college. Cat (who also wants to go into academia as much as I do) and I cheer to the prospect of a 12-hour workweek, never having a 9-5 job, getting paid to read books in a library, etc. etc. but it is still going to be a JOB. Just not a "conventional" one. Which I do not mind at all - I have worked part-time in offices since i was 15 and I hate it. The only thing I learned was how to waste my time using the Internet.

Facebook now has this new feature for our profiles called "Work" - where you write where you are working, for what organization and what your job is. I actually filled it out, because in essence, my fellowship is a job. I have to be accountable for the quality of my research and the quality of my language study - if I don't reach a certain level within the 6-month language study period, I get kicked out. Talk about quality control and employee review.

It may be called a "stipend" but it is still a salary. When I go to Japan, I have to pay rent, pay my cell phone bill, my credit card bill (I'm thinking of cutting it up actually, but all 'necessary' graduation miscellania is complete so I can return my AMEX to its hiding place) buy my own groceries, budget, make sure that my student loan is paid (I know I can defer it because technically I am still a student, but I choose not to, I want that sucker paid off) and make sure that I have some fun so that my time in Japan is not going to be like my time in London.

This little rant is the result of looking back over the past four years everytime someone asks me what I want to do for a living and they look at me strangely. So WHAT if I don't want to have a job that is in a shiny "office" (because I will have one at the university) in a the corporate sense. So sterile. You can decorate your cubicle, but I will be able to go teach class in hot-pink rainboots if I want to when the skies decide to open up and flood the NY subway system (my commute was HORRIBLE this past Friday). And I can wear jeans. Everyday. With sneakers (Or J.Crew ballet flats - I have grown up shall we say, I don't like to wear sneakers anymore). So WHAT if I don't want to run out and get a so-called "real job" right after college.

People have told me that they are envious of me - I get to live in Japan almost for free for 18 months! To them, I have this to say: I busted my ASS to get to where I am. I am the one who took 6 classes EVERY semester since freshman year so that I can take Japanese and graduate on time (except for junior year because that was London, but I sat in on the grad class with over 150+ page readings of really hard stuff plus over 5 hours of prep for it and the 3 hours+ Japanese I did every day so I can catch up and do well on the final) and got sick almost every semester for it, while working part-time so that I can support myself nominally so that I was not a burden to my parents, making sure that $3500 lasted for 7 months in London because my dad does not run the ice cream truck in the winter and they couldn't support me, handing over my paycheck to my parents in the winter of sophomore year because my dad was unemployed so that we could have groceries and pay the mortgage, paying for my Japanese classes every semester and in the summers (except for senior year, because Fordham helped me and for that I am eternally grateful) making sure my thesis was as good as it can be and fearing that I would get an F on it because it was still missing so much (although if I had more time I think it could have been better), running around and trying to get new jobs ASAP so that I can save money and yes, I did have to worry too about what I was going to do after college! Why do you think I took the GRE twice and almost applied to 10 grad schools and studied every spare moment I had (on the train, on the bus, in the 15 minutes between classes, even sneaking the readings in my desk at my old job) so that I can keep up my GPA?

When I explain to people this, they tell me I overreact and worry too much, and me getting sick proves it. First, college is a breeding den of germs. Every fall, everyone gets sick at my school because we have to become immune to the freshmen. Secondly, I had mono a few years ago and that whacked up my immune system from here to kingdom come. This past semester, I got laryngitis, lost my voice completely, hurt my back had a fever, couch, cold and allegies that are still bothering me. It's not that I overreact. It's not that I worry too much. Yes, I can be a bit hard on myself. But that is how I am. I do know when to stop or slow down a bit at least - as Mary says, "take it easy." Which is why I am seriously chilling out this summer. No classes, just work and yoga. And alot of sleeping and reading, for fun, with some studying so that my brain doesn't go to sleep entirely. Japanese is tough.

I am ranting - and I will admit to that. But this is my way of coping with the fact that I have graduated: I rant and be moody, which is not entirely constructive. Others are in denial, mellow about it, try ever-so-hard to stay in the city, go out and party (and get trashed doing it), etc. etc. Everyone has their own method. At least I get it out here. But I will make this perfectly clear: what I have now was not handed to me on a silver platter.

In my high school, I was a minority (demographically speaking, not that it says much, but my high school was zoned for the projects) and in my freshman year, there were 1000 kids. By the time I graduated, there were only 400. The college counselor struggled to make sure that every one of us at least applied for a CUNY and forced us to apply to two. Not many of us were amibtious; my fellow classmate who went to Fordham with me told me in conversation a few months ago "We are different, that's why no one liked us [in high school]."

By senior year, I was ostracized for two reasons: 1) my ex-best friend liked my now-fiance and turned agsinst me for it because she couldnt "have" him and 2) because I actually cared about school and wasn't satisfied with just going to CUNY. Not to knock it, but I wanted something more than that. I was tired of my 3500+ student high school and I wanted classes that were not 41 students because of overcrowding. When I told classmates my freshman year that size of my high school, they were floored. Kids in my high school didn't go to schools like Fordham, Columbia or Cornell (3, 1 and 2 went respectively in my senior class. The college counselor posted our acceptance letters and our financial aid packages because they were such huge firsts - 1 who went to Fordham and the student who went to Columbia went through HEOP).

It was a total fluke that I applied to Fordham, I wanted Columbia so badly. I just saw the brochure with the application that came in the mail because of the SAT release score program, my mom said it was pretty decent and I applied. Never visited, never went on the website - I was ready to give the application to a friend instead. I still remember the day I got my financial aid package - it practically covered 95% of my tuition, and only one (subsidized) loan. I got the letter in the mail and my mom was going down the stairs in the front porch to go to a friend's house. I stopped her and showed her the letter. She called the relatives, because I was the first one in my family to go to a private school, as opposed to SUNY or CUNY. Because of the financial aid, I was able to study abroad. Like I told Mary, when she asked me to sum up my financial need to determine if I qualified for some fellowships - "If I didn't get the financial aid that I got, I wouldn't be sitting here."

Nor would I be going where I am going now. I got rejected by Columbia twice in the same day; nonetheless, I am happy I went to good ol' Ram-land. In the beginning I was considering to transfer, but I never regretted not doing it. Things would have turned out very differently, mywself included.

One thing that will never change: the fact that I am a horrble - but fast- typer. I have to reread my entries twice to get the typing mistakes (Although, this time it was three times. But don't bother giving me typing lessons as a gift. This is why they have spell-check. I am a good speller - I won my class spelling bee in the 7th grade.).

Looking back is a good thing, even though it can be painful (refer to the rant above) at times. But then, you also remember the happy and the crazy times, as well. Working on my London scrapbook showed me that although I hated the city I still loved it. I miss the little squares and the bookshops where I got tons of books cheaply. I miss the cold sandwiches cut along the diagonal and filled with interesting combinations of filling. I do regret not having photos of me by the fountain in Russell Square, or exploring Islington more. I do have a photo of me at the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. But going back to Russell Square and having a mocha in the little cafe is a reason for me to go back to London. But in September or May, that's when London is at its best. When I was watching "The Da Vinci Code" in the movie theatre last week, I actually sighed when the story shifted from Paris to London. Never got to see the Templar Church, either.

So I think I am done looking back. I can' t be bitchy any longer because I do have something (or many things really) to look foward to. At times, the whole Japan thing is very scary - I am practically moving to another country and have no relatives there at all or anyone else, but I hope I will manage. My biggest fear is that I get depressed like I did between Janaury and March 2005 and not appreciate my time in Kyoto. However, there are opportunities for suprises, and you can even shock yourself at what you find yourself doing, especially when its fun and not something you would not do under normal circumstances at home.

Like the time I figured I was able to survive getting a needle, then a scalpel down my throat due to an abscessed tonsil in August 2004 (yes, I have now grossed you out, but it is the truth, I was the "textbook case" so all the residents and interns saw me BEFORE the ENT doctor came to the ER) so I got my tragus pierced in London. I always thought of getting something pierced, but I never had the guts to do it. Something in London - combined with the tonsil fiasco - gave me the balls to do it. There is that stereotype that college students do crazy stuff, especially when you study abroad. So instead of puking my guts out after a hangover (something I am proud of never having to do) I chose get a piercing.

Being me, of course I still asked my mother for permission via AIM first though.