My creative writing professor is having our class over his house for dinner and drinks for the end of the semester. It's essentially a party for handing in our portfolios. I was so looking forward to this. Being in a class with only 13 other people where every week you have to read something personal aloud that you've written really creates a bond... plus the people are just cool to begin with. Also being invited over a professor and an accomplished writer's house is something I've never experienced, and might never again! Well, might never... ever. My flight is scheduled to blast off twelve hours before that party.
I'm so bummed :( :( :( :( :(
That would have been a great send-off if it was just a DAY earlier.. or if my flight was just a DAY later. Especially because this class is one of my favorite things about studying abroad here in New Zealand.
Damn it.
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Let me throw in a bunch of pics to lighten the mood and change the subject.
It was Emma's turn to present her portfolio in class this morning.
She wrote hours a day on a spontaneous, four-month trip around South America in 2009, Jack Kerouac style. The whole trip was inspired by "On The Road" in fact. Now she's typing up all her hand written journals and organizing them into a book. During her critique she revealed that she kept a journal simultaneously with the book writing. I said I'd rather have read the journal. Not that what she wrote wasn't great. It was.
She gave herself a pseudonym, like Kerouac did for himself and his friends in his book. She admitted she was doing it just to imitate Kerouac, but she also said "I felt like a character during that time anyway, though." Harry, my professor, said a little something about how it is nice to be able to travel and kind of "be someone else" for awhile. Then he remembered "we actually have three travelers in our class right now, I'd be interested to see how they feel about that" and I piped up and said I had actually been thinking about it the other day and feel like I'm pretty much the exact same way I always am. Everyone laughed and once the laughter died down I heard one feeble "I think that's good though" which was from the classmate I admire the most so I appreciated it extra.
The thing is though, that's the truth. My time here in New Zealand is winding down and the other day I was wondering if I might have missed an opportunity to put on another pair of shoes for awhile. Act like someone else and have no one be the wiser. Even though that does sound like a lot of fun, and I did have a big opportunity to pull it off, being in a country on the other side of the world where I didn't know a soul to begin with, how can I regret being myself.
I think I'm lucky to be 21 and "know who I am" more or less. I know I'm young and I'm going to grow and change and look back and think I didn't know what I was talking about, but for now, I'm happy being the me I am. I am experiencing New Zealand without an alter-ego lens and I'm happy about it. I do the things I do. I say the things I say. That's me.
I guess I still have time to go all "dissociative disorder" on everyone and conjure up another personality, but I don't think I will.
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