Prague 10/4 - Ruminating on the futility of my own plans

This whole Europe thing is making me really introspective, specifically about what I want.

Allow me to start from the beginning. I have always, always had a “when I grow up” plan. That’s pretty normal as a little kid, and I wanted to be the typical little kid things – artist, movie star, princess, etc. I think, for most kids, that it stays normal to have a general idea of what you’d like to do, though it remains vague, up through middle school. I know very few high schoolers who know what they want to do, I know (if possible) fewer college kids who know what they want to do (though they’ve all gotten better at bullshitting an answer), and I know an infinitesimal amount of adults who are doing what they “wanted to do when they were younger.” Except my mom, but she’s awesome. And also a different story. Me, though, I have always had the “when I grow up” nailed down, and in detail. When I was in middle school, it was go to Oxford, come back, and write the next GREAT AMERICAN (fantasy) NOVEL. Cue dramatic music. In high school, it was go to Columbia (school, not country), get a degree in Journalism, work for The New York Times, and win a Pulitzer. Senior of high school and freshman year of college, it was become Nick Naylor in Thank You for Smoking, which for those of you who haven’t seen that movie, means be a really awesome and amoral lobbyist/PR rep. Those of you who know me also know that none of this planning ever made me happy. I hated middle school, I hated high school marginally less, and my freshman year was a nice little slice of hell I sometimes think I’m still recovering from.

So I ended up at DU. Which really kind of felt like getting sent back to the last checkpoint in Diablo III – I got to keep the experience and the stuff, but all the progress I’d made in the game was reset. I was no more than 30 minutes away from where I grew up at a university that had stopped offering the specific program (Strategic Communication) I had transferred for. I wasn’t really sure anymore what I was shooting for. And in that limbo of not really knowing what I wanted to do, I took an economics course, and I loved it. Loved it! Which is really not something you hear people say about Introductory Micro and Macro Economic Theory.

Segway for a short story: that winter my father and I went skiing. Now, the day I came home and announced to my father I was declaring a double major in Economics on top of my major in Communications, I swear a marching band went through our living room waving “She’ll get a job!” banners. He was ecstatic! So that day one rather chilly December, he asked what I want to do “with this economics degree.” Not “this double major” or any other mention of communications, which is still my first love of the two. I really had no clue – not a shot in the dark at which way I wanted to go with it – and rather than say that and get a lecture on what was otherwise a very nice day with a man I do not typically get along with, I said, “Chairman of the Fed sounds fun.” I was being flippant – he didn’t hear it. My dad latched onto banking, and it wasn’t until this spring that he realized I didn’t mean it.

Which really brings us back into the narrative (narrative-like string of words might be more accurate). I’d declared a double major in Economics and Communications with a minor in Russian, which I have more or less stuck too the last two and a half years (that long?!) I’ve been at DU. And I have never been dissatisfied with it. The following winter after declaring the Econ major, I took a “Rhetoric of Social Movements” class that was far and away the most fun I’d had in school, ever. And I am a giant nerd, I love learning ANYTHING, even if its just how to clean the coffee grounds out of the latte machine at work, so that really says something. And as I progressed in Economics, I realized very quickly that I hated the numbers, but loved the theory. So my major has really developed into Theoretical Political Economics and Rhetoric with a minor in A Language I Have To Go Out Of My Way To Use. Tell me that wouldn’t look fantastic on a resume. And while I kind of stuck with the banking thing for lack of a better idea, the real answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” had really just become “I have no fucking clue.” I got an internship as a recruiter, and as fun as that was, it made it pretty evident that maybe the shit I’d told myself I wanted, I actually didn’t want.

So cue Spring Quarter 2012. I took a Rhetorical Criticism class with Dr. Foust, the professor who I’d taken the previous rhetoric class with, at her request and also because I love rhetoric the way I think potheads love peanut butter. And that was the class that clinched it for me – if academia is where I am well and truly happy, stimulated, and fulfilled, why would I leave? The plan now: GET A PHD FROM CARNEGIE MELLON IN ECONOMIC RHETORIC, THEN TEACH THE SOCKS OFF THE NEXT GENERATION OF SHIT HEAD COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT THEY WANT TO DO WHEN THEY GROW UP, EITHER.

Oh yeah, baby, I’m back.

But here’s the thing about plans that keeps me up at night. They are, by their very nature, stupid. I mean, my parents are a good example of this. My mom’s motto is “Just wing it” and she told me over the summer that it took her a very long time to learn to let go of being in control and just let whatever happens, happen. My mom is my role model and my hero, and I don’t think I can ever be a 10^th of the amazing, kind, caring, loving person she is. But I know I don’t want the same things as her, so would that kind of philosophy work for me? I mean, my mom wanted a career, so she got one, and then she wanted kids and to be a phenomenal mom, so she had them and she is. What else is left to plan? My dad, on the other hand, lives and dies by “fail to plan, plan to fail.” My mom mellowed him out over the years, but I think I get my devotion to planning from my father. He always knows what’s up, and even when he doesn’t, he fakes it well enough to fool me. And god knows I do not want to end up like my father – overworked, under appreciated, and terrified of change or anything I don’t understand or challenges my perception of reality. So how, precisely, do I balance that? Planning too rigidly is stupid – I think every culture has an expression similar to “Man plans, God laughs.” But without something to shoot for, life feels meaningless.

A final thought on this, before I wrap up. I’m pretty sure I know what I want – Dr. Cydney Trapp, PhD in Economic Rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon, age 33, unmarried but in a committed relationship, no kids but two adorable dogs (English Mastiff and Standard Poodle), employed teaching somewhere with a major airport so I can go home to see my parents with ease, access to good skiing, and the possibility for all that to change. I could bend on where the PhD comes from – Yale and Cornell both have very good Rhetoric departments, in addition to good Economic programs. Realistically, I don’t know if I’ll get a doctorate before my 33^rd birthday, though it’s a fun goal to shoot for. I’m perfectly flexible on dog breeds. And I hate to put it in writing, but if the right person came along, I could probably bend on the marriage/kids thing, too. But I don’t know what the interterm between then and now is going to look like. I’m thinking specifically of the 3-5 years after I finish my undergrad this spring (knock on wood). I decided a while ago that I would go back to school after a break, even before I decided what for. I thought before I got here I’d go back to the company I had the internship with. They’re almost always hiring, I have friends there, it’s a great company to work for because a) they care about their employees and b) they aren’t in the business of screwing people over, regardless of who their client is. But now… oh my dad is going to kill me, but what about traveling? Or living in a different country? What about not getting a “real job” that ties me in one place doing one thing and instead getting a job that lets me do “what I want” while I figure out what the hell that means? There exists a very real possibility/opportunity to come back to Prague and teach English. I could do the same thing in other cities, though Prague has romanced my (metaphorical) pants off pretty thoroughly.

What about that?