No Voice

One of my scariest nightmares when I was growing up involved me being unable to scream or move. I must have been seven or eight years old. I still sported the bowl cut that my mother was so fond of and which gave me so much grief when I was sporting it.

 I was at some sporting event. Alone. And some bad man was trying to kidnap me. I was in the part of the stadium where one can buy drinks and snacks for the game. There was plenty of people walking around me as I stood in, what seems to me, the cavernous space. All I could see was the evil man and I knew that I could not stop him. My heart was racing in a clear sign of the fight or flight response. I tried to move, but it was as if my feet were glued to the concrete floor. I tried screaming hoping that someone would hear me and stop to save me. I jerked awake. I don't know how the story ends. I do know that I was always afraid of being ripped away from my parents and carried away into the unknown by some stranger as exemplified in this dream that I can still vividly picture.

Recently, though, I know that I hate the idea of not being heard and think that the dream also may have been my subconscious trying to clue me into that fact.

These days I don't have nightmares of this caliber anymore. But, I do know that it is frustrating to not be able to voice a fear or anything that emits stress in one's life or when someone does want to help you but can't seem to grasp the situation from your point of view. When they perceive a problem that doesn't bother you it almost makes the situation worse because it is almost like they don't take heed of what your saying because it lacks import. Disconnect in conversation can really mess up the perspectives of both interlocutors and  nullify anything said in the conversation, making it pointless. I need to just keep reminding myself that I do have a voice I just need to know how to use it so that someone will listen.

Catharsis

I feel lost.

I started watching Friday Night Lights, the series not the movie, on netflix tonight. As I sat not really paying attention to the background noise while I surfed the internet the thought occurred to me that from a young age I strived for things that no longer matter. I guess they never did. Winning in sports, accomplishing different art projects or overcoming a difficult piece of music on an instrument. I put so much importance on being what I considered to be "perfect." It is funny because a lot of what influenced me was a school friend of mine who was always one step ahead. Life goes on and she is still in front of me and I seem to be slipping farther and farther behind. I'm just another run of the mill college graduate, with mediocre grades, listing on the sea of life without navigational charts to help plot a course. Hopefully, I won't run into Charybdis or Scylla in the disorienting storm in which I find myself.

All of my friends from high school and from college are doing interesting things now.  Many of them are doing said things because they don't have any other options or because of pure luck and are still haunted in the quiet hours of the evening with fears of imminent failure and the certainty that they will have to make another life changing decision in the near future, but I digress. They are doing important things. Things that I wish I could be doing. And yet pulling the trigger seems so difficult for me. Committing is terrifying.

I have lived my life in fear. It stops me in my tracts and, like the still vivid nightmares of my childhood, danger comes rushing towards me and I can't get out of the way and I can't even yell for help. I am helplessly stranded. I guess it can be classified as the fear of the unknown probably mixed with the fear that I won't be able to cope.

True, the concentration of my fear has changed over the years. When I was little it was the fear of being kidnapped or being attacked in my home. I no longer need to turn off the lights at night and army crawl across the floor of my parent's kitchen to get to my room in such a way that a passerby will not detect my movements. Now the fear is almost more stupefying.

It no longer evokes a physical reaction except for the rapid heartbeat and a feeling of slight constriction in my chest more akin to worry than to the fight or flight response of old. Now it comes to me in the silent hours of the night when all are asleep except the foxes that patrol the neighborhood, the friendly hoot owls standing sentinel over their domains and possibly the rats that have taken up residence in the lush countryside of Ranch Acres.

I haven't achieved anything. I am not helping people. I made a promise to myself during my first bout of depression that I would have a job where I could make people smile, whether that be as a talented performer (I think that most people would rather choke than watch me perform at this point), or as a physician or something completely different, I was going to do my part to not let someone experience the void with which depression enveloped me and finally settled into the pit of my stomach making me breath out vapors of despair. That was incredibly indulgent, but, I'm running with it. So keep up.

 I am a hostess. Hardly doing anything worthwhile except as a place holder. People don't come in the restaurant and smile when they see me. More likely, they come in and are unhappy that their table isn't ready or because someone messed up their reservation. I spend my working nights kowtowing to the snobby elite of Tulsa County trying to inflate their egos to maximum capacity. Not too gratifying of a job. However, occasionally, perfectly wonderful people come into the restaurant and are cheerful and patient and I want to help them have a good experience, but they generally come in smiling. No need of me at all.

Now is the time for me to search out new opportunities that may help me in my plight to find something that I think is meaningful, in reality finding the best way for Whitney to make people smile. However, I seem to differ on how to go about this from my closest advisors, ie my parents. I still think traveling and gaining life experience will make me a better person. They caution that it might just make me an undesirable hire in the long run--a privileged rich kid that has gotten too much from mom and dad. Well, let's face it. I am extremely privileged. Not as much as many of my classmates both from high school and college. But, they do help me by providing my basic necessities and more as I bum around town slowly losing my way and even losing my will to experiment with new circumstances that may open up new venues for me. I guess I just want permission from them to take the long way in finding my place in society. I want time. For now I will just chomp at the bit without knowing where I am going or how exactly I will get there. I just wish that feelings of hopelessness wouldn't steal upon me in the middle of the night when  I don't even want to disturb the nocturnal creatures outside on their individual missions of survival. I want to be a child of the wild blue yonder floating about in an ethereal haze until reality settles on me in an exceedingly positive light. Unfortunately, reality seems to be a bit more heavy handed.


Thank you. That was cathartic.

What's a girl to do?

How does one decide what they should do? I don't mean this for the small things like "what I should eat for dinner." But, for the big things like "what job do I want to pursue."

Part of me really hates having options, unless they are not discernibly different to an outsider. Furthermore, after my fiasco of an adventure in South Korea I am hesitant to accept a job anywhere without lots of research. All the research does is suppress my unbridled enthusiasm and slap me in the face with too much reality. After all, travelers who learn too much about their journey tend to not make the journey because of the inherent risks involved in travel.

Having gotten a job offer in a part of the world where I have yearned to work for longer than I can remember, I don't know if I can bring myself to make a decision either way. The job sounds fantastic. I would be teaching preschoolers from Monday to Friday at a school that looks like a great place to work. I just won't get any money. And one of the reasons I want to teach english is to be able to see the world, which involves travel. Which takes money. Plus, I found out that there are a lot of blackouts, which affects the distribution of running water to homes on the island where I want to go. This sort of disables a person from, oh I don't know, cooking, bathing, etc. I have to expect that in a third world country I won't have everything I am accustomed to, but this also isn't supposed to be like working in the Peace Corps where I don't expect many, if any, creature comforts. I guess I could always look for another job abroad, but what if one doesn't come along as right for me as this one?

My other option of course is getting another job that makes me feel completely useless and under-utilized until I go back to school to take some more courses to open my way to different opportunities in graduate school.

Option three would be to hope that I could find an internship that might be able to help me find out what I would like to do for a future career, while also paying me to work for them. Free labor doesn't sit right with me.

Making decisions is stressful. I really don't understand how people do it with seeming ease. Any help, including information, would be beneficial and appreciated.

TEFL Course Graduate

As a new TEFL course graduate I would like to thank all of the little people for all of their support for me during my endeavors.

But really the course I took was awful. Not because of the course itself, but because of the instructor. He was a complete joke and in no way do I feel comfortable recommending this particular school to anyone in case they must be taught by Hugh.

Let me explain my extreme dislike for his teaching methods:

1) He never answered a question satisfactorily.
2) Often times he would ignore questions asked by students and did not like when students asked him questions.
3) He lacked any kind of social skills needed to be an inspiring teacher (or really a human being).
4) After I would teach a lesson he never gave good critiques that would help me in the future.
5) He did not respect personal space even after someone mentioned it to him.
6) He was the most disorganized person in the world and would forget to tell students of time changes in the written schedule he gave us.

All in all I am happy to have the somewhat useless piece of paper telling the world that I passed this course, but it was rough going.

Even with all of this negativity I am very happy that I got to spend time in France meeting loads of different people (mostly from Sweden). This cohort of mine enjoyed my last week together at the reservoir hanging out and eating cheese. Some also consumed some wine. And generally having a good time together at a bar, on the Promenade de Charles de Gaulle, by the lake... wherever we found ourselves really. In essence a perfect ending to a month fraught with a frustrating teacher.

Jesus Christ

Why do the Jesus freaks flock to me like mosquitoes do?  Over a week ago I met one of my neighbors in the dorm. She is a French girl who comes from right outside of Nice and is studying to be a midwife. When we talked she basically told me her entire life story filled with lots of drugs because her father, a protestant pastor, cheated on her mom and then moved to Africa to preach there. Then she went to a Protestant camp during the summer months years later and was locked in her room with only a bible and her school books because she had been kicked out of camp but could not leave for some reason. Well, everyone that is where she found Jesus. 

That is right she is a born again Christian. Whaaaaattt?!?!?! I left the Bible Belt… why are they following me to France, where most of the population is supposedly not religious? I suppose I should have foreseen something like this since I am staying in the dorms for the school of Protestant Theology, but she doesn't even go to the school! Along with the people who left me with Gideon’s Bible I am just really confused. I guess my soul radiates the blackness of a true atheist and draws all of the evangelical Christians to me like moth to a flame (although I can’t devour them like the poor flame can). 

I was really uncomfortable because it is great that she found a religion that works for her. I just don't share her opinions of the workings of the universe. I told her that I had to leave and call my mom via skype which I won’t be able to do until Monday. I just wanted her to stop talking about Jesus’ love and how much she wanted me to experience that as well one day. Yikes!

Long Time Coming

It’s official. I have arrived in Paris and I am waiting for the TGV to Montpellier.  Although the trip started out with a huge dose of stress, it now seems very doable.  On arrival at the airport I was told that my flight from home to Detroit was delayed which would make me completely miss my flight to France. Upon hearing this delightful information my stomach started knotting. I had to get to France so that I can get into my room in Montpellier. 

Well the nice Delta employee found another option for me and it turned out to be a much nicer one than my first. I would fly to Atlanta and then take a flight to France. But, I would get to ride in Business Class. Wow. Life changer. Those seats lie back. I slept a lot more than I would have been able to in coach. 

I also really enjoyed comparing the complementary things that Air France and Korean Air gives you on the long international flights. On my Korean air flight they gave the passengers slippers and a toothbrush and toothpaste. Air France on the other hand gave us socks (they were hideous brown things), an anti-wrinkle cream, a shoehorn, a small comb, toothbrush and toothpaste, and earplugs. I wonder if the difference lies in the change from economy to business class…. That curtain separating the two sections of the plane brings amazing benefits to those in business class.

I have finally reached Montpellier. My train was an hour and thirty minutes late so they are going to repay me the time spent waiting. Awesome? Why yes it is. My first night I stayed in a hotel, which was nice but didn’t have any bells and whistles. This morning I came to the Protestant School of Theology and am now officially installed in my French digs. I really like my room. It is small and cell like but the bed is pretty comfortable and there is a private bathroom attached to it. It looks very European and not much like my dorm rooms in the U.S. except for the Spartan furnishings.

It is interesting how the school sets up the kitchen. It is somewhat industrial and there are lockers for everyone to store their food and anything else they need to produce a meal. There are three refrigerators and in each one the number of the bedroom is on a little plastic tub for people to store their perishables in. The grounds of the school of Theology are very nice. There is a small garden where we can eat if we so choose and there is a library where we can work if we want. Also there are a couple of recreation rooms which although slightly pathetic and shabby looking I would not hesitate to use in a pinch.

As far as the city itself is concerned I do not think I like it as much as some American cities as far as looks are concerned. But, it does have a charming personality. The city center, according to the guidebook affectionately known as the egg because of it’s shape, is really beautiful. I will explore more and make another report and hopefully have some pictures to share.