Please Don't Shoot Me Down

I am not one of those girls who has to have a boyfriend to be happy.
I have had relationships in the past, and they have been fun, but they always formed organically and without much effort on either person's part.

I have not had a relationship in college. I am not resistant, nor am I seeking it out. I feel like this constant pressure though, as if I should be trying to find someone, or that my lack of prospects is something that needs to be fixed. I don't know if it's because my sister has had a boyfriend more often than not since she was 14 (usually one two-year relationship ends, and she moves into another serious one months later). I don't know if it's because my best friend and roommate has a boyfriend right now that she can't stand to be apart from and has become somewhat of another roommate to me. It might even be that my parents ask me if I'm seeing someone every single time I go over there, which is more often than most college students.

It's hard to feel like I'm doing it right (even though I am happy) when everyone around me seems hellbent that I am doing it wrong. I have had plenty of interests and crushes and such, they just haven't really led to anything. Recently it has come to my attention that this might be my fault. Maybe my complacency has gone past "I want it to form organically" to "I don't want it." Also, I seem pretty outgoing sometimes, but deep down I'm shy, and less likely to make my interests obvious. Sometimes I think I am being pretty bold, but clearly this is not so.

Call me old fashioned, anti-feminist, sexist, whatever; but I miss the idea that it was up to the boys to do the approaching, asking out, and making moves. But I guess the times they are a changing, and I need to assert myself more. If I am to be rejected, at least I know it's not going anywhere because they don't want it to, not because they thought I didn't.

So sorry boys, for being wishy washy, disinterested, or hard to read.
I will work on it.

One Foot Out The Door

Today I realized that my plans are going to happen.

I crossed a few bridges, important bridges, Golden Gate status, and now that I'm on the other side I am only going to keep going forward.

For those of you that don't already know, in January I will leave behind most of my friends and family and study in Prague, Czech Republic. I have been wanting to do a semester abroad since I realized that was even a remote option. I was scared to go it alone, and I wasn't sure if I would actually finish what I started.

I have kind of a problem with finishing what I start. I always come up with these awesome elaborate ideas, but I often replace them with new phenomenal plans before I get through with them. That's why meeting Alaina, aka "DangerDelusion" was the first bridge I had to cross. However that bridge was mostly effortless, more like crossing a creek than an ocean. She and I clicked instantly, and have only found two things that we disagree on: Red licorice (I like it, she does not) and Mandy Moore as an actress (again, I like her, she does not). Everything else is generally creepy similar, including the desire to travel and study abroad. Once I convinced her that Prague was the shit and she needed to join me, my motivation to move forward doubled.

We went to the proper office, we looked at the literature, we made to-do lists, we put all the applications in 3 ring binders. We were making Prague-ress (lolpun) and I was propelled to a new attitude, the kind where this could ACTUALLY happen.

Today I crossed a bridge that was HUGE to me, but may seem pretty trivial to others. I accepted the fact that if I am going to live abroad for 2 quarters, than I need to decide where I am going to live when I am still attending Western in the fall. I always knew in the back of my mind that the best option would be to live with my parents. My parents are pretty cool, they live in Bellingham, they need my help with the nephews, and I would be able to save about $2 grand by simply not paying rent or unitilities. This part wasn't too difficult, but then I had to tell my roommate. We love our house, we've set it up pretty much exactly how we wanted it to be, and we're best friends. I talked to her this morning about how I wouldn't be renewing the lease with her, and how she either needed to find another place to live or another roommate. I was sad, and I thought she might be a bit mad or feel blindsided, but the conversation was fairly painless and she understood my need to GTFO.

The final bridge of the day was also fairly painless but easily the most important. I met with Oliver de la Paz, the head of the Creative Writing major and the man who would make or break my plans. He had to look over the classes offered in Prague and determine which would transfer back into my major. He seemed really excited for me and was confident that he would be able to help me out. Out of the 8 Lit and 2 Film classes offered at Charles University, he equivocated 6 to my major. It is reccomended that I take 4 classes abroad, so this gives me a little leeway to change around my schedule. CU has no classes on Fridays, and I could probably turn the 3-day weekend into a 4-day weekend for extraneous travelling.

Here are the classes:

WWU Eng. 304 = CU Lit 348 (From Modernity to Avant-Garde: Modern Poetics)
WWU Eng. 310 = CU Lit 309 (From Kafka to Kundera: Czech and Central European Lit)
WWU Eng. 312 = CU Film 310(Central European Film: Search for Identity)
WWU Eng. 327 = CU Lit 328 (Czech and Polish Lit from a Queer Perspective)
WWU Eng. 340 = CU Lit 326 (Czech Short Stories)
WWU Eng. 364 = CU Film 340(Eroticism, Fate and Power in Central European Cinema)

We are also required to take Czech 101, Intensive Czech for beginners. This class is 4.5 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the first 2 weeks of the semester. This is so that we have time to adjust to Prague life, while learning one of the strangest and most difficult languages enough to order food and get around on public transit.

Each class is 3 Semester credits, which transfer to 4.5 WWU credits, meaning I will have to make up all those .5 per class, but I guess this is the reason I have been doing summer quarters!

Alaina has her appointment to get classes approved on Thursday, then the next step will be to get a medical screening and figure out financial aid! I will be blogging the progress of this journey, and the experience once there!