At this moment, no one knows of the
existence of this blog. In fact, only my family and two close friends
know about my plans that are the reason for its existence. But, if
all goes according to plan, by this time next year my friends or
anyone who is interested in seeing the world through another's eyes
will be reading what I'm writing right now, on August 19, 2011.
Well that was an unruly sentence.
So the actual purpose of this blog, as
you may have deduced from the title up there ^ “Wanderlust,” is
to document my travels to many different places, since I have always
had a worse case of wanderlust than anyone else I've met, and plan to
satisfy it as much as possible. This will start, esperant,
with an exchange student trip to spend my senior year in France.
As I mentioned, I'm writing this
before I have even told my friends, and actually before I know it is
possible. I haven't talked to my guidance counselor yet, though I've
done RIDICULOUS amounts of research and contacted the obliging people
at CIEE to let them know I'm interested. So who knows? Maybe it won't
work out. But I'm determined not to spend another two years at my
nice but boring high school near Sunnyvale, California, where I've
lived for the past 16-and-a-half years. Somehow I'll find a way out.
There's a lovely phrase in French “trouver un moyenne,” which is
approximately “to find a way/a means” to do something, a phrase
which I repeat to myself often.
And the “many other places,” you
might ask? Indeed. After this, who knows? Not I. But I'll go to
college somewhere interesting, and I'll try to do a year abroad there
too, perhaps venturing to Cameroon or another Francophone African
country. I find it likely that I'll work for an international charity
organization at some point, to travel the world doing good things for
the Peace Corps, or AmeriCorps, or Les Medicins Sans Frontiers, or
whatever. I also find it likely that when I'm figuring out what to do
with my life (a process I assume happens at some point between
starting college and leaving it) I'll choose something that allows me
to travel, like journalism, international politics, or even a normal
but highly relocatable job such as nursing. (Yeah, you can tell this
is really set in stone, huh.)
Until then, and after then: May we
lead interesting lives! I will post observations about living abroad,
perhaps some photos, or whatever other mind-vomit really needs to be
here (more for me than for you guys, but I hope you few readers will
enjoy it).
Oh, a few other things: 1) All my
California friends know me as Jenna. I'm the same person, with two
names. :) 2) If you were wondering about my, uh... creative URL
(there are SO many blogs, it's impossible to get a sensical name), I
would love to explain it to you! Envie de voyager is
approximately how you'd say “wanderlust” in French, and I've
inserted my name in the middle of it-- “Env-ikwe” de
voyager. My name seems to have a history of creative mangling, after
all – my dear camp friends might recall L'Iktionaire, Ikwe-itis,
the Ik-squeak, or Lea's Icky-wee-wee. <3 Good times.
I'm actually posting this first blurb
way after I wrote it. Unfortunately, I have little progress to
report, a month later. My school guidance counselor is a useless lump
of flesh, no matter how kind and understanding I try to be about it.
I have everything totally planned out-- but for the past month, all
I've needed as a next step is to talk with my counselor, and every
one of the half-dozen times I've gone to see her, she's been fairly
rude, too busy to see me, unwilling to tell me what else I can do or
when she'll be less busy, and altogether thoroughly unpleasant to
deal with. The introverted, non-confrontational side of me just wants
to slink into a corner and forget about it, but with such a goal in
my head (and internal murmurings of “trouver un moyenne,” and
“never give up”), I keep going back for still more unpleasant
conversations. Wish me luck, oh so-far-non-existent readers!
Amities, Ikwe
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