Friday, September 23, 2011

A Year of Planning


 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