My French House Flippers are At It Again

I have to admit, I'm growing rather attached to the French family I'm living with as a jeune fille au pair. Yeah, they definitely have their squabbles, and they're definitely vocal about them. There are definitely better days than others with the kids, and there are days I definitely just want to hit the eject button. But at the end of it all, I feel really lucky to have a family to come home to and a family to help me out over here with all the insane "this is what life is like in hyper bureacratic France," stuff. This doesn't mean they will ever replace my real family, and this doesn't mean I love my real family (whom I miss a lot) any less, but more that I feel like I have an adopted family over here.

I forgot to mention one pretty damn cool detail: they're undercover house flippers. I was made aware of this my second weekend in France, but didn't think it was actually true! I was in the backyard having Sunday lunch in October with host parentals and their married friends. One proclaimed "Oh, S and JL, they buy a place for cheap, they gut it and fix it up real well, they paint it, and then within a few years, they sell it! Call us if you need a place to stay!"

I should probably remind you all that JL is an architect who has his own firm in a town called Marly-le-Roi, which is about 10 minutes from here, and is the site of their last house flipping project. So, as JL elaborated when I asked him in the kitchen a few weeks ago after they closed the deal on a house a few blocks from here, house flipping is both money maker and major hobby. He had entered the kitchen to grab a glass of water and whispered "Don't tell the kids yet...but we got the house!," with a devilish grin. I could only wonder what S, house-decorating-extraordinare to JL's architecture-designing-mastery, had in mind.

So my French House flippers are at it again, and this time, their project will be flipping a circa 1930's traditional stone French home into a two story, modern, New-York style loft home complete with a detached and completely equipped studio for their fille au pair next year. The studio has to be detached rather than on a third floor because apparently the area they're moving to in town is zoned to be environmentally friendly, and they can't add more than one story to what is already existing. They're starting building in April and will finish it in time to move in before what's called la rentree, culturally known as the start of school, but more broadly thought of as the period of the year in which people give thought to changing something--their hair, their wardrobe, THEIR HOUSE, you know, no BFD.

To make matters more interesting, I've gleamed from ever-so-subtle hints that they'd love to have me back next year, and that possible detached bomb studio could be mine. This all depends on the status of my graduate apps in the spring, but I could very well be leaving lovely first house in SGL, returning to California for around 56 days to swoop up another visa and see folks, and returning to France to new house.

Oh life, where the hell are you taking me? All I know for now is this: my French house flippers are at it again.

A strange melange of poverty and adulthood

I have discovered that there is nothing is this world that makes you feel more like an adult, and equally, that makes you feel more poor, than setting up automatic withdrawals from your checking account for student loan repayment.

Bring it, life.

The Spirit of California

I wrote this as a college sophomore the Sunday after we'd lost Big Game, two years ago. I post it here again because even though I am six thousand miles away from the university I love with all my heart, I think this is important to reflect upon:

Now is the time for true Californians to remember that the most precious gem California owns is not a trophy, but her spirit. The Spirit of California never has, nor ever shall, reside within the 15-inch blade of a red woodcutter’s axe, no. The Spirit of California lives within every note of Hail to California, within every single card stunt, within every Go Bears, and every inch of the California Banner, but most importantly, the Spirit of California lives within you. You are its most venerable guardian, and now it is your task to keep cheering for her—it will still do your lungs good—and keep loving her—it will do your life good. If I have cried at the loss of a trophy, let it be because I believed that our men did not fight as valiantly as they could to win. While this I may believe, as a true Californian, I turn to Andy Smith: “It is far better to play the game squarely and lose than to win at the sacrifice of an ideal.”

I am a Golden Bear. I will always be a Golden Bear, Axe or no Axe. My love for California depends not on the possession of a symbol, but on the deep affection and loyalty I have developed for this university. If I have cried at the loss of a trophy, let it be because I am guilty of loving California zealously and with all of my heart, loved her to the point of aching and to the utmost depths of my being.

One-hundred and ten years of history stand before me, and those one hundred and ten years are precisely that: they are stories. Stories of ups and downs, stories of ferryboats and policemen, stories of thievery, stories of 4-second miracles, and today, a story about love—devoted love for California in spite of whatever will come. If you are a true Californian, this is your story—your unchanging story—no matter what is recorded in the annals of history: this story stands eternal.

So sing for her, guide her, cheer for her, but above all, love her.

Hail to California, Alma mater dear.

Adventures in Socialism: L'OFII

Today I had my mandatory medical visit so that the French government can ensure I'm not some filthy vermin who is going to infect their populace with tuberculosis, rabies, and general mayhem. This meant I had to trek out to a suburb south of Paris called Montrouge, which also meant one RER line, and two metro switches.

I have never felt more like a herd of cattle in my life. I arrived at l'OFII ( which myself and fellow assistants included have been calling loh-phi), none other than the French Office of Immigration and Integration, at 10h30 sharp and was shuffled into a waiting room. I was about to get a cheap cup of coffee for 0,40 euro cents from a vending machine when we were then herded into another room and then moved from station to station.

I was weighed, measured, and had my vision tested. I then had the absolute pleasure (NOT) of going topless for some female nurses so they could take my chest x-rays. Of course, this meant that when one nurse tried to simultaneously get me to sit on a rolling chair with my chest pressed to a machine and chin posed on top of it, mind you while she LOWERED the damn chair and yelled at me in broken English to SIT DOWN, I couldn't because I'm too short to sit and stay the way she wanted me to. For about two seconds, I seriously considered yelling back at her in fluent French that I wasn't a stupid American, that I speak the language fluently, and that she could can it. SIGH. People, I speak your language. GET OVER IT!

The second part of this process then involved a visit with a doctor. Thankfully, this doctor was very docile, quiet, and kind. However, she had a minor heart attack when she took my pulse with a stethoscope. She went quiet and then paused and asked me "Do you do sports?"

For CRYING OUT LOUD, YES! People, exercise is not something abnormal, and in fact, it's quite good for you! I laughed and said "Yes. I run marathons." She then breathed easy and replied "oh good. Your heart rate is pretty low." She seemed rather relieved. She also said my lungs sounded excellent. Not hard when you don't smoke, Frenchies. Not hard at all. Sigh.

I then had to go upstairs with all my papers (and a copy of my chest x-ray, courtesy of the French government and Nicolas Sarkozy...) and waited another damn hour just to have the one person manning the visa de longue sejour cubicle paste the damn residency permit into my passport. All in all, I spent 2.5 hours in Montrouge for what amounted to no more than a 40 minute medical visit (not even...blegh). But alas, I won't be illegal in this country, and victory is mine: I have obtained my carte de sejour (see above picture)!

I have a love-hate relationship with this government.

The Plight of the Hopeless Romantics

In a day and age when romance seems hopeless, it's a difficult thing to be a hopeless romantic. I would like to think that over the course of the past few years, that "je me suis debarassee" of the intoxicating falsities we learn as little girls from Disney movies and become more of a "romantic pragmatist," as much as that might be an oxymoron.

Why am I bothering with a seemingly fluffy entry about romance, love, and the whole shebang? Simply put, I'm trifling with it because it's undeniable that this is all wrapped up in my grandiose question of "what now?"

In college, I dated here and there casually, but never met anyone who either felt I was worthwhile enough to invest some time in (and not to be cocky, but I have enough self confidence to say that this was their loss) or anyone I likewise wanted to invest time in. I feel that this was a good decision at the time, because I was able to focus on my school work, but also to figure out more of what I need in someone, what works and what doesn't, and why. Now that my strings are cut lose and fate has decided to let me run rampant on the world, I know that I am free to go meet interesting people--for purposes of friendship, or otherwise.

The other thing I will not deny is that I've been burned, but who hasn't? I've also been through a divorce as a child, and really would prefer not to go through another one if possible, so I'm extremely picky and guarded. It takes a lot for me to let me walls down and let someone in, but the paradox of this is that sometimes, I end up feeling rather lonely. Especially when I see cute couples walking along the Seine hand in hand, in none other than one of the most romantic cities on this planet. Oh Paris, I love and hate you all at once.

I, however, refuse to settle. I'm not going to just jump the next attractive guy I see because I feel lonely, I'm not going to find a boyfriend tomorrow because I feel like it's better to have the wrong one than to have none. That's not who I am, and it's not what I do. And I struggle with that because so much of my generation, or at least it seemed in college, is happy to comply with hook-up culture. I refuse to agree with the popular consensus that sex means nothing. Call me old fashioned, but if you want to get to me, you have to have my mind, then my heart, then my body.

So what now?

The conclusion that I've come to is this:

I want the things that money can't buy, the things like respect, friendship, trust, compromise, sincerity, thoughtfulness.

I want someone to be my best friend, someone with whom to laugh so hard I could cry and cry so hard I have to laugh.

I want someone who will challenge me, broaden my horizons, make me consider things I normally wouldn't consider.

I want someone in the end who will be ok leaving the kids with the sitter on a Friday night so we can go on a date and flirt shamelessly like we did when we first started dating.

The more I see of the world, the more I'm convinced I want someone who will want to see the world with me, and that's a priority. Hell, let's take the family to Ireland or Morocco or China and have a rockin' good time.

I want someone who will be ok with the fact that I'm a complete and total nerd, that sometimes I'm just a touch bizarre.

He doesn't have to be perfect, and in fact, I'll probably find all his little flaws endearing when it's right. I have no preference for eye color or hair color, or skin color, but speaking a language I speak would be a plus. I don't have a checklist of traits someone has to have, with the exception of what I've listed above.

So what now? At 22, I feel like I know who I am, and I know what I want. I'm in no way looking to find 'Mr. Right' right now. Instead, I'm ready to go on the crazy journey that I know finding that person is going to involve.

But such is the plight of the hopeless romantics. We think, we mull, we dream, but until dreams seemingly become reality, we remain ever hopeless. In fact, part of me remains partially terrified I will never find anyone, which is both neurotic and irrational, but no one ever guaranteed that this love deal was rational.

And so I toast again to the journey, and to all the hopeless romantics out there.

The Alchemist

Much like my hunger to write, my hunger to read is no less strong. I've always been a great reader, and it's heartening to know it's a passion even Berkeley, which virtually force fed me hundreds and hundreds of pages per week for four years, has not extinguished.

As a matter of habit, I normally juggle several books at a time, and did so even before it was necessary as an undergrad. Having completed La Bete Humaine, I've again turned my attention to Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist. As a second matter of habit, I always read the first sentence of a book, and the last sentence, and then read the entire thing at once to "fill in" the middle; additionally, as a third matter of habit, I usually make it a point not to read the lastest fad books or best sellers; this is because I'm stubborn, and don't want popular opinion to necessarily inform my reading decisions, and because I'd rather let the hype die before I decide to invest my time in a book. After all, deciding to read a book is nothing more than the act of deciding to give a part of one's life to a suspension of reality, to a realm of fiction, and this means serious business, because the hours spent suspended in a book are hours that can never be reclaimed for oneself. It is of utmost importance, then, in my opinion, that the books be well chosen, if possible. This is what led me to delay giving attention to this book. Several years ago, I distinctly remember seeing an English language copy of this slim volume scattered across the shelves at Borders and Barnes and Noble near the front of the store, meaning near the bestsellers, and therefore meaning many people were reading it. Naturally, I declined to do the same.

Now that several years have passed, and I am again at liberty to read for pleasure, I was surprised to see a French language version on the bookshelf in my room. My room is on the third floor in the Febvret household, and it's here they keep a bookshelf for storage space and reading materials, so the book beckoned me. I figure that until the inevitable day when I succumb to learning Spanish (or more specifically in this case, Portugese), I'll have to read the book in translation; this saddens me a bit, because I wish I could read all books in the original--now that I understand what is truly lost in translation, I'll never be able to look at foreign literature the same way, wondering what I'm missing in the gap between two conceptions of the world. Alas, I'm human, and can only master so many languages, and so I'm reading The Alchemist in French.

My only major regret is reading it sooner. It's a simple tale, told simply, but in my opinion, that's where its beauty lies. My mind is buzzing crazily thinking about time and travel and space and love; it's a perfect book to be reading right now because it postulates a lot about what it means to see the world, and how that affects one as a person. It meditates on the idea of being transitory, what it means not to be 'rooted,' so to speak, to not be tied to anyone or any one thing. I'm interested in this, because I passed much of this past summer feeling entirely transitory and uprooted, a vagrant wanderer.

So you see, this book is speaking to me, shouting at me from the top of its lungs; there are rare books in this world that find us at the perfect place and time in our lives, that resonate so sharply with our experience of life that we're certain we will hold on to their impressions forever and shall never be the same. This appears to be one of those rare books for me. I'm only about 40 pages in and there are already a feast of quotes I'm mulling over. I'm dying to discuss it with someone, because I see so much in it. It strikes the same note with me, the same philosophical, beautiful note that Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Le Petit Prince did.

I'll leave you with my favorite quote of the day, in French:

" Mais, dans le fond de son coeur, il savait que c'etait loin d'etre sans importance. Et que les bergers, comme les marins, ou les commis voyageurs, connaissent toujours une ville ou existe quelqu'un capable de leur faire oublier le plaisir de courir le monde en toute liberte."

In English:

"But, in the depths of his heart, he knew that this was far from being unimportant. And that shepherds, like sailors, or traveling salemen, always know of a city where someone capable of making them forget the pleasure of running about the world at all liberty exists."

Rain

The French deplore the rain. They, as they've explained, find it moche, which means ugly, and is generally the term used to describe someone or something that is not aesthetically pleasing; leave it to the country that values beauty above all else to aestheticize the weather.

The French even deplore the rain to the extent that they prefer snow, as "it's drier when it snows, and the sun comes out afterward." Apparently though, November is marked by rain, rain, and more rain, and contrary to the French's liking, however, a heavy rain storm is passing through, and has brought with it brutal gusting wind. On the way to the train today, the wind broke my umbrella, so I bought another one in Paris. The wind quickly broke that one, too.

On my way home, it had stopped raining. I left the RER station near the chateau and the sky was a tranquil black. The streets refracted the red and green beaming from street lights, and the air was thick with moisture. Even the temperature felt warmer, cocooned by the humidity.

Unlike the French, I love the rain. I love the way the streets smell after the sky has cried all it can. When I was a child, I thought rain was just that: angel tears. Winter in California means rain, above all else, and so the rain here is a comfort, reminds me of home. I love hopping over puddles. I love running in the rain even more, running until my body heat can no longer over power the thick drops of cold which pelt my tights and gloves, until mud coats my ankles and socks and shoes. I sleep better when it rains, lulled to dreams by the pitter patter on the roof and windows. Rain, in short, is one of the things about this earth that makes me feel most alive.

When I think of rain, I cannot help but think of rebirth, of transformation. I can't help that I'm programmed to think in motifs and symbols, and my meditation about the rain as I walked home was spurred by this. Everything around me is urging me to write and write and write, and I'm hungry to write--about nothing, about something, about everything. So tonight on the walk home from the train, I started writing about the rain in my head.

And my words fell in my consciousness the way the rain falls from the sky.

The Train

One of the oddities of my time here in France has been the exponential increase in my use of the train. The RER, or Réseau Expres Régional, pronounced AIR-ur-AIR, connects Paris to its bus and metro lines, and reaches its tentacles out into the various suburbs of the city, of which Saint-Germain-en-Laye is the western terminus.

At first the thought of spending significant time on a train to get to work and back three days seemed tedious, but I have quickly grown to love the train. During the week the A line threads through the countryside and over the Seine to the edge of Paris where a flood of businessmen edge in and out of cabins with briefcases. The A snakes past gorgeous mansions in Le Vésinet while the poverty stricken pass from station to station among the French elite, begging for a euro or two to buy a sandwich. At Nanterre, next to its eponymous university, twenty-something hipsters with obnoxious head phones cradle messenger bags and books, the smoky odor of cigarettes wafting from their bodies. On Saturdays, heading into Paris, the cabins teem with life--street musicians come on board with violins and accordions and conjure the soul of France into musical form.

All in all, I have come to love the train because rather than having to pay attention to controlling a vehicle safely and properly, I can sit and watch the world around me. If I am not sitting and observing, I am most likely reading, and on my way home from work, pass many pleasant hours this way. I'm beginning to think it's a shame that trains are dying beasts in the states, because they offer a sort of perspective quite unattainable by bike, car, or plane.

Ironically, I read a book about trains--their beastiality, their personalities, their ferocity--on the train: none other than Zola's La Bête Humaine. Last week, on the return from Cergy, I encountered a passage in which the female protagonist Séverine is riding the train from Le Havre, in the north of France, to Paris, and there is a long description of the countryside she passes by, including the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. At that very moment, it was as if my life were simple an external mimesis of the book, as if I were copying Séverine, as if I had been placed specifically at that moment to encounter that very passage and think those very thoughts. It was as if life had doubled itself, as if my life were a book, and Zola's book was a book within my book. How life is funny.

The other thing I understood in that moment is how much more richly I grasped the literature because I knew and had seen the objects described. I had seen the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, I was familiar with it, had run through its trees and on its fallen leaves. Right then and there the reality that I have a deepened appreciation for the French canon of literature because I am beginning to actually see the country of its origin awoke like a sleeping giant. It was an epiphany I think I will carry with me for much of graduate study, and maybe longer.

If I had not taken the train that day, if instead I had somehow not chosen to read my book at the instant, I might not have had that epiphany. Who can guess what other thoughts might have been stimulated? There's no use in trying to divine them. In the end though, I guess I have the train to thank. I knew I liked it for a reason...

Purpose

Last night a friend and I attempted to get rush tickets to the Paris Opera Ballet's second to last night of Paquita, a ballet about a young gypsy woman in Spain during Napoleon's occupation who falls in love with a French military officer. We waited in the box office of the Opera Garnier, and me, being the five year old at heart that I am, could not get over how insanely beautiful even the box office of the place was. Paris is a gorgeous city; it's no wonder artists and writers come here to be inspired.

Nonetheless, by the time we had arrived, the rush tickets were the serious nosebleeders at 8 euros a pop, the kind of seats where you can't see the show, but simply hear it. Instead, we opted to see La Princesse de Montpensier (a fabulous period movie based off a, hell YES, short story written by Madame de Layafette...DAMN it feels good to love the 17th century) and grabbed dinner afterward.

Over dinner, we got to chatting about a lot of different things, but what struck me the most about our conversation was when she asked me "Do you feel like you have enough purpose in your life? What's your purpose being here?" To which I responded with a big long schpeal about feeling burned out and needing a break before committing the ultimate social suicide and throwing myself into a doctoral program. She backtracked and qualified her question, and stated she was curious about the here and now.

The here and now is a difficult concept for me to grasp. Maybe it's because I'm a planner and I like preparing myself for whatever may come. Or perhaps because I'm a crazy Aquarius and we just can't seem to keep our heads out of the clouds, something of which I am a particular victim.

But she had a good point in posing the question. I think the idea of purpose has a lot to do with my main question of "what now?," because for the most part, we are so focused on the goal at hand of attaining a diploma that we forget to really ask ourselves what we're doing and why we're doing it. Now that I'm here, and I don't have any "rat race" to run in, I feel liberated, but at some points, a bit lost. That's not to say that I don't have a purpose here, I have many.

I guess you could say I'm here because this has been a dream of mine since I was little; I remember listening to my parents read me the Madeleine series of books and wanting to learn French, being 11 and receiving my bilingual pen pal book as a Christmas present, and even seeing the movie Ratatouille and drooling over the opening sky shot of Paris. In short, French--the language, the country, the culture--is something intricately tied to part of my life's purpose, and it's the sort of passion and love that I know will push me through a grueling doctoral program, the sort of undying loyalty that will keep me happy and curious in academia as a researcher and teacher. I waited from the age of 5 to 14 to learn the language, and then I waited another 8 years to attain fluency, and now that I've finally reached it, it's almost an anti-climax. So what's my purpose here, my real main purpose?

I think at the heart of everything, my real main purpose is to learn how to live more in the present, to learn to enjoy what I've been given, to know it's ok not to constantly be on the "go" with meetings, classes, work, and depending on circumstances, to let the walls around my heart down for a while.

In short, my real main purpose is to learn to suck the marrow out of life for all it's worth, to learn how to live before I do the rest of my living, and to practice my French, while I'm at it.

Adventures of Lindsay in Parisland: Round ?

There's something slightly intimidating about scheduling a rendez-vous with the professor in charge of the French literature masters program at the University of Paris IV, better known as the Sorbonne. This is, for the curious amongst you, what led me to Paris this afternoon, to meet Monsieur Pierre Frantz.

After a short walk from the Jardins de Luxembourg, I turned the corner to 14 rue Cujas, also known as 1, rue Victor Cousin, and convinced a rather annoyed looking security guard that indeed I was not lying and yes, I did have a scheduled appointment, despite not having on my person a university ID card. After two minutes of repeating myself, he allowed me to pass, and in I walked for the first time through the halls of Paris IV.

Paris IV is primarily situated in its antiquated building, and part of its charm is its age, and the fact that the interior reminds me of a smaller, European version of Wheeler Hall (this is for all the Berkeley students). The classrooms are scattered amongst various hallways, which are labeled by their staircases. After getting lost (common theme of the year #2) I asked a guard where staircase P was, and while waiting, drooled over course descriptions posted in the hallway (case in point: Introduction to Research on 17th Century Literature. AMAZING!!!!)

Like I imagined, Monsieur Frantz is an aging but kindly gentlemen, a tad on the rotund side, and like any legitimate professor, sports a solidly academic set of glasses. I reintroduced myself, and to my surprise, he knows Berkeley and my former thesis adviser very well. He also explained that about 15 percent of the masters students in the department are foreign, and the way he spoke made it seem as if I should have no trouble getting in. This, of course, was encouraging; he also suggested that I consider staying for the entire Masters, and not just Masters 1. The French, and Europe in general, divide Masters into two years with two very different aims. Masters 2 is essentially a preparatory year for the PhD, but he mentioned that depending on my doctoral school, I would then possibly be able to defend a dissertation on two continents for a joint PhD. I'll have to think about that.

Afterward, Sam and I planned to get dinner at 6 with friends, as she was in the city on an "English speaking" outing with some of her high school students, so I killed time by attempting to visit the Louvre again (but found out it is closed entirely on Tuesdays), so instead I wandered the Tuileries, the Place de la Concorde, and the Seine to the Eiffel Tower and saw that for the first time. Aside from a fog shroud, the Tower was beautiful. I also found what appears to be a real wedding band made of solid gold along the sidewalk, so we'll see if it is.

On my way back, I got hit on my an awkward Indian man who simply proclaimed "sexy mama," and this was swiftly followed by two more awkward creepers. One, whom I shall call Eiffel Tower Trinket man, stopped me in front of Notre Dame as the bells were tolling at 6 as I went to meet Sam. The bells are beautiful, and I highly recommend finding a bench on the Ile de la Cite just to listen to them at night when the church is lit up. Even though I'm not a Catholic, I would love to attend a mass there at some point. Back to the point: never wait for friends in front alone if you are female. You will get hit on by awkward trinket salesmen. He wanted me to get coffee with him. RIGHT THEN. I told him this was not possible, to which he proclaimed it was "just to get to know you!" because "you speak French very well" (theme of the year no. 1) and "I would have mistaken you for a French woman if you had not told me," but did allow him to give me his number. Then I scampered off to another bench to sit, when Whitney arrived and saved me from a creepy French man who tried to chat me up by stating that the church is indeed beautiful at night lit up, and that I had a "petit accent" to which I replied "well, yes, I do. I'm AMERICAN." Sigh.

Dinner was great. We went to a place called "L'As du Falafel" (The Ace of Falafel) in the Marais, which is coincidentally the Jewish neighborhood, but also somehow Paris's version of the Castro. Don't ask me why or how. The falafel was amazing, and apparently, Lenny Kravitz fully endorses the place, as many a photo of him with the owner hung throughout the place can attest. Such amazing stuff.

After dinner, we metro hopped and walked our way to Laduree on the Champs-Elysee and finished the evening with coffee and mini-macarons (PLEASE PEOPLE, IF YOU HAVE not tried these, YOU NEED TO. Life-changing pastries, if they ever existed!). We have concluded that 1) we need to make Thanksgiving happen in this country, and it might involve cooking cornish hens in a small toaster oven in place of turkey, then a night out clubbing, and finish with a visit to Pere Lachaise at 5 am--again, don't ask me why or how--with Sam's Canadian Friend and her Financial Analyst roomie and 2) Paris is pretty amazing.

More adventures in Parisland are sure to come....

What is it about 20-somethings?

Before I left for France, an article in the New York Times, aptly-titled "What is it about 20-somethings?" caught my eye. The subtitle of the article is "why are so many people in their 20's taking so long to grow up?," which has spurred a rather long, and not yet finished, personal meditation on the shady region between post-adolescence and what's seen by scholars as a period of "emerging adulthood." I suppose this is an intriguing idea for me because on many levels it corresponds to one of the questions I'm attempting to answer for myself with this blog: "what now?"

"What now?" is a question more easily asked than answered, and one of the difficulties that this "what now?" presupposes, at least in the aforementioned article, for my generation is a college education. I will not deny that I'm privileged and (dare I say it) lucky enough to have such an education, especially as the cost of school continues to mount ever upward.

But what is it about 20-somethings? We run the gamut. I know people in the full range of the 20's who are married with children and are in school or have full time jobs; likewise, I know individuals in their late 20's who are single, floating across the globe, and "living the dream." But when do we stop "living the dream," as we tend to put it, and become full on "adults"? And what do we mean by "living the dream?"

One thing that is undoubtedly clear is that as a generation we have many more opportunities after schooling; and while this may be a blessing, I think of it as a mixed one, especially for the indecisive amongst us. It's fairly easy to wander from internship to Teach for America, to full time job, to school again if we want to remain uprooted. And perhaps a bit of uprooting is good--when we expose ourselves to experiences that make us stronger, develop our character, and generally appreciate the world in a more complex fashion, I think that allows for us to become adults who can tackle the burgeoning world. But at what point do we put roots down? A desire for a lack of grounding screams a fear of commitment in my eyes, though naturally, every person is different, and for some, being rooted means having no roots.

The fact that we no longer, as a generation, feel the pressure to abide by the cookie cutter of "college, job, marriage, and family," is also in many ways garnering a bad rap because it's been interpreted as narcissism and "childish." But may not our generation simply be backlash at the cookie cutter the generations before us may have fallen into?

It's easy to tell my generation that we are narcissistic for remaining "emerging adults," when we opt for low paying internships and jobs at home and abroad when not taking into account the state of the economy, or the fact that the market is more flooded than ever with able potential employees with college educations. It's easy to tell my generation that we're childish for being uncommitted to significant others and waiting to get married, if we get married at all, when our parents have helped to produce one of the highest divorce rates this country has ever seen. It's even easier to say that when we forget that we deprive a large section of our population the right to marry under the law.

It's admittedly, easy. I don't write this to complain; I write this to point out paradoxes and to stir the pot a bit. All too often, we "otherize" one another, and I think the NYT article did a fantastic job of "otherizing" my generation in an attempt to differentiate the 20-somethings of today with the 20-somethings of the past. But at the core, what about being a "20-something" has changed all that much? There's still the fear of the uncertain, the pressure to join the workforce, the desire to be loved and find someone to love, the unwritten-ness of life laid out before one's eyes. At the core, I don't think the essentials of being in one's 20's have changed.

I should perhaps add that I have my own personal theory about my twenties, one that is the product of my parent's advice, my personality, and my own ambitions. The only answer I have to the question "what now?" is that my "what now?" is most certainly not your "what now?" or my parent's "what now?"

"What now?" is the journey, not the destination, and the journey is everything.