The Personal Crisis Game!

Dear my friends,

I know the last few days on this blog have not been filled with unicorns and questionable gay men, but I have always tried to be nothing but honest on this thing, and that requires telling the truth about the not-so-great things as well as the entertaining things.  No one ever said that moving across the world was a cakewalk. And Germany, despite being older than America, has not yet developed buttercream frosting to it's full potential, which means that this cakewalk is not always sweet. Terrible metaphor of the day: check.

The cause of this morning's crisis was that Host Mom read through my grad school application essay, and basically told me it was useless.  It was too superficial, too glossy, and totally lacking in the important information that grad schools want to sink their cannibalistic, research-oriented teeth into.  There was no substance to it, she said, and as such, it was basically the literary equivalent of raping a fog machine.  My words, not hers.

The result was I more or less got picked up by the braid and thrown into a hot, steaming vat of Freak Out.  If I can't even handle the application essay, I asked myself, then how am I supposed to handle grad school? What am I playing at?  How did I ever think attempting to do my higher education in a foreign language was a good idea?  Do I even want to go to grad school?  Am I just doing it out of lack of a better plan?  Is my sudden desire to skip grad school a result of being totally, completely intimidated?  What do I want to do with my life, and why can't I purchase the goddamned manual on Amazon.

So I texted my mom that I was dying, and while I waited for her to call me, I surfed internships in Australia-- because in my world, when the going gets tough, run to the other side of the planet as fast as you can.  Then, when my phone rang, I racked up my mom's phone bill threatening to throw myself from Ayers Rock.  In response, she basically just reiterated for me everything I already know, which somehow always sounds better coming from someone other than yourself.  That I've wanted to go to grad school since forever, that my interests are too broad for my own good, that grad school applications are a bitch no matter where you are, but doing them in German makes them that much harder.  That I should not run to Australia.  That grad school does not determine the rest of my life.  That I don't even technically have to finish it if I hate it.  That the fastest way to see the stuff you're made of is to switch continents.

At the end of the day, I am exactly where I started, only with a Host Mom-approved essay and five hours of self-doubt behind me.  Somehow, it will work out.  I know it.  I don't exactly know how, but in typical Tina fashion, I have an exit plan in case it doesn't.  Coupled with a deep-seated admiration for the grace that is the kangaroo.

Thanks for sticking with me,
Tina