After I broke up with Josh, I decided to make plans for my life. I was tired of waiting around and being stagnant, and I needed to follow through on my mostly-unactualized radical ideology. I decided on a whim to apply to study abroad in South Africa and considered going into the Peace Corps. I was burned out on school and despite being a relatively intellectually minded person, I felt like I needed a break. There was no way I was going immediately to grad school after flailing around in undergrad for a few years, choosing majors and minors in that hodge podge way I often work in.

After South Africa didn’t work out, I decided to take things a little more slowly. I finished my degree and worked on the campaign, which gave me a lot of clarity on my life (and enabled me to make and break other life-plans). I loved that environment, even with all of the problems and uncertainty. Despite 12 to 16 hour days, I knew I was doing something I loved and believed in. When it was over in November, I felt the depression that a lot of people explained as normal. It was that melancholy let-down, where you have put your soul into something and, though you won and though it was effective, you still feel separated from it. I was unemployed, I was without school. The things I clung to for 22 years of my life were all gone, suddenly, at once, and I had no idea where to go from there.

I am a long-term planner. I’m very good at committing myself to doing something for a long time into the future, and I plan like you wouldn’t believe. At the end of the campaign, I was planning to move to Chicago in August. I put every waking (and sometimes dreaming, too) moment into learning about which neighborhood I wanted to move into, which jobs i would apply for, which activities I would do, how I would meet new people. The thought of doing anything else actually felt alienating.

Thanks to Adrian, another thing I now know about myself is that I’m a background processer. It’s obvious in a lot of things I do. I seem like I’m making rash decisions based entirely on whim and current emotion, when really, I’ve been thinking about it somewhere deep in the cobwebby places in my mind for a very long time. This happened with Josh: everything seemed “fine,” at least in consideration of our relationship as a whole, when really I was dwelling internally on everything that wasn’t, processing it all, and coming to a conclusion that my external brain hadn’t considered. I even get hair cuts in the same way. When I finally realize and verbalize a decision, I can feel that it’s right, even though I haven’t consciously thought about it before.

That’s how I feel with the Peace Corps. Over the last few months since i’ve been unemployed, without school, without the campaign, and in the dead of winter, I’ve been background processing. I’ve been thinking about my best plans made years ago, about the trajectory of my life as it currently is, and about my most ambitious goals. I started looking at blogs and reconsidered the application process.

I made the decision to finally apply for the Peace Corps, to not move to Chicago, and to see where life takes me. I’m tossing around all sorts of long term plans, like doing two years in the peace corps, going to grad school, going back in, and then applying to be a United Nations Volunteer. (I’m actually somewhat conflicted about these organizations, but more on that later)

My personal deadline for my PC application was yesterday. I’ve done everything on the original application except one essay, which I’ve outlined but haven’t written yet. For a little while, I was very nervous I wouldn’t be nominated. Now my only worry is that it’ll take a long time to work out the process. I would like to receive a placement and be gone soon, but I understand the process is as lengthy as it is for a reason. I know, however, that I won’t be backing out of this decision.

I haven’t told my parents that I’m applying yet. I’ve alluded to it, even explicitly stated it, on Facebook, which I’m sure Kristina has seen. I plan to tell them after I’ve had an interview and been nominated by a recruiter.

I’m curious about other people who are currently in the process and I want to talk to as many returned volunteers as possible. Ive been reading blogs kept by PCVs as they were abroad. Like I told Amy, I know i want to go to South or Central America, but I’m also very in love with the idea of going to Africa. I don’t know if I actually WANT to go to Africa, or if I’m romanticizing the idea of going there. I keep saying I’ll go anywhere I’m needed, and I think in part thats because I’m trying to convince myself of it. I know I could easily fall in love with the idea of going just about anywhere, especially if I receive a placement for something Ive never considered and then start researching it. Right now, though, I don’t think it’s quite sunk in that I really could be placed ANYWHERE.

I started making a messenger bag for Q for our anniversary, but got frustrated with some sew in stabilizer and gave up. After being guilted about it (more than once), I finally finished the bag. A lot of the stitching isn’t up to par with what I feel I can do, but Quinn is more than happy with it.

In addition to the cassette on the front, there is a magnetic closure for the gusset, a large back zip pocket, one inside slip pocket and one inside zip pocket. This bag is the first time I actually used a zipper foot on my tiny little machine and it worked out well!

There is so much to post about!

The other day, I went to the KIA with Q and a friend of ours because we were bored of sitting around. I’ve been unemployed since November (though I finally have a job offer! I’m not sure if it will be enough to pay my bills, but at least it’s something for now) so I’ve been feeling very shut-in lately. Q and Josh both had film to develop, so we went to the photo lab. On the way, I grabbed some yarn I had spun years ago to give to Mary. I have so much handspun sitting around I feel isn’t good enough, or long enough, or whatever enough to sell, so I hope others appreciate it.

Q and Josh developed their film and then made prints. I’ve never been involved in the process of doing this before, so it was stressful for me. The tiny, dark labs where you put your film into tanks is unbearable. When you turn the lights out, you see… nothing. Im pretty sure it was lighter with my eyes closed than open. It caused me to panic since I’d never been in such extreme, stifling darkness before. I did notice one thing, though: when you’re in complete darkness, you see colors in front of your eyes when theyre open like you normally do when theyre closed. Like galaxies. I wonder if it’s part of your anatomy you’re noticing?

There were three of us in the tiny (TINY) room and I kept imagining we would run out of air. Then Q couldn’t get his film into the spiraly thing and it freaked me out even more. I kept thinking we would be in there forever, with me cramped in the corner doing nothing except listening to the two of them swear at the canister. I think keeping my eyes open freaked me out even more than imagining we would run out of air, so I kept them closed, breathed, and was eventually fine.

Printing was FUN. I want to experiment with different lights, different exposure times. I think that part alone is enough for me to pick up another hobby and get a film camera. Q and I printed three of the same picture and it turned out marvelously. While we were in Chicago for Lollapalooza, there chess tables set up out of nowhere and it was so… whimsical.

Has anyone else ever developed their own film and printed before? What is your favorite part?

In other news, I’ve just bottled all the rest of the kombucha we had. Katy and I have been making Kombucha since October, and we determined it’s just too cold in our apartment over the winter to really sustain a SCOBY very well, so this was our last batch. I brewed it (as I have the last few batches: I think Katy is just fine with that). One batch of Mandarin Orange Spice, and one batch of Lemon Ginger. I once read you shouldn’t brew tea for kombucha that has a citrus in it, but the last few have turned out fine. We already know we love the lemon ginger (it was one of the batches last time, along with passion tea), but I’m not sure about the mandarin. It’s VERY vinegary, which is how I like it, but the residual spice scent was nauseating during bottling.

Me with my delicious Kombucha

Right now, I have a lot of Kombucha. I can’t wait until it’s Spring again and we can get another mother to brew with.

For graduation, my aunt and uncle sent me a nice amount of money and I figured I should make them something nice in return to thank them. Inspired by a thank you card I made a few years ago, I crocheted “THANK YOU” out of cotton and stitched it to nice card stock. The inside is two layers of paper: one print and one vellum.

I quite like the outcome:

I’ve been trying to spin a lot more lately so I can sell it and hopefully gain something from this habit. Here’s a bit of spinning: