And the wandering continues!

Spring break has unfortunately ended. It was a great week spent with my family in Chicago and Boston, but now I'm back in Madison for the home stretch of school! It's been about a year since I started this blog just as I was contemplating my move to Madison and it's interesting to see how right now I'm contemplating moving again! So..."where to?", you may ask. Well..that's a great question!

Although I had originally planned to be gone from about May-September on my internship, I'm currently slated to leave sometime in September and get back at the end of December. The good news is, after months of complaining that I would never find an internship and that nobody wanted me, that has certainly changed! The bad news is...now too many people want me. Currently I am in negotiations with two different non-profit organizations, one in the south of France and one in Cameroon. The organization in France works with children with Autism (how perfect is that?), but they aren't sure they have the funds to pay me, and under French law interns staying for 3 months (the minimum requirement for our program) have to be paid. Obviously I wouldn't be opposed to working unpaid, since that's kind of what I assumed before I knew about this law, but in terms of getting my visa and everything I need to be an "intern" with a contract, so they need to pay me. It's a great law to prevent the abuse of interns that is so prevalent in France (and in the US), but it definitely hurts non-profits which are generally volunteer-based. At the same time, this organization is still being viewed as a "plan B" for me, because I would prefer to work with an organization connected to a developing country.

The second option I "potentially" have is a non-profit in Cameroon which works with women and young girls who experience unplanned pregnancy, abuse, and health concerns. I would be very interested in working for such an organization. It's a topic I think is important to address worldwide, and it also means working pretty closely with adorable children and their moms! So far my contact, and that of my director, with the organization has been to the effect of "Great! We would love to have you! When will you get here?", so we need to make the details of this a lot more concrete before I accept that offer. I would really love to work for this organization and it sounds like exactly what I want in this internship experience, but it is a little frustrating that I need to negotiate contract details and logistics in a country where that kind of stuff isn't super important. I'm definitely leaning toward this option, but time is of the essence since I need to buy a plane ticket, get my visa, and figure out where I'm going to live in either city.

So..what this boils down to is still a whole lot of "wait and see". I'm trying to arrange a phone conversation with the Cameroonian organization, because I feel like as soon as I get on the phone with them I'll be able to deal with things a lot easier. I've actually had a fair amount of experience with "la culture ouest-africaine" in terms of time management, but it's a little different when I'm also working with an American school system who needs everything to be figured out on paper.

In the meantime, I'm excited to finish up my last semester of actual classes and to actually enjoy my summer break now that I know I'll be here instead of abroad. Sean and I have a small camping trip planned for his first weekend home after he graduates and I'm planning a weekend/day trip to Chicago at some point with some friends here to try out a Senegalese restaurant I never knew about while I lived there! I'm definitely ready to be "done" with the whole school thing, which I guess is a pretty common consequence of a week of spring break. Only about a month left though! We just started "Module Maghreb", which is a unit in one of my classes where we discuss politics of French-speaking North Africa. It's a really short unit (boo...we spent forever on France and Quebec), three weeks of Maghreb and then two weeks of Sub-Saharan Africa so I'm really excited for that. Yesterday we met our professor, who is from Egypt, and I spoke a little bit of Arabic with her! It was my first experience using Arabic with somebody I don't really know and she was excited about it.

Well that's it for now, I guess I'll leave you with a few pictures from my trip to Boston with my brother to visit my sister, her husband, and my adorable new nephew!

Me and the nephew!

My brother is not too sure about holding a baby...

My sister, happy to finally have her little one home!

My brother shaming history after a beer at the "oldest restaurant in America"


I have some more pictures that I took with my actual camera (not my phone). I'll get around to putting those on facebook eventually...

I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Feeling a little homesick today. I'm not really sure what I'm missing exactly, the city, my family, having someone to see every morning and every night....I guess it's a little bit of everything. It's hard for me to justify my love for working internationally when I feel homesick. It makes me wonder if I'm really cut out to work somewhere so far away, and if that's really what I want to do. I love languages, I love learning about other cultures, and I love being able to help solve problems in any way that I can. I just wish I was able to take my whole family with me.

I miss the certainty I had before I graduated, the fact that I had a job and that I knew how to go wherever I needed to go. I miss my family. I miss walking to the park with the kids I babysat for.

 I miss my DOG. I miss looking out my window at the sailboats on Lake Michigan and eating the lunch special with my boyfriend at our favorite sushi place. I miss talking about the constitution with my dad on Sunday afternoons, watching crappy tv with my mom, and laughing with my brother about everything.  I know I was supposed to come here, and overall I'm really happy with the decision that I made, but being in a new place is hard.

I know this is normal, I've been keeping relatively busy but sometimes you just remember what you're missing. Moving is hard, whether it's across the globe or just a 3 hour drive away. I have people here who are just as close as family, but I'm missing the ones I left behind. Last night was fun, I got to spend it with one of my best friends that I've known ever since I was born. I love being able to see her on a daily basis and Madison really is a great place to live. I'm happy here about 98% of the time, the other 2% consist of worrying about finding work/getting work done and missing people. 

I guess it doesn't help that the boyfriend-guy has been back at school now for a few weeks. I knew things would get harder once he left, but after three years I'm also fairly used to this whole long-distance thing. I guess this is the first time I've had to make such a huge life transition since we've been together. The title of this blog is "Forever Wandering", and I do have this love of travel and wandering to new places, but do I want to be wandering around forever? It's something I'm going to have to think about anyway.

Bring it arounnnnnnnnnnnnnd towwwwwwwwwwwwwwn

(Yes, that was a Spongebob Squarepants quote. I like to cite the wise old sages in order to get my point across)

Today we're discussing something that has been plaguing this former Chicagoan: How to get around Madison without a car. My old stomping grounds had a grocery store every three blocks or so. My old neighborhood had an EL station a ten minute walk in either direction. My old neighborhood was mapped out like a grid, every street intersected cross-streets at some point, if Google maps told you to turn at a certain intersection, you walked straight until you found the other street. This was the life I led for four  years. I could get from the very edge of the South Loop to Millennium Park in fifteen minutes flat. I could reach the House of Blues in 20 minutes. I could reach Target in three. Yes, the old neighborhood was a good neighborhood.

Now I'm the new kid on the block. It's not so easy being new, especially when you've heard explanations such as "Oh yeah, Madison's real easy to figure out. It's like a funny-shaped bicycle wheel, where the Capitol is the center and the streets are all weirdly curved spokes". Yeah....helpful. Yesterday Google Maps told me to walk straight down the street I live on, turn right, walk for five minutes, turn left, turn left, and turn right again. Yes...it told me to go back to my street two blocks later. This fifteen-minute detour caused me to bust into my first meeting for my program, sweaty and out of breath in a room of pristine girls who probably learned all of their makeup and fashion skills from studying/living in France for the past year. (/rant) That's me! I love to make a good first impression. (We'll follow this up with the joke I made about a Senegalese parable today and yep...I'm definitely the international development girl. The "Afrique de l'Ouest" kid.)

The point is, I'm trying to figure out my way around Madison. I don't have a car, I do have a bike. What I've found:

Look at those sweet bikers not getting hit by the bus next to them!

• Biking is SO MUCH SAFER and easier in Madison. I'm not afraid that every single bus on the road is going to hit me. I never biked in Chicago, everyone I knew who biked had been hit by a car. At least once. Mostly twice. Madison has these wonderful WIDE bike lanes that aren't expressly made for buses to hog as extra stopping space. People actually NOTICE bikers instead of merging into them. I road my bike down the busiest street in my area and wasn't even a bit nervous! Ask me again how I feel when it's -15 degrees and icy. I may have changed my mind by then.
• Illinois is flat. Wisconsin is not. There are hills. What took me 5 minutes walking in Chicago now takes me 10. "Oh? It's only .7 miles away? Pshh...piece of cake" "...What? Those .7 miles are known as 'Bascom Hill'?" Yeah, it's happened. Luckily for me, biking toward campus is relatively downhill, so I don't get too sweaty until I'm on my way home. 
• Grocery stores are far away and usually expensive for one reason or another. This may just be the neighborhood I happen to live in, but the closest stores to me are a Whole Foods or a Co-Op. I'm all for healthy eating, I think it's great when people can choose to buy organic and locally grown. I'm also a poor graduate student. The sad part is, this actually doesn't kill me as much because Wisconsin doesn't tax on food, and I hail from the land of 11% sales tax on all purchases. Really, my grocery bill at Whole Foods is about the same here as it was in a Jewel Osco in Chicago. This store is about 1.1 miles away from me, so I'm pretty much doing the long haul with very limited grocery purchases a couple of times a week. Have considered biking, thought about it rationally, have stopped considering biking,

It really is a great city to live in. Of course, I'm saying this in August, when my apartment stays at a toasty 81 degrees and my flip flops are still acceptable footwear. I'm sure I'll adapt and learn to love this place even though it's going to be EVEN COLDER THAN CHICAGO WINTERS OH MY WORD WHAT HAVE I DONE....ahem. No, seriously though, Madison is a cool place to be. Everyone is really friendly when you get lost and need to ask for directions. People care about health and the environment. I actually haven't even seen that many smokers (of cigarettes...) out and about these parts. Madisonians care about their surroundings, and they want you to care about it too. I think I'm going to like it here, once I don't have to stare at Google Maps for an hour every time I want to go somewhere.

A Lapse in Blogging...because I haven't done anything.

I'm at this weird point in my life right now where I'm waiting for things to happen. I can't move into my new place until August, and so looking for jobs where I am now isn't going so well. Likewise, attempting to find work in a new city when you can't start for a few months and you don't know your class schedule is proving to be a lot harder than I thought it might be. I fill my days with random things...running, walking the dog, helping with dinner...a lot of Netflix, but I graduated COLLEGE! I should be doing something incredible right now! I know in a few months things are going to start happening so fast and I won't be able to find any time to spare. I should be enjoying the summer vacation I'm getting now, but I'm finding it hard to relax.

 I'm  bored. I need to go somewhere new, especially now that I have a place for the fall. I spend my spare time (of which there is quite a bit) planning out what my new apartment will be like. I've re-read countless books from my childhood, including All-of-a-Kind Family, Witch Week, and a couple of Harry Potters. I've been switching my brain to different languages the past few weeks, so that whenever I come across a weird vocab word that I don't know, I can look it up online. I'm really torn with what language I need to be practicing right now. Obviously, my graduate program is in French...but that's sort of like riding a bike to me. I'm not going to forget French, it's like forgetting English for me. German, I think, is where my interests should lie this summer. After completing the courses in undergrad, I feel like I'm supposed to have a firm grasp on the language...but I find myself slipping up a lot, having to look up words I already knew. Italian...well...Italian is just going to have to wait a little longer. I need to get my German up to speed with my French first.

I'm not really sure why I'm awake, but I realized I hadn't blogged in a few days and felt like I should keep up to speed. They say it takes doing something 3 days in a row to make a habit of it, but I'm not so sure that's true. I've tried that strategy with a few things...exercise...blogging...eating the same thing every day...Not sure how effective that strategy has been, as I've only run three times this week.

Boyfriend-Guy is coming into town this weekend, so I should have something interesting to write about. I think we're going to go to some museums and the park and try out a couple of restaurants but really...these suburbs are tough on somebody who has lived in the city for the past 4 years! More later, I should pretend that I'm going to go to sleep now, even though that's not happening...(I think it's the iced double shot espresso I knocked back on my way home from the grocery store...)

Living simply....could I actually do it?

Well folks, it's official. I won't be living on the streets of Madison next year. (Not as though that were ever really an option, I have plenty of people in Madison willing to house me) I found my apartment! It's adorable and classic in that typical Madison style and I'm anxiously counting down the days until I can move in. While I'm a sucker for hardwood floors, bright classic white windows, and charming old world hex tile I've come to realize my adorable kitchen lacks a certain something. It has plenty of cabinet space, a cute little breakfast nook area, a refrigerator, and a GAS stove (something I dearly missed in my last apartment)...but no microwave. It also lacks a dishwasher, but I hardly ever used the dishwasher in my last apartment and usually prefer to wash things by hand. By no means is a microwave necessary. Most people who have occupied this planet did not/do not own a microwave. When I was in Senegal my family cooked all of their meals over a little kerosene cooker and they tasted fantastic. I've been spoiled. (Not that I didn't already know that) Even my first year of college I rented a MicroFridge combo.

Upon further reflection of this Microwave quandary, the idea formed that perhaps lacking this appliance could in fact enhance my culinary endeavors. I've always enjoyed cooking, it's something my dad said all of us kids needed to learn before we moved out of his house. When I moved out on my own for the first time I assumed I would be doing a lot of it, and I did. I cooked meals for myself several times a week, but I ran into a roadblock. The Microwave Dinner. It was the perfect solution for a working, full-time undergraduate student. I would come home starving, pop something in the microwave, and be eating in minutes. Practical...definitely. Healthy? Not so much. I would buy "healthy" (ie: low-cal) frozen dinners and assume that eating them was making a smart choice for my body. Not so, naive former self, not so. This article from MSNBC explains some of the downsides of frozen meals. Highlights include the lack of fruits and vegetables, high amounts of sodium, and the inability for one to cook a healthy meal for themselves. Plus....have you seen the meat in that stuff? Gross. Not that eliminating a microwave would eliminate frozen foods altogether for me, but it would definitely cut out the convenience factor and probably cause my to choose something else.

After recognizing these benefits, I start to like the idea of living without a microwave. Immediately all of the uses for a microwave run through my mind. Heating up leftovers...making tea....my beloved kettle corn. None of these things really proves to be a problem for me in terms of limiting myself to no microwave. I usually like leftovers cold anyway, I own a tea kettle, and ways to make popcorn without using a microwave certainly exist. (That being said, I would probably positively cut down on my popcorn consumption if making it took more than pressing a button). Yes, I certainly believe that living without a microwave will be an improvement for me. So I've decided that, come move-in day, I'll try living without a microwave for a full year. This doesn't necessarily mean eliminating processed foods from my diet, but it's a step in the right direction. We've become slaves to our microwaves, and I'd be doing my dad a disservice if I threw away all of the cooking skills he taught me for a couple of Lean Cuisines.

(PS: I'm certainly not the first to do this, one quick google search for "living without a microwave" brings up sites like Learning to Live Without a Microwave)

edit: Forgot to say I also spent some time gardening with my parents today. On the agenda: Tomatoes, Sage, Rosemary, Basil, Cilantro, Chives, and JALAPENOS! I didn't even realize jalapenos could grow in Chicago, but we'll see how they fare. I may have to buy my own potted plant to stick in the window of my new place on move-in day. I'm sure Madison has community garden plots that I can dabble in as well.

I did it!

As soon as I can, I will be moving up to Madison to start my graduate program! Family and friends said they knew all along that I would get in, but I tend to tell myself the absolute worst is going to happen so that I'm less sad if it does, and relieved if it doesn't. Today I start (well, continue really, but it always feels like I'm just starting it) the arduous process of getting my apartment ready for a move. Things I will do in the next few weeks that I have never done before:
1) Clean an oven
2) Magic Eraser the scuff marks off of my walls
3) Move a cat who has adapted to his home
4) Discreetly pack up said cat's belongings without them being taken out and strewn across the apartment again. (My cat can open drawers, can yours?)
5) Cancel my electric and cable and internet (oh my!)

This is stuff added to the list of weird things I've already had to do, such as scrub really really really hard to somehow clean those stovetop drip pans that everyone things they've been cleaning regularly, but really hasn't. Or cleaning out a washing machine. Now that I'm done with school until the end of August, I can actually get this stuff done! A special thanks to Leopold, who woke me up an hour earlier than necessary to get a head start on cleaning; although he doesn't seem to keen on the idea of moving: