Most of you who know me in real life know that, while I grew up in the Washington D.C. area, I spent my formative years in Montreat, NC. These formative years were only from 8-10 but my family still holds the time we spent there dear. An Eden we were forced to leave because my dad was in the technology industry. And while Asheville maybe known for mountains it is not known for technology. My strongest memories of living in Montreat were of 'creek-hopping' and raspberry picking in the summer, finding fairy hiding spots, tramping through snowy woods, playing house in the old maid's quarters of our house- yeah, our house had a maid's quarters. We also had a room dedicated to dress-ups, which were old clothes the former tenants left. They had lived there for 40 years! We found their old love letters under the stairs. We knew all the kids in our neighborhood-which was basically the whole town- because we all rode the bus to school, went to the same church, and played together after school. Montreat was more like a residential community with a college than a town. There are no commercial buildings in it, unless the hotel counts. It's on the edge of another, actual town, Black Mountain, where this art school used to be.
Why do I bring these places up? Other than name-checking them to endear yourself to me, you probably couldn't care less. But last night, when I couldn't fall asleep I started having a 3 a.m. idea- you know, those revolutionary ideas you get when you're exhausted and on the edge of sleep that seem ridiculous and delusional the next morning. Well, this idea wouldn't let me sleep, to the extend that I did a little online research at 4:44 a.m. instead of sleeping. And after doing a little research I also began thinking about the fact that New York is old school hip. It's still just hanging on to the idea people have of what's cool. All that's left now is the bitter dredges. (And some cool people here and there.) But with the internet and other ways of communicating ideas the coolest places don't have to be New York or L.A. anymore. With the advent of the internet New York has lost its cool. So you want to know what was my grand idea and what does it have to do with these places? I'm so glad you asked!
Living in New York for the past four months has made me think about a lot of things, namely how I'm going to afford to live here, find a job, find friends, find a different apartment, what I'm going to do with my life. I really like New York but I feel like the experiment is drawing to a close. I don't think I'm quite prepared for New York yet, but that it was an amazing thing to have thrown myself into. If I had a job I loved here, and more people, I think I could love it for a long time. But I feel very lonely here. And broke. Those are not two things I like much.
My idea was about teaching, and specifically, teaching in a fairly cool, smaller town like Asheville. I checked out craigslist and for the price I'm paying now I could be living here. Wow. That's quite a compelling reason. But to be more practical here are a list of my other reasons to consider moving here for a year to teach before going to grad school.
1. It's cheaper.
2. UNC-Asheville is a good school where I could take grad classes
3. Good experience for future, and for grad school references.
4. I know a lot of people from my childhood in the area
5. Still a cool town for seeing shows, going out. Might even encourage me to go out more. I'm a little agorophobic.
6. Lots of nature, natural beauty
7. If I worked in a depressed area I could do some good.
8. I want to go to a good grad school, in a relatively cool area, I'd only be here for a year so it's not like the end of the world.
But, as with everything, I don't know my own mind. I mean, I do know my own mind, I'd like to rush down there right now and try to set up this fanciful life that has nothing to do with reality. I tend to run away from things when they're not going as I imagined. For those reasons I want to stay in New York, to face it, get used to it and get to better know some of the really cool people I've met here. But I worry that I won't have the money to do that, or the job. Come the end of May my internship at the production company will be ending and I don't know where I'll go next. I've sort of decided that if I have no viable job prospect by the end of June or no other pressing reason to stay I will move back to NoVa for a few months and then down to Asheville, if I can find a teaching job. Turns out you need things like licenses to do that these days!
And now we come to you, dear reader, please give me your opinion about all of this, whether moving to Asheville and teaching is a good career move or a stupid escapist fantasy that won't play out. Or if you have any information about finding a teaching job for a recent college grad. (Except TeachforAmerica. I missed the deadline on that, unfortunately.)
Feel free to leave your comments anynomously. Sometimes I don't listen to my friends and family's advice, even when I know it's coming from a good place. Thanks and Love, Meredyth
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4 comments:
I would try teaching before jumping into it head first. Maybe do some substitute teaching and so on.
Take a look at the Peace Corps for spending 2 years teaching English as a second language in a lotta places, not as many of them are cool but they ARE overseas.
You might be basing some really important life decisions on whether or not a place is "cool" (counted 8 uses of this word in this post alone). Try taking the coolness factor out - it might make it easier for you to make a decision about what to do with your life. When you're 80, whether or not you were "cool" will so not matter.
It isn't about being cool "anonymous", it's about where you're going to have FUN. You're missing the connotation of the word. And quite frankly, when I'm 80, I want to look back and know I had a shitload of fun. So there.
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