November 11, 2009

Dear Internet,

I have been feeling guilty for a few days about not having anything new to say to you. It's just that I have been a little down, and when that happens I tend to hole up rather than reach out. But, I had a really nice dinner with Bernd and Martina tonight, and drinks with Martina afterwards, and then I read a little something by Ms. Kate Preston McCarthy a.k.a. Ms. Gingham (who also recently moved to a new city) and realized that I needed to shove my moodiness aside and update my damn blog. So, here I am. Also, apologies to Ms. Gingham, who would undoubtedly never be so uncouth in an introduction.

Today was not wholly productive, but under the terms of my new don't-punish-yourself-when-you-do-something-dumb, don't-reward-yourself-when-you-do-something-right, just-live-your-life-without-feeling-guilty plan, I made the best of it anyway. So, after a late start, I stopped in briefly at Tribeka for a latte and a bit of The Magus by John Fowles, which I poached from Christian's parents in Eugendorf over the weekend. When it started to get to crowded there, I biked through the inner city to check out the building where we are seeing an apartment early Friday morning; we are meeting the owner at 8 am, and I figure that if we make such an effort to go see it, it is more likely to fortuitously be the perfect apartment for us. After scoping out Schmiedgasse 25, I continued to the university, where I handed in an application to study there next semester.

CLICK FOR SEGUE

Doing a Master's in English, in Graz, is not what I had planned. But in the past 9 months, almost nothing has gone according to my plans, so I can hardly hold that against an M.A. Being a student allows me to stay in the country, take German courses at the Vorstudienlehrgang, work part time during school, and full time over the summer months, and, at the same time, puts me in contact with exactly the kind of people that I was hoping to teach. Not to mention that the courses I took here were the most engaging of all of my undergrad courses, if only because I was thoroughly intimidated and therefore tried correspondingly hard. As a result of this decision, the job search has been suspended while I focus on getting accepted to Uni Graz so that I can get accepted for a Student Visa so that I can get accepted at the airport when I try to come back here after Christmas. Then the job search can start again, except that this time.. I will have The Papers that have been so elusive over the past 2.5 months-- the ones that make employers say, "Yes, we will hire you," instead of, "Hm.. If only..."

It has been hard to accept the fact that my very rosy picture of how life in Austria was going to be has not really developed at all: We don't have an apartment yet, I haven't made any money, I haven't traveled in the past few months, or even spent very much more time on the hobbies I was excited to finally have time for--drawing excepted, but only because you can do that comfortably while drinking a latte. But... I am still making progress; even if it is just speaking German with friends at dinner, or going to an Immigration Office without my Translator, or just figuring out how to grow up a little bit. With how my "plans" have been going lately, maybe it is a good thing that Iam doing something I had absolutely no intention of doing.

...

Can you tell I haven't really even worked out how I feel about it yet? Well. In the meanwhile, it is getting cooler here, and they have finally put the Christmas decorations up. Once they start turning the lights on, I won't be able to feel bad about anything that means I get to come back.

5 comments:

sophie said...

oh katie. i know you'll get accepted and that things will work out in the end. good luck with the apartment visit.

Anonymous said...

Dear Katie,
As I am soon to be in the same crossroads as you after I graduate I can truly empathize with you in regards to things not going as planned. I am sure you will get accepted into the Master's program and that the apartment you and Christian go look at on friday will be exceed your expectations (which I suspect have gone way down by now). Bonne Chance!
- Alice

ps: i am starting a youtube channel called "go ask alice" which will regularly feature the commentary of my offbeat friends and their outspoken points of view in regards to the daily turmoils of people everywhere. I also have 2 dozen fairmount seseme bagels in front of me in Edmonton..come get one?

Katie said...

1) thanks for the well wishing. unfortunately the apartment standards have actually gone WAY UP because we have passed on so many mediocre apts, that now i will only settle for The Apartment of My Dreams-ish.
2) DID YOU GUYS CLICK FOR THE SEGUE???

XIUMING said...

hahhaa i actually did click on the segue. It totally made everything more dramatic

alice

Anonymous said...

Hi Katie,

Friday the 13th is not so bad after all. I celebrated my 52nd birthday, rather gloriously, and survived the day. I spoke yo your day and went right to your blog following our conversation. If your short stories are any indication of your creative future, I can't wait for the novel!

You are much loved and missed XO,
Auntie Connie (that's right, my advanced age now requires me to adress myself with the dreaded Auntie qualifier)