Canned fruit and pretty perfume

Sometimes I feel like I am living in a TV show. Not in the people are staring sense but in many others. There are new episodes and seasons. Often there are guest stars and every once in a while there are running characters. It is silly is it not that one could think that? Or maybe we all think that every once in a while.

Here I am only 25 years old doing things that people do not even dream about. How lucky am I. I feel like I am stuck in the middle of November sweeps and the writers are not holding anything back at all. Maybe they are trying to positron me for an Emmy or a golden globe or maybe they are looking at establishing a long running show. Either way it is one heck of a ride.

Okay enough of the metaphors for now. I am at the point in my life and school where I have to seriously evaluate what comes next. It is all anyone talks about and it seems that it is all that I can think about. (It does not help that I have been stuck in bed for the last 2.5 weeks with my leg in a cast alone) It is time though for some honest reflection and maybe a few ideas.

Two years ago my path was set and I knew exactly what I was going to do and how I was going to get there. It was simple and clear. I have to confess that the only thing that remains of that girl is her name. Many of my dreams are still similar but in reality one day someone came into my life, turned on the lights to the world and said it is all out there what part of it do you want? How do you react to that. Well I did the typical Katie thing and totally ignored it for as long as I possibly could. Yet it was always there these opportunities and options and I never took the time to look at them carefully.

Now it seems that I have nothing else to do but to look at them. And I have to make some kind of decision. When I was in High School I desperately wanted to write. I wrote on anything about all sorts of things. In the 10th grade I had an English teacher that was wonderful. After class one day we were talking about writers in my grade and she said that there were two who were utterly capable of writing and had a future in it. She went on to tell me that it was not me. I stopped writing on napkins and in spirals and looked for another dream. Down the road I found history. I do not think that I have ever been really in love but i imagine that it feels something like i feel for history. To learn about other people and their choices and how they changed and impacted things gives me a rush i cant explain. The only thing more exciting than that is to be able to help someone else get as excited about it as I can be. To literally see passion and curiosity wake up in a person is amazing. I can only compare it to my high school days as a mascot. One year I had a football father come up to me and get teary. He told me that I made the games worth coming to. I think that moment was the closest to self pride that I have ever been.

Let me get back on track here. I have to come up with a plan, a goal, something to move towards. So I am going to lay out here the options that I see laying before me and some of the input that I have received from family and friends. Feel free to tell me what you think. I know that most of you will not and that is all right too. I bet you are asking yourself why I am writing about all of these things on a blog that my family and friends and even some of my teachers read. I do not have a specific answer. I kept other blogs that held many chapters of my life but I really am kind of over being several different people for everyone. Trick is i really am only one person and that is all ill ever be. You can take me or leave me and do not worry while you can hurt me by leaving you cannot break me. People are good at leaving in part i think its in our genetic makeup, whether it be by choice or not. I will be all right heck I will be better than all right and whatever path i end up on whether it be one i thought of or from a window I have not even seen yet i will be great.

I have a cousin who says that our family is really good at making people above average and under extraordinary. I used to think that he was right but really he is full of crap. We all build a safety net and this was ours...our genetics. Well here are my options throwing out genetics.

1. Finish my masters degree and go on to get my Phd (hopefully at UConn). I would be only the second in my family ever. I could then get a job as a professor and spend my life in academia teaching and researching about the lives and times of people throughout history. I think that this is the option that most people want me to choose. It is safe and is totally capable of keeping me comfortable and content. Maybe someday I could even publish my dissertation.

2. I could finish my masters degree and apply for the Peace Corps. I love to travel and with my background in education, childcare, and AIDS i would be an ideal candidate. I could go to some amazing place and touch the lives of people who have so little. If I could teach one child or prevent one woman from contracting AIDS i would have succeeded more than i ever though possible. This is a difficult option for many reasons. The connections that I have in this world would undoubtedly move on just as they have since I have been here in France. They get married, have babies, and they even die. Most of the people close to me are very against me going away for at least 2 years again. When do you decide where the line between you and them is?

3. I could finish my masters degree and move to Florida. I could live in my house and maybe become a high school teacher or teach at a community college. I would have a relatively easy life. Plenty of time to travel and do new things. But it would be a ceiling a final step, a place that I go to not go any further. Maybe someday someone would come into my life and we could be content there. This is another option that people are fans of.

4. I could finish my time here in France and go back to tech. I could not only finish my masters in History but attain a second in English, perhaps creative writing. Then I could see where the next step took me.

5. I could stay here in Europe forever. I could travel and write and maybe if I stayed somewhere long enough i could start painting again (did you even know i used to paint?). I could lead a terribly fantastical life fraught with adventure and surprise. The next step would always be an anomaly. I have not met anyone yet other than me that thinks this is even remotely a good choice. But something about it entices me.

6. I could finish my masters degree and look for a job in the "real world" Maybe with the government or something. Become a white collar American. Another safe choice albeit a bit rigid. Family really likes this idea ALOT.

So these are just a few of my options that i never really knew I had. I think that you would be overwhelmed too. I feel better putting them out there for the world to see.

On a different note my ankle is doing well...i think..its in this horribly uncomfortable cast that makes it hard to walk. And the stitches feel super weird all the way down there. Cast comes off Sept 7 and then I have some intense physical therapy. Who would have though that i came all the way to France to have my ankle reconstructed.


Be Well,
k8e

Hello all,

Well I guess it is not really all as there are really only two people whom I know read this and one is my mother. PS Thank you Aunt Nancy for calling me just to check up. It really meant a lot.

Lets get started I have absolutely no excuse for taking so long to update. I cannot even say that nothing has happened because so much has. Ill give the readers digest version first for those of you who don't want to read all the way through. I believe that the last time I updated was sometime in Avril. Well since then I finished classes, went to the US for two weeks, Alice came to visit and we went to Prague, Amsterdam, Geneva, and Paris; I moved to a new apartment in the same building, I was given a surgery date for my ankle of July 13 ( yes I am aware that is Friday the 13), and the last of my new found family here in France has returned to their respective homes and countries.

Those of you that are interested in K8E ramblings feel free to continue all others thank you and you are now sufficiently caught up on my goings ons.

It is hard to think of where to even start. The last few months have been overwhelming in so many ways. Interesting thing though is that they are positive overwhelms. The most impacting will seem silly but to me it is a big deal. I am not good at good byes, I never have been. Not since my step dad died when I was a tyke (this whole other story about a glass of milk, perhaps another time). For a great portion of my life I have not had to say goodbye. People simply leave, are not going away for ever, die, or I go away. I don't mean that at all in a feel bad for me way. Lets face is most of the time it is me leaving or me managing to get other people to leave (98% of the time my own darned fault).

But this is different I am in a position now where I am expected to say bye. How weird is that. I mean I know that back home I went out to dinner with friends for my farewell dinner, but really it wasn't bye I will see them again. Yet here I find myself going to these dinners, drinks, group hugs where I am to say goodbye to people whom there is a great likely hood of me never seeing again. To put it simply I just do not know how to do it. Part of me is still that little girl in the back room playing thinking that everyone elses lives just pause or cease to exist when they are not in my life anymore but the rest of me is old enough to know that is not at all the case. It is strange for me to see these people whom I barely know that have well they have accepted me for who I am. Another really new phenomenon. Some people I met for just an evening like the Belgian Dr. Student or the Glorified Pool Boy and others I knew almost the whole time I was here like Silke and Dan. They never once question who I was or what my motives where and for the most part never expected anything from me. I wonder if maybe this is what philosophers are talking about when they say as you get older you make family not friends cause its true they each and every one of them were part of my family even if just for a short time. Is this what it means to feel like you are home?

If it is then moving to France was the smartest thing that I have ever done because I truly have missed out on this feeling and these people who so seamlessly fit into existence. And in the end it makes me appreciate 100000 times more the people that I know are back home. The Collin and Nicole who still take care of my mail even if they are ready to divvy up my things if I decide to stay ( WHICH I HAVE NOT), Amy who gets in touch with me halfway around the world to tell me she is marrying the guy of her dreams, Garrett who wakes up to look up phone numbers for me while I am in Europe (cheaper than info.), Tim who avoids me just as much as I avoid him (yes we are both okay with it), Staci who is up for the impromptu Vegas trip, the people who remember my postcard collection and send me some now and again (thanks Kathryn and Katie), and Alice who flies halfway around the world so we can stay up until 7am at some Bistro in Paris with a bunch of Belgians. I am the luckiest woman in the world because those people whether we are still getting into trouble 30 years from now are with me forever. How cool is that. And as my life continues on this path that I am so uncertain of I get to meet more amazing people who will impact my life in ways that I cannot even begin to acknowledge. WOW!

Okay enough philosophizing you want to see pictures and here about what I was up to :)

I went to an doctor while I was in the USA and he stuck me in this cast. I spent two and a half " wonderful" weeks in it before the French doctor promptly took it off so that I could get strong enough for surgery. Ironic is it not that you have to have a healthy strong ankle in order to repair the fact that you can not walk without hurting it. :)

You can see that Karrie, Ducky and I had a lot of very important bonding time. That blob on my right side is actually Ducky.

These two photos were taken at dinner the night before I left. I was especially grateful for this because I did not get to see most of these people before I left the last time.

Alice came to visit for a few weeks and we had a fabulous time. We were able to meet up with Silke and her friends in Paris. This picture above was from a pub called Wallace here in Lyon.

When we got to Prague we decided to take this car tour of the city from this kid who thinks the fall of communism was the worst thing ever (you can imagine how well we got along). And boy was he in love with this car.

This was also in Prague in front of the original Town hall. Most of it was burned by the Nazi's but this clock that represents the plague managed to survive.

While we were in Amsterdam we managed to fit in a trip to the Anne Frank hous which was far more moving than either of us had anticipated. Everyone should try to go there at least once in their lives.

Here are Alice, Silke and I at Versailles. We spent 9 hours there and still just barely managed to see the orangery. AKA big area with more than 800 orange trees that Louis XIV had because he was jealous of "some other not royal guy".

I don't remember whose idea it was but we ended up renting a canoe on the Canal at Versailles. We probably should have been more prepared for the fact that we would then have to row ourselves. We survived unscathed and surprisingly enough no one ended up in the water although we were a bit wet.

The last night we were in Paris Alice and I went on this awesome outing. It was dinner at the Eiffel Tower, a river cruise, and the night ended with seeing the Moulin Rouge. Each and every peice of it was as wonderful as I could imagine.

I figured I would end this post with an entertaining photo. Leave it to Alice and I to be super silly on the night cruise in Paris. Seriously how could we not be everyone all around us was kissing..

I will do my best to update after i get home from the surgery but I know that I will be out of it for a few days. If you want to email me your phone numbers so I can call when able I will. Otherwise if you just email me at katie.nolde@gmail.com I will just email back so you know everything went alright.

love to you all.

Be Well,

K8E