In 2008, I took a lot of chances and found out what I was capable of. I never have “lived” so much in a short period of time, made so many friends, and seen so much.
I started out the year living in an old, rusty trailer in the middle of a Redwood forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I had accepted a job as a Naturalist at the San Joaquin Outdoor School, and for the next five months I would be living in the woods.
I was scared shitless. My job involved teaching 5th and 6th graders science for one week at a time. I had never worked with kids, didn’t know much about the outdoors, and sure as hell didn’t know crap about science.
A few months earlier, I had left my desk job in Chicago for the brighter pastures of California. I hated Chicago and, especially, my job. I told all my friends there that I liked Chicago, but had to leave. That was bullshit. Chicago wasn’t the city for me.
As time went on at SJOE, I found I loved working with kids, and from what I could tell, they really liked me. I also loved living in the redwoods. And, I wasn’t far from San Francisco either.
I took the nature name, Squirrel, because growing up in Suburban Detroit they were the main animal around. I loved to climb early on and identified with the animal.
I played guitar and sang to groups of 100-130 kids every week. Not exactly the crowd I imagined when I first picked up a guitar, but I loved it. Playing hits like “The Banana Slug Song” drove those kids into a frenzy. With my two best friends at SJOE, Cirrus and Dragonfly, we put on an amazing show of skits and songs.
My favorite things to do with the kids were a salamander hunt (four different species!), hiking to Worley Flat, and practicing survival skills.
Also during my time there I met a girl. I was very happy...it was pure bliss.
Throughout those five months I was also applying for journalism grad schools. It was a plan I had long before coming to the San Joaquin Valley. I had been writing freelance for three years and felt it was time to get serious. In early March I was accepted to my top pick, NYU.
In May, I was sad to leave the Valley. I had made so many friends and it was, quite possibly, the happiest I had ever been in my life. I said my goodbyes and drove my Chevy Nova, with my gf, across the country.We stayed in a hotel in Salt Lake City, visited my friend Robin in Denver, stayed with some of my gf’s family friends in St. Louis, stayed with my cousin and friend in Chicago, and eventually ended up in Holland, MI. After dropping my gf off, I stayed with my brother in East Lansing and then went home to St. Clair Shores. It was an amazing trip.
I planned to stay for two months in SCS and just get ready for NYU. Well, two days after arriving in Detroit, I hit a pothole with the Nova and it was totaled. That signaled some rough times. Unfortunately, no matter what I do in my life, I am still a kid to my parents and they weren’t the easiest to live with either.
I applied at every restaurant in SCS’s Nautical Mile. No one would hire me. Eventually, I got the idea to see if my old company from a few years ago, Brogan & Partners, would hire me. Well, they did and it was an amazing time. I got to brush up on my writing skills working on their blog and made a ton of new friends. It really made the rest of my summer great.
After writing letters back and forth to my gf throughout the summer, she dumped me a week before I left for NYU. I was crushed.
I left for New York with my cousin, Nathan, and dad two weeks before classes started. Nathan and I stayed with my Aunt and Uncle in Hoboken, NJ for two weeks while we searched for an apartment.
After a very hard search we eventually found a five-floor walk-up in the East Village that was in our price range and actually in Manhattan! It was cheaper than the places we were looking at in Brooklyn and only a little more expensive than a place in Harlem we almost took.When NYU classes started, I had mixed feelings. I was expecting to meet people that had been journalists before that were there to get some extra training, or people like me that took some soul-searching after undergrad to find out what they wanted out of life. Well, my whole class was 21-22 year old girls straight from undergrad.
Eventually, I got off my high horse and became really good friends with some people in the class, especially Kate and Andrea (both from WI). I grew to like everyone in my program, even if I didn’t see eye-to-eye with them. In our sister program, Reporting the Nation, I met some other great friends too. We would meet at least once a week for drinks.
I still didn’t like New York City though. I was heartbroken, and my mind would often drift back to the San Joaquin Valley. I was filled with uncertainty and sadness; I was happy in California, should I have stayed? Also, the Big Apple was overwhelming. Screw defeating stereotypes, the majority of people her ARE assholes and it makes for a very hard place to move too.
I found some kindred spirits in the NYU student group, Bags N’ Boards. We met every Thursday and discussed comic books. It was a huge stress relief. Most meetings, even though we were supposed to be working on a publication, involved us laughing, geeking out, and making fun of Jeph Loeb.
I threw myself into my studies. I worked night and day to prove myself. In hindsight, I probably didn’t need to work as hard as I did. But, it all paid off in the end. I was running to every borough, interviewing people, taking pictures, and writing the best stories I could.I finally started to make some friends too. I got a job my first week at NYU in the journalism equipment room and met some amazing people. My two co-workers, James and Will, were a riot. I actually sort of liked coming to work. We started hanging out outside of work and it was cool to have some non-NYU friends.
By the end of the semester, I was able to sit back be really proud of what I did. Graduate school was way harder than what I thought it would be. But, I was very successful (at least by my standards), and it felt great. Some of the highlights were being asked if I want to be a grad assistant next semester, getting five stories published on NYC Pavement Pieces, and drawing two comics in the NYU Comic Book Review.
I still am unsure about New York. But, I hear it takes a while to really start to like it. So, I’m hopeful for the future. I can’t imagine 2009 will be better than this year - ’08 would be a hard year to top. And if things really suck next year, all I need to remember is places like the San Joaquin Valley exist and things can always get better.
