Being impulsive

I’ve been trying to identify some sort of theme around which I can assemble the various things that have happened since Friday, when I last wrote. Of course, the longer I wait the more keeps happening, which makes this task even harder. But I think I’m going to write about impulsivity—être impulsif (impulsive,  if you are a girl). It’s not going to make a whole lot of sense but just go with it; I worked it all out on my walk home from school.

I think I’m a relatively cautious person. Well, I make snap decisions, but they’re always right. For example, the fall of my senior year of high school I visited Washington and Lee, a school that I liked but had not considered too seriously, and decided to apply early decision. Within about a week, if I’m remembering correctly, I had applied; and I never finished the common app for my other schools. A year later, I rushed and joined Pi Phi, the sorority that took me on my very first rush date (Sweet Things with Shreya and Erika!). A year after that, I was sitting in a French class with another Pi Phi, Stephanie, when she told me to study abroad with the Institute for American Universities, and I didn’t research any other programs. My Meyers-Briggs type is ENFJ, which means that I feel what I should do based on my intuition and then judge—just go with it. (Well, that might not be the full story but the internet’s down right now and by the time I’m posting this tomorrow I won’t want to do the research, so let’s just assume that’s what it means.) Basically, I applied early decision to W&L for the same reason that I write in brightly colored pen and sometimes cook dinner without a recipe: I don’t make mistakes. I like making decisions quickly and I like them to be right.

But I do make mistakes, as anyone who’s tried to decipher my notes can tell. I’m terrified of failure and of not being sure about something. That’s the part of me that isn’t impulsive at all. A lot of the time, I’m completely sure. This is the school for me; this is the sorority I want; this is the right amount of vanilla extract for chocolate chip cookies. But if I’m not sure, I’ll hold back. If I don’t know how to respond to a tricky email, for example, I won’t. It’s not good, but it’s what I do.

That’s why I can’t fully explain why I applied to this program so late. I was so set, as of January 2010, on studying with IAU for summer 2011. I even had the date they opened applications (February 2011) marked on my calendar. But I didn’t apply until May. I know what you’re thinking. How can waiting until two weeks before the application deadline for a well-established, prestigious, school-recognized academic study abroad program, to which you had been planning to apply for a year, and that is in a stable Western European country you’ve already visited twice and whose language you have been studying since you were fourteen possibly be impulsive? But for me, waiting that long to know for sure what I was going to do that summer was positively reckless.

I like to blame it on winter term. I’ve had plenty of rough times at W&L, even though it’s perfect. There was fall term 2009, when I had a parasite that went undiagnosed for over a month; and there was spring term 2010, when I was devastated about Andrew graduating and Eleanor being in Ireland. After all, the only perfect term ever has been spring term 2009, and even that had a few rainy days. But nothing can possibly compare, in both scope and in number of truly awful things, to this past winter term. Even though it was the semester I got engaged to the love of my life, when I think back what I remember is being overwhelmed all the time. There were daily challenges and annoyances, and there was true tragedy. I’m not going to go into the details, because most people reading this know already, but it was terrible.

So the short story is that I didn’t apply to IAU earlier because I didn’t have time. The long story is that I didn’t apply earlier because everything was busy going wrong. Plus, I think part of me expected not to get in and to be home doing nothing all summer, so I wanted to prolong my ignorance on the matter. But ultimately, just like surviving winter term made me come out stronger, this program (and even the fact that I applied to it at the last minute) have made me grow up a little more.

Because I did get in and I went, knowing absolutely nobody on my program or even in the city. Whenever people asked me if I had a friend who was going with me or anything, I would laugh it off, but of course I was scared. I hadn’t really given myself the time to mentally prepare, to make lists of what to pack, to read books in French… instead I’d just basically packed and left. That’s what it felt like, at least. But I’m not the kind of person who just up and leaves the country! This was a solid decision based in fact, right? After all, I’m going to speak French; I’m not going to ‘find myself’ or anything like that. I know myself! Polonius would be proud of how true I am to mine own self!

Well, I do know myself, but I think coming on this program in the circumstances I did has helped me to know more about myself. My dear friend Cathryn’s mom—my other mom, really—told me that I would grow up so much while I was here. At the time, I thought I was perfectly grown up, but also I’ve been thinking that since I started kindergarten and decided not to go by Kate anymore. Basically, Cat’s mom was right. All the new things that I’ve done and tried here have pushed and pulled me in various directions, and I’ve been able to be open to all of them. (I even tried lamb—which I decided to hate in elementary school. I still hate it, because as we know I am always right, but hey, I tried it.) I like to think that if I’d applied in February like I’d planned, I would still be willing to keep hiking even though I knew I was on the wrong trail up the mountain, but maybe I wouldn’t have taken it in stride as well. (Pun.) I don’t know, but another enduring characteristic of mine is persistent, overthought optimism, so we’re just going to keep going with this. Almost missing a deadline has made me a better person. There we have it.

Impulsivity was supposed to be the theme and I was going to tell you, dear reader who probably has no interest in being my friend anymore now that you know I’m actually crazy, about all the exciting things I’ve been doing since I last wrote. But this is certainly long enough, especially for a post with no pictures of pretty Provence. ("And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?") So I’m going to call it quits, and in the next entry you will get the full stories on the hike, the movie and the free opera concert!