Qu'est-ce que vous faites dans la vie?

So my mom just got a Happy New Year e-mail from her sister in Europe. Whenever anything remotely related to my mother's culture is brought up, I get really, really excited. I grabbed the e-mail and tried to translate it myself. Unfortunately, "Serbo-Croatian" is not exactly a Romance language, so there are very few English cognates. What I mean is that it's nothing like Spanish or French. Even if you've ever taken a year of either, you can look at a text and get a vague idea as to what is being discussed.
But with Serbo-Croatian (or more simply, Serbian) there are fewer such words. It's a Slavic language, so if anything it would have lots of Russian cognates.
I could still get a very vague idea as to what SOME of the sentences meant.

Anyway, so my mom and I just got to talking about cultures and languages as we often do. She was saying that she'd love for the whole family to head over to Serbia someday to visit other relatives there. I thought that would be an amazing experience.
and then I myself got to thinking about what an amazing experience it would be to see Europe at all. I've never left the United States. Ever.
Except for one trip to Niagra Falls in years beyond remembrance. So realistically, to my own knowledge and memory, I've never left.

Honestly, sometimes all I want to do is just learn tons and tons of languages and live in different cities. And maybe as a job I could just translate some scripts, or novels, or letters, or God knows what else. And maybe I could write in my spare time.
That would be fantastic for me.

To me, I think it is so amazing that we have hundreds of ways to express ourselves as human beings. There are so many languages out there. And to me, it seems like such a sad thought that a creature would go from cradle to casket knowing only one language.


Sometimes when I write blogs like this, I wonder why the fuck I am not going into Cultural Anthropology, or History, or Linguistics, or SOMETHING, because clearly anything relating to human culture fascinates me to no end.


And, to be completely honset, a part of me wants to just completely throw caution to the wind, and book some flights and hotels to Europe this summer.
The only reason I wouldn't do so is because I need to save up for college... because education is the most important thing right?

but at the same time, I wonder how true that is.
sometimes I just feel like my education is getting in the way of my actual learning, which is kind of a horrifying thought.

sometimes the thought of just saying "FUCK YOU COLLEGE" and running away to do my own thing (whatever that "thing" happens to be at the time) is exhilarating. liberating. amazing.
part of the reason I can't do this is because I've lived my entire life trying to uphold the ideal that education is the most important thing in human endeavors. and realisitically, it is. Knowledge acquisition is the most important and amazing thing about our own existence, in my opinion. just the way we go about it varies from individual to individual.


I can honestly say that my first semester at Madison was not all it was cracked up to be. Academically speaking of course. (perhaps socially too, who knows...)
I feel like I've learned infinitely more in five minutes of a high school English class than I did in endless hours of college lectures.

the only knowledge that I know will stick with me was from my French class. and I don't need to go to college to learn a language.

I don't know. I kind of feel like a heretic or a rebel for talking down about education.

I'm just really confused.


Qu'est-ce que vous faites dans la vie?
What do you do in life?

a question that has stuck in my head so vividly this past semester... so many decisions.

I know that I have time to figure things out. but I just wish I had clear direction now... I don't want to wait. I want my life to begin... I want to start working toward something tangible.