Perspective on my Birthday.

Le 12 novembre 2004.
Well, today is my birthday. And for those of you who remember my bizarre birthday of last year, this year was by far better. Actually, today as a birthday definitely topped my last four birthdays, so I’m pretty happy with it overall. I didn’t have work today, so I got to sleep in, the maintenance guy came back and fixed my lights and my sink (I am no longer living in my little, wet, dark cave.. J), lunch with Dyna at Paul, and a couple of hours in the computer lab. I finally caught up on my email, downloaded music, chatted with Kayla, figured out the problems I had had with an application for next year, figured out which printer I got to use in the lab, and got a great start on the Thanksgiving worksheets I’m typing up for my classes, oh and got an invitation to another Thanksgiving dinner! I love Thanksgiving abroad even if it makes me miss my family. Speaking of family, I received the best birthday present ever from my parents; it had a beautiful card, some Halloween candy, and a buckeye from Monty for good luck, and best of all, a pack of Little Debbie cakes (my favorite ones! Zebra cakes.) with a note singing me happy birthday, and a candle taped to it. I really can’t imagine a more meaningful birthday present. My mum’s the greatest, as she made sure it would arrive on my birthday!
So I am truly happy with the turn-out of my birthday this year. Even if I didn’t get to go to Copenhagen and Amsterdam or even to the Loire Valley and Brittany, it turned out marvelously. It’s been nice to just hang out with everyone this week again. Somehow I keep ending up thinking on the subject of how we are all here working and how bizarre this might be to others. Kim wrote one of her mass emails again, and I’ve realized that she seems to be going through the same emotions too. I forget her specific words on the matter, but her comments on the multinational sense you come to experience while living abroad. It is my age too, as it’s my birthday, I feel that makes me consider this so much. To live abroad, working in such a situation, learning the real world in another language, I feel that all of this is an opportunity that would slip away if it had not be grabbed at. It’s the essence of living on such a minimal income, to travel, and experience at the same time that I’m going through the great questioning in my life. I hadn’t realized when I was graduating from high school that I would go through the same experience in four years. But I suppose at eighteen I was too excited to more to the next stage, and I feel now as if I didn’t truly understand what I was heading into; yet this time, after university, I feel as if I’m more lost, but yet rather more prepared for this feeling of being lost. All together, being in France is probably better for me than grad school at the moment, and I feel rather content that I realized that before I considered applying for grad school, and it’s best for be because I really need to improve my writing before grad school! But also, because being here in this situation seems to give me a sense of perspective from which to view my life and its possible directions; the opportunity to step forward and backwards at the same moment.
On that note, in a hope to not become more confusing than I currently am, I’ll end my note by wishing all the important people who happen to share my birthday a glorious one (namely Uncle Paul and Louise Plaid) and don’t forget to make your pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Also, good luck to all those running in the glorious Living History Farms Off-Road Race, I’m there in spirit! K-O and Ciao!