Not Quite Home, But No Longer Just Visiting

Today was the first time since I got here that things just felt right.

Up until this point I had been seriously wondering what exactly I was doing here, far from my family, friends and everything familiar, working towards a goal that is only a close cousin to what I always said I'd be doing.

Everything I've done in my life up to this point just felt right. I decided on Carleton and journalism as opposed to my original goal of East Coast and marine biology, and spent four glorious years basking in a feeling of purpose and belonging. I didn't get into grad school last year, but packed up and went to Boston and, scary as it was, I knew that's what I should be doing. But when I got here I kind of hit a brick wall. Suddenly my future felt a little less clear and I seriously wondered if this was the right path for me. I got hung up on the small things, the deficiencies of the program, the fact that it's not actually biology, and without looking at the big picture it all just felt so incredibly wrong. I didn't want to admit this at first, since it's costing a small fortune for me to have this opportunity and, lets face it, at this point Duke is my only real option. But now I feel ok saying it, because it's no longer true.

Today was the first day of classes, a day which I've been dreading for months. Back to lectures, back to labs, back to trying not to fall asleep while a dimly-lit professor drones from the front of the room. And it didn't help that my first class was an 8:30 "Fundamentals of Geospatial Analysis" lecture. So at 6 a.m. I dragged myself out of bed, showered, ate breakfast, and got myself ready for class. Sitting in the lecture hall, cursing my decision not to bring coffee, I continued to wonder what I was doing in North Carolina.

Until the lecture started.

The first thing to show up on the lecture screen was the thing that justified this entire life choice for me. What professor Halpin chose to share with us as the introduction to why we should take his course was a video of him tagging whales on Stellwagen Bank off the coast of Boston. My whales. With friends that I worked with at the Whale Center last fall. Upon seeing the 30 seconds of footage, all my doubts and "what if"s and wonderings faded, and everything else just seemed to settle. No, maybe I don't want the policy classes and the 14 readings per week they require. Maybe the economics classes will drive me insane. Maybe it's not marine biology. But I WILL get there.

This feeling was only magnified when I went to an interview for a communications assistantship working for Duke's environmental magazine. Sitting in the office chatting with the editor about possible writing, photography, video and blogging opportunities, I became more excited about journalism that I have been in a long time. I promised myself that when I came to Duke I would get involved with the newspaper, join a photography club, and not let all my journalism training go down the drain. When I realized that Duke doesn't have a photography club (or if it does, it's doing a really good job of hiding), and the paper is only for undergrads, that seemed to be another tick on my list of cons. But getting involved with the magazine would be exactly the thing I need this year, providing the opportunity to work on an actual publication, and possibly even getting paid to blog about my everyday life. It's not a sure thing that I'll get in, but the editor seemed really impressed with me and as far as I know there's only one other person interviewing for the position, so I have high hopes!

After the interview I had a little bit of time before my next class, so I went out to the courtyard and sat myself in my new favourite place to read. As I munched on my cinnamon Special K bar and dug through my bag in search of my book, I let my eyes wander over the lush green grass, the overhanging trees, the little birds hopping around the courtyard and the constant line of tiny ants parading across the cement... and for the first time since I got here I was actually truly happy. No, I haven't made too many friends yet. No, I haven't managed to find my way around anywhere except the LSRC building. No, I haven't started the 14 readings I was supposed to have done for today, and I haven't quite figured out the computer systems, and I still don't have my textbooks. But my "to-do" list will get done, and the rest of it will come with time. And, until then, I can be satisfied knowing that I did make the right choice.