Easy does it

So, the decision had been made, I had come back home, and exams had just begun. The plan was to do a paid but irrelevant summer job (going on an Erasmus is not good for the funds, believe me) while looking out for relevant internships and placements starting from September. But first of all there were exams and a final paper to be completed. I was not on the lookout yet at all.

Plans about what to apply for were quite vague; I knew I would like to try something in media or journalism, and possibly also in a cultural sector. I knew I would love to find something abroad again, preferably in the UK or Ireland. My expectations, I think, were realistic: I expected the process of applying to be long and stressful, even more so because I'd never applied for a job before - except for some student jobs, but that can hardly be called applying at all. I believed it would be very hard to find a job in the fields I was aiming at, since they are notoriously popular and usually pretty saturated. And I predicted that I would probably not get paid for the kind of jobs that really interested me.

I was wrong on most points.

By mere chance, I stumbled upon an ad on my university website for an internship at La Monnaie Opera House in Brussels. The internship was at the Promotion & Communication department, it was unpaid (at least I was right about that part) and three-month-long starting from September. It seemed like a perfect opportunity, in short. I did not hesitate long and started working on an application (even though I still had a couple of exams to get through; the opera house would close over the summer holidays, and it was mid-June by this time).

Although I put quite some effort into it, looking back I would say I was not very well prepared - my CV, for one, was a little messy (no wonder, there was nothing very interesting to put on it except for the likely prospect of a BA degree), and my cover letter was written purely on intuition. (I can see that now, having just spent quite a while researching CV's and cover letters.)

But I just went ahead and applied anyway. I had a lot of excitement and little to lose; and apparently, sometimes that's enough.

And so it begins

First of all, this blog comes way too late. I'm aware of that. I should have started it when I started my year-of-experiences - not five months later. Granted. I shall start it now however, if it please you.

When I was in Galway on Erasmus exchange, I was very, very happy. It took me a while to find out why exactly, but I know now: I just love new experiences. Landing in a situation where everything and everyone is new, and where you have to find your way around and discover everything for the first time, is simply the best thing on earth for me. Contradictorily, it feels like a natural habitat. So Galway was the best time of my life so far.

Quite soon, though, I also started realizing that coming back to Belgium and readopting all the old patterns and habits would be very unpleasant. A vague idea started to take root in my mind. Luckily, I voiced those vague ideas to a friend with a lot of life experience quite early. She thought the idea, however vague, was BRILLIANT (thank you Kathleen). From that moment on, the idea was no longer all that vague, and I had decided.

You need to know that in Belgium, most people consider a bachelor's and a master's degree as one single unit, not two separate things in which the second is optional. The general idea is that a bachelor's degree alone is useless and will not get you anywhere - that it is, in fact, a waste of three years of your life to do only that bachelor's degree without adding a master's. I was not aware of how strongly rooted that idea is here. Once I had made my decision, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me, and like the best decision I could ever have made.

Unfortunately, this could not be said of most other people.

Luckily I have amazing parents who have a lot of confidence in me, and who always support me to the maximum. I also have a lot of amazing friends - some who were very enthusiastic about my scheme, some who did not like it at all. Fair enough. But then there were all those other people - acquaintances, family, new people I met who, of course, would ask what I do in life. Most of those (luckily not all of them) just pretty much think that I'm out of my mind, and that it's a disgrace my parents are letting me do this. I find this odd. I never even asked my parents, I told them. I feel that by now I'm quite capable of making my own informed decisions. (Which does not lessen my gratitude to my parents for being supportive.)

Oh, well. The decision was made and doubts about my sanity are not going to make me change my mind. It was the best thing I could do for myself at this point in my life. I'd rather spend a year doing many different things to help me find out what I really want to do in life, than spend a year doing a master's degree which doesn't interest me too much at the moment and of which I have no idea if it will lead me anywhere in particular. People tell me I will never find a 'proper' job if I don't have that master's degree. They may be proven right at some point. But if so, nothing stops me from getting that degree after all. It's not like I'm embarking on some irreversible journey into the great nothing. (Also, their ideas of what a 'proper' job is might just differ from mine. Just maybe.)

One thing I know for sure is that this will never be a wasted year. I will learn so much - I am learning so much. I would even dare to argue I'm learning more, or at least things more useful, than I would when doing that inevitable master's degree.

And so it began.

PS. Comments are most welcome at any time. Telling me I'm insane is fine too.