As for advice, I agree a trip like you have planned will be difficult to duplicate anytime in the near future. It is a rare opportunity and I think you will thoroughly enjoy it. . . . People will question your dedication just because most people believe the only way you can prove loyalty is to pass up every personal opportunity presented to prove you care about the job - but so be it. It will make it tougher in the firm world of which you have stated you don’t want to be a part of, but won’t hurt you around here, as you know around here it is all about timing.
The above is from a mentor of mine in response to my worries that my upcoming trip is a luxury I can't afford. I think he's right. I also hope he's right.
As my departure date looms ever larger, I'm beginning to realize that part of my frustration is cultural. I'm not sure my partner in crime gets that what my mentor refers to in the third sentence occurs here in the States. I don't wholly understand the prevailing attitudes toward holidays in the UK, but from what I've heard about so far, they are far, far, far more valued than they are here.
In America, we don't get weeks and weeks of vacation time right off the bat. No one would get a months vacation time just one year into a new job. Even if someone were offered such an unlikely amount of time, no one would dream of taking it. Not in the legal world, nor in most industries, I would guess.
So here I am. I don't even have a job yet. There's hardly any bar loan money left to speak of either. But here I go, off to travel for
months. This kind of lark is culturally acceptable if it involves a recent college diploma, a backpack, and a guide to Europe's greatest youth hostels, but for a recent law school graduate with no idea whether she'll be a licensed attorney by the summer, well, it is highly unorthodox. Maybe financially secure law school grads can do this - but I have no business doing it.
Leaving law school to campaign for Kerry felt principled (because it was). As crazy as people thought the decision was, they still respected it because I was leaving work for work.
At the same time, this is still one highly educational endeavor, dammit. The more time I spend with non-Americans the more I understand how ill-equipped I would be to lead anything or anyone without a better understanding of the world. And try as they might, the Travel Channel just doesn't cut it. Just look at George Bush. Doesn't he pride himself on the scant amount of time he's spent away from the homeland he wants so desperately to secure from the world he doesn't know?
It seems, then, that we have a good old fashioned celebrity death match situation. In this corner: a broadened understanding of mankind and the many splendors of the earth. And in this corner: that damned American/Protestant work ethic that I don't really suffer from, except its penumbra of guilt.
If you're reading this thinking, "get over it, you just
finished the bar, you've got a great trip planned, you leave soon, shut up already," you're absolutely correct. But admit it, as much as a majority of Americans would love to shove off on months of vacation, your initial reaction was "whoa, really? okaayyyy. . . ."
There's more at work here, of course. My well documented plane aversion. My general [frequently paralyzing] fear of the unknown (and of change). Me being me about a lot of stuff. Monsters under the bed, etc. But, the way I see it, a lot of this is me learning more about what it means to be an American in America and in the world. And what it means to be of any nation or people, regardless of context.
Post script: I realized as I was clicking the "publish post" button that the worries in this post make it seem like a career is It. That a career and professional concerns are all there is to life. That proves part of my point about the American ethic. But I'm leaving out of here the myriad reasons why I wouldn't change my plans for anything. Some things are just too important. As are some people.