Unlike last summer, so far this summer has been flying by. I'm not even close to having the crazy homesickness I experienced for everything about Boston this time last year. I'm about 88 percent content with being at home; Mom and Dad treat me well, I fixed the Volvo so I'm semi-mobile, I've got one okay job and one awesome one, and some wonderful new and old friends to keep me extremely busy. But as usual, I can't help thinking about the next step, only now my mind is beyond the fall. My mind has been racing on two pretty exciting facts:
1) Once again, I really, really want to spend some time living in Los Angeles
2) Graduating "on time" from Berklee isn't important at all to the beginning of my career
So where does this leave me? With an itch to do a summer internship in LA next year. I have been planning on finishing up my credits next summer (graduating in May) and moving to God-knows-what city - but the fact is that I have purposely left all the classes that I consider to be relatively useless to be taken in that last semester. And with a price tag like Berklee, why should I spend an additional 10,000 dollars for a degree that I might never use? After all, I'm ultimately there for the knowledge and not the degree, and I really don't feel like "Conducting 2" is going to make or break me.
This is almost directly contradicting another one of my recent entries, and I realize that. A degree has always been important to me and up until very recently I have been thrilled with my plan to be done in a year. I guess it just comes down to the fact that I'm terrified that money will paralyze me from doing the things I want to do when I graduate. As long as I'm in school I have student loans to live off of, and as long as I have one semester left in school, I can always go back and live off of those loans for a while to get the degree if I feel like it is important.
All of this is just thinking out loud, and of no interest to anyone else really. Basically, I'm writing all this to say that I am so excited for my incredibly uncertain future. As much as I moan and complain about paying my entire education, I'm proud that I've taken every bit of this into my own hands. I'm happy that this is my load to carry, and my own paved path. It's scary, but I can go anywhere I want to. And just like I've always said, I know I'm going to survive. I've always had that very real feeling that I am going to be okay.
So drop out of Berklee a semester early? Head to LA for an internship? Stay there? New York? Atlanta? Graduate from Berklee and go to Nashville? Who knows. I can't wait to see where I stand in a year.
In the meantime all I know of my future is:
Tomorrow - Atlanta to see Kyle perform with the Click Five for the first time
Thursday - Athens to hang out with Rex and see Chris's band perform for the second to last time
Friday - Winder to watch the show at my family's very own music venue
There is music in every day, just the way it should be.
I've got good feelings.