Airport musings

Round two… here we go. Once again I’m sitting in an airport, completely terrified out of my mind but fully committed to the journey that lies ahead. Quick description of the situation: I’m putting off being a responsible human who uses their newly-earned college degree and running away to work in a bike + ski shop in New Zealand. School has never been high on my priority list, and when I finally walked across the stage and was handed an expensive piece of paper it was a dream come true. Granted, I was in no way ready to leave my friends, the fun times, and the amazing place that is Bozeman, Montana, but I was closing the door on the traditional education part of my life… and at this stage there’s no plans to reopen it.

               As a recent college graduate, it seems as if everyone in the world has one question for you: ‘So what are your plans for after school?’ Then as I would explain how I was going back to Southeastern Wisconsin to live with family and save money, continue to pursue a (vastly unsustainable) career in mountain bike racing, and work as a mechanic for a bicycle company, they would slowly come to the eventual realization that I had no idea what I was going to do. Next, they would attempt to keep the conversation going by politely asking what I majored in, and when ‘geography’ was my answer, the inevitable following question would be ‘what can you do with that?’ After bumbling through some response which hit the buzzwords GIS, planning, and cartography I’d explain how it would most likely be necessary to return to school and somehow come out the other side with a master’s degree. By this point in the conversation I had gone into autopilot mode and I’m sure whoever I was talking to could see my eyes glaze over as I recited the speech I’d done a million times. So they’d be kind and switch the topic, which was completely fine with me.

               Long story short I still have no idea what I’m supposed to do with a college degree… apparently people frame them and hang them on their walls and stuff. And if I don’t know what I’m going to do with an expensive piece of paper I REALLY have no idea what I’m going to do with my life. I knew one thing for sure, I wasn’t going to live at home in the flatlands of Wisconsin. Don’t get me wrong I loved living with my family and coming home from work to a self-refilling fridge, but once my Friday nights turned into ice cream and bed at nine, it was time to take the next step. I did the normal responsible things such as create a respectable LinkdIn profile, update my professional resume, apply for ‘real-person’ jobs, and send countless emails with a slightly-altered cover letter to any company which seemed even slightly appealing. The hard part with applying for jobs as a recent college graduate is that there are literally thousands of people just like you, and millions slightly (or a lot) better. Who is going to take a second look at a twenty-two year old with a recently given B.S. degree in geography who got average grades throughout school, did nothing special in terms of extra-curricular activities (meaning absolutely nothing), and who has two projects to show for work experience, (both of which obviously involved quite a bit of hand-holding and assistance from professors). In any case, it was all about networking, and my current network… well it didn’t exist.

               So throughout all the ‘real person’ job applications, I threw out my resume to a small-town bike shop in New Zealand who were in need of a mechanic. The position description said open to international applicants and I figured what the hell. Within the next few days I got a response email, and after a couple calls over Facebook messenger and more emails I got a job in New Zealand. No bother that it was halfway around the world and I had no plane ticket, or really not even enough money to buy one, but I had an opportunity to run away from adulthood for a bit, and the owner of the shop said I could crash on a couch until I found a place of my own… so what could go wrong?

               That brings us to the current situation: sitting at gate D51 waiting for a glorified aluminum tube to fly away and take me to New Zealand; away from everything that goes along with ‘responsible adulthood.’ Well not directly to New Zealand, I’m far too poor for that. The next thirty hours I’ll have the luxury of calling airports home and will be spending far too long squished into economy class. But on the other end there’s a whole new country for me to explore, countless new experiences, new lifelong friends, and hopefully a decently comfortable couch.