Now, when someone decides to forego college for a year, they usually have
a specific reason for doing so. Whether they are applying to college for the
first time, or going on a life-changing trek around the globe, or volunteering
to help the starving in Africa, there’s usually some well-laid plan that was
thought out ahead of time. But, as per usual, I figured I would just make it up
as I went along. Now, I had a general outline of how I wanted to divide up my
time: I wanted to further my resume through intern for a lab or clinic,
preferably at one involving neuroscience, I wanted to go to Japan, I wanted to work
on my different types of juggling, and I was offered the chance to potentially do
some modeling gigs after being scouted by a casting agency, so there was that
too. Keeping these goals in mind, I tried to work them all into a coherent plan
somehow.
The first step was
finding an internship, so I drafted a résumé, wrote a cover letter, and tried
my luck for a position at the Manhattan Headache Center. I was called in for an
interview, and it went amazingly (or so I thought.) They expressed that I
seemed to be a genuinely good fit for the position, menial as it was, and
promised to contact me by the end of the week. Well, the end of the week rolled
around, and I had heard all of nothing from the Manhattan Headache Center. I
told myself I would give them until Monday before sending my résumé elsewhere. It
was Monday when they called me, and had another intern tell me that I wasn’t
picked for the position. Speaking to my mom about it the next morning, I realized
that I didn’t really want to do an internship at all. I had taken this gap year
to explore my passions and interests, to do things that I couldn’t otherwise do
while in college, and that’s really how I wanted to spend my year.
Shortly after that,
my casting agency told me they wanted to use me for fashion work, and I started
a weekend circus club with my friend and fellow juggler in the Hamptons. I am
currently working in a quirky health food store to save up money for a spring
semester trip to Japan, and I’m going to Europe this fall. This is my gap year
plan: to travel, to learn, to juggle, to adventure, to model (maybe) and to
record all of it here, on this blog. This should be interesting.
