This is Very Random

Going into my senior year of high school I was completely set on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was going to go to Purdue, major in Fashion Merchandising, spend my senior year in NYC at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and carry on with a career probably as a buyer for an upscale department store. Ya know, like Rachel did on Friends... But two high school teachers said things to me my senior year that completely changed everything. 

One day my spanish teacher (Mr. E., everyone's absolute favorite teacher) was talking to us about when he ran into an ex student of his, I think his name was Ben, and if it wasn't, it is now. Anyway, Ben was the big time manager at some store and when he saw 

Mr. E. he said something to the affect of, "Aren't you proud of me, I made it." Mr. E. then proceeded to tell us that, actually he wasn't at all proud of him. Ben wasn't doing anything to help people, he was just bossing people around, basically wasting his life. That stuck with me. Everyone wants to impress the cool teacher. Automatically I thought about all the times I had enthusiastically described to him how much I loved fashion, how I started sketching designs in 5th grade, and was so excited to spend a year at FIT. I was so worried, I was sure he thought I was a disappointment, a waste of his teaching skills. What does fashion do to help people?

After that I started to doubt things. I went and talked to my favorit

e teacher, everyone else's least favorite, Mrs. S. She was my history and english teacher and I absolutely loved her, she was such a genius and the first teacher who seemed to feel that my ending a sentence with a preposition didn't matter as long as it fit the situation. In fact, she seemed to like my preposition-ending sentences better than my friends' by the book "firstly, secondly, thirdly, and in conclusion" paragraphs. When I went to her she pointed me to history. She said I had a knack for it, and also brought up to me that a fashion career would lead me to a city and did I really want to raise children in a city? Hmm. For some reason it didn't strike me at the time at half of my town commuted the hour drive to Chicago everyday so I definitely would not have had to raise kids in the city, but regardless. Then Manchester started sending me money and they definitely didn't offer fashion merchandising, but their history department was stellar. 

Anyway, every time I feel lost or overwhelmed by my major and find myself pouring over runway pictures and putting together outfits to escape it all my mind starts to second guess my high school decisions... 

Friday night Hermione, Hannah, and I had a girls night. On the way home Hannah started confessing her fear that her choice of major just wasn't right for her and I happily commiserated with her. It was fantastic to know I wasn't the only one. Hermione on the other hand, when pressed, said she had absolutely no doubts, that it was her fate to teach math, no questions about it. Her certainty is something I've always been jealous of, I'm almost never certain of anything... But at least Hannah is in the same boat : )

Anyway, I have a feeling I'll be posting a lot of fashiony blogs this semester... It's the first week and it's already kicking my ass!