So What Should I Do Now?

If only all my wishes would become true as fast and as simply as the one about my master studies. A couple of nights ago I received the small envelope text message that starts with "We regret to inform you...". I did not get into masters in American studies, even though I got maximum points for the admittance interview (or whatever it's called in English), and had an extra six points. I only had 76 in total, and missed the limit by four points. 

But I don't mind it at all. I am not disappointed the slightest bit; as a matter of fact, the feeling of unlimited freedom has taken over me. I did not want to go there, I did not want the see the smug and ever so bored faces of the same teachers for another two years, and study the exact same things I have spent the last four years with. It would have been a waste of time and effort (not to mention the semesters  payed for by the state). I feel as if this great burden has been taken off my shoulders, the bell jar has lifted, and I finally breathed in some fresh air. 

But then, on the other hand, it is as if the door of the cage has been opened up,  and I am free after four years of continuous squirrel cage, but now I have no idea what to do with this great, immense freedom. I am floating in the air, not belonging anywhere. I have no idea what to do next. 

Obviously, what would make the most sense is to start looking for a proper nine-to-five job and a room to rent where I could live from September. I could stay in Budapest, live and work here, but it would be utterly expensive, and rather difficult to make a living with the minimum/starting wage of a fresh graduate, paying for rent, travel, food, etc, especially since I am not a student anymore. 

I could also move back home to Miskolc, where living would be much much cheaper, as I would not have to pay for rent & food. I could work for a language school there, and even save some money. But I am afraid  that if I move back home, I would get stuck there, and never come back to Budapest. 

I could also pack up my stuff and hit the road. I could finally feed my wanderlust, travel, and gain some real life experience again. I could go back to England. I could go to Norway. I could go back being an au pair for another year or half a year, and set my foot in a foreign country. I am dying to travel and get to know new people and new places. I could finally put my English into good use. But, honestly, I don't have enough money saved up to start a living somewhere abroad. I would have to start working in Hungary first, save some money, only then would I be able to try my luck abroad. 

I will probably stay in this dorm for a few more months, as it's the cheapest way of living I can think of right now, continue working in the language school (why would I give up and leave a job that I already have? Doesn't make sense at all, does it?), start looking for another job (another language school, maybe? Is it possible to coordinate the two?). And then, I will see how things turn out. The important thing is to remain calm, and not to rush into a decision I haven't thought through properly. I do have the habit of making decisions in a rush, but then realizing that I should have given it a bit more thought. I might want to listen to other people's opinions and ideas as well. They might be cleverer than I am at seeing the entire picture and having a more objective point of the current situation. 

But until I make the final decision, all I can think of is what the great literary figures & the big influences on my life would do in my situation...

• Charles Webb would tell me to go home, spend the summer floating around in a swimming pool, find myself a Mr Robinson, let him seduce me, then hook up with his son as well, fuck up my life completely, so I can become a real grown-up in a few months.
• Jane Austen would advise me to find a husband and get married ASAP, settle down in a nice mansion in the countryside, then give birth to half a dozen children.
• Flaubert would also advise me to get married, get pregnant, get bored of my husband and fed up with marriage, commit adultery, and then, just to put the dot on the i, poison myself with arsenic.
• Tolstoy would also have me get married, get bored of my husband and fed up with marriage, commit adultery, get pregnant with a bastard child, and become an outcast. But, instead of poisoning myself, I would end up throwing myself under a train. Nice perspective, huh?
• Proust would simply tell me to go back into bed, stay there for the rest of my life and start writing unbearably long & unreadable, but critically acclaimed novels.
• Kerouac would tell me to hit the road already, and not give a fuck about anything. But bring along an insane friend and a typwriter on the road, so I could write about our crazy adventures. 
• Nabokov would also find me a husband but with an underage son, tell me to get married, murder my husband, deprave the child, and only then would he send me on a cross-country road trip with the beautiful & innocent boy on my side.
• Mark Twain would also tell me to hit the road, but find work, possibly something of the hard labour kind, meet a bunch of people, and gain some serious experience out there in that crazy little thing called life. Only then should I sit down, and write books about it.
• Plath would advise me to go down into the cellar, crawl under the floor with a bottle of pills and a glass of water in my hand, and give up on life completely (and, should I not succeed in the first place, turn the gas tap on and stick my head in the oven).
• Salinger would tell me to fuck it all, and leave for New York. I would fuck everything up even more on my way, but then I would feed the ducks in Central Park. And life would go on, anyway.
• Hemingway would advise me to go to war, experience some heavy stuff, then move to Paris, spend the days in grand hotels and charming little cafes drinking, smoking, talking, hanging out with Capa, Fitzgerald, and other extremely talented and supercool expat artists, and write novels in top-of-the-iceberg style every once in a while.
  
• F.S. Fitzgerald would tell me to party hard, find a mentally instable but incredibly handsome man, get married, party harder, write the great Hungarian novel about my college years, then move to Paris, and hang out with Hemingway. Party even harder, until I drop dead poor and unremembered.
•  Robert Capa would tell me to gather my cameras, go to some distant war zone, or at least to a relatively dangerous place, and start shooting people (with cameras, never with guns, even though other people might be shooting at me with heavy arms). I might get wounded on the way, might struggle, starve, and even steal bread and not pay for rent every once in a while, but I would meet the most fascinating people, and make my name famous by brathtaking photographs. I would also live in the gratest capitals of the world, such as New York, Paris, London, and Berlin.
• Joanne Harris would send me to a tiny, distant French village where, for months, I would struggle to fit in, but in the end I would succeed. But by that time I would get bored, and wanted to move on with the coming wind.
• Carrie Bradshaw, just like Salinger,  would also advise me to move to New York, but she would also tell me to buy a pair of shoes, play dress up, and write an article about my non-existent love-life every once in a while.
• Rory Gilmore would tell me to. Well, Rory Gilmore would never get into such a situation. But in case she did, she would steal a boat with an excessively rich and handsome blond guy on his side. Eventually she would suck it up, pull herself together, and not give up until she found some non-paying internship job at an acclaimed newspaper. Of course, she would not have to care about money, 'cause her grandparents are notably rich. And she went to Yale, anyway.

If I had the chance to choose, I would go with Robert Capa's way of life, and not just because Hemingway must have been real fun to hang around with. If only it wasn't the 21st century, the internet did not exist, and printed press weren't dying.

So, I guess what makes the most sense is Mark Twain's solution to my problem. I will probably have to stick to that one, I am afraid.