I'm not a serious biker, I never have been, and now, in the span of 9 months (in which time span I could have a child, eek) I will be preparing to spend the summer biking through Europe. I've been invited by my sibling and zir girlfriend to go with them and two other friends. I'll have just graduated college and my sibling will be in the middle of grad school. All I know is that I need to save money, get a bike, and we'll be taking a train across the country, a boat across the atlantic, and then going to at least amsterdam and copenhagen.
The tricky part here is getting a bike. Seeing as I'm not a serious biker, I don't exactly have the proper bike to be touring with. My first plan was to look on craig's list, because buying a good bike new would cost way too much money. However, the Cleveland craig's list listings are not very extensive in the area of touring bikes. So I did some talking to people and the plan as of right now is for me to build my own bike.
Don't get me wrong, this frightens me just a little bit. I know very little about bikes, and the little I do know I learned last summer while going with my sibling to buy zir bike. So here I am, knowing nothing and attempting to build my own bike. The positives: it will be cheaper than buying a bike in a store, cause I get to use the resources of the bike co-op and order through a bike retailer and I'll be doing all the labor myself. I'll also learn how to put it together, so if anything goes wrong on the trip I can kind of be our mechanic, which is good. Negatives: I do have to put in the work, and in order for me to use the bike co-op's services, I have to put in 10 hours of work throughout the semester.
Still though, I'm getting familiar with the bike co-op, which I'm sad I didn't use more often in my time here at Oberlin and I'll be spending the summer after I graduate with my favorite sibling and other cool people biking through Europe, which is exhilirating and terrifying at the same time.
I'm sure updates will surface on the status of the bike throughout this semester, trials and tribulations, ups and downs, all that stuff, but I'm excited and ready for the challenge.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Senior year
Senior year is a terrifying and wonderful thing all at the same time. Bad before, good, we start with the terrifying.
After I graduate, I will in fact be a part of the real world, paying bills, deciding my future, and doing all sorts of grown up things. Granted, I'll break the stress by biking through Europe next summer and I am technically already paying bills, but still, the real world is terrifying, and so is having to do everything myself. There should be co-ops everywhere so that I don't have to cook every one of my meals. In addition to needing to find a job, I'll soon be off my parents insurance. Now that is terrifying. For all of my life I've had great health care (thanks mom and dad), but that ends once I graduate and that's scary. I've seen my sibling try to do the real world without health insurance and it doesn't seem very fun, I'm not excited.
However, this is it, the last stand, my last year of college to do everything I ever wanted to do. I have made a list of all the things I want to do before I leave Oberlin, which includes, among other things, going to a rugby game, getting a picture of an albino squirrel, and going to more observing sessions at Peters. I also need to take lots of exco's my last semester and just be doing awesome things. With the exception of possibly going back to grad school, I'm done with school, which is so relieving. Don't get me wrong, I've loved my time here, but sometimes you just need a break from all the classroom learning.
So I'm transitioning to on the spot learning. I'll be biking through Europe with my sibling and a few other people this summer and since I don't have a proper bike, I'll be building one at the bike co-op. The benefit of this is that I can do it cheaper since I'll be doing all the labor myself and I'll learn first hand how a bike works and hopefully will better know how to fix things once we get over in Europe. I'm super excited, it's going to be an amazing experience and I really love spending time with my sibling, especially since zie will be heading back to school soon too.
All in all, the future is frightening, but living in this moment, so close to my 21st birthday, is so wonderful.
After I graduate, I will in fact be a part of the real world, paying bills, deciding my future, and doing all sorts of grown up things. Granted, I'll break the stress by biking through Europe next summer and I am technically already paying bills, but still, the real world is terrifying, and so is having to do everything myself. There should be co-ops everywhere so that I don't have to cook every one of my meals. In addition to needing to find a job, I'll soon be off my parents insurance. Now that is terrifying. For all of my life I've had great health care (thanks mom and dad), but that ends once I graduate and that's scary. I've seen my sibling try to do the real world without health insurance and it doesn't seem very fun, I'm not excited.
However, this is it, the last stand, my last year of college to do everything I ever wanted to do. I have made a list of all the things I want to do before I leave Oberlin, which includes, among other things, going to a rugby game, getting a picture of an albino squirrel, and going to more observing sessions at Peters. I also need to take lots of exco's my last semester and just be doing awesome things. With the exception of possibly going back to grad school, I'm done with school, which is so relieving. Don't get me wrong, I've loved my time here, but sometimes you just need a break from all the classroom learning.
So I'm transitioning to on the spot learning. I'll be biking through Europe with my sibling and a few other people this summer and since I don't have a proper bike, I'll be building one at the bike co-op. The benefit of this is that I can do it cheaper since I'll be doing all the labor myself and I'll learn first hand how a bike works and hopefully will better know how to fix things once we get over in Europe. I'm super excited, it's going to be an amazing experience and I really love spending time with my sibling, especially since zie will be heading back to school soon too.
All in all, the future is frightening, but living in this moment, so close to my 21st birthday, is so wonderful.
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