Wings (aka THE ONE WHERE I LEAVE FOR CHINA!!!)

China. CHINA. CHINA. After all these months of waiting, I can't believe it's finally happening. And yet, a drowsy airport and lots of strangers sipping coffee as they wait to fly away surround me on every side. This is it...my first time overseas, and to a place nobody in my family has ever been. I feel truly blessed at 19 to be able to say I'm taking this trip today. Ah, the ability to travel. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't do that.
So maybe my spring break won't be spent on a beach. It won't be spent showing off my half-naked body and parading around, drunkenly taking photos with random guys and wearing flat bills on the daily. But I think the upcoming week will be one of the most memorable times of my life. I still don't believe myself when I say I'll be at the Great Wall of China in a few more days. I mean, me! A girl from southern Indiana who's always wanted to see the world but never expected it to come so soon.
The next week will fly by too fast for me to even comprehend it, I'm sure, but that's why I thank Jesus for the invention of the beautiful video camera. I can't wait to bring back all these memories, because I know I'll have them forever.
It's far too early and the sun is shining far too brightly for me to drag out this little post, but I just had to document that it is happening. Jeanine Cameron is seeing the world, piece by piece, place by place, one plane ticket and carry-on at a time. Starting now.

Can't wait to see you in 8 days, America. Until then, take care of my man, my family, and the rest of the 18-24 year old population currently in Florida.

The Oscar Goes To Me! (Well Maybe One Day)

Going to sleep on Oscar night is like going to sleep on Christmas: you're happy because the event was wonderful, but you're sad because it means all the fun is over for another year. Oh, the Oscars. The illustrious Academy Awards. I have dreamt of walking down that gorgeous red carpet since before I even understood what the Oscars truly meant. All I knew was that the pretty people from TV got together for one big party on one night a year, and they'd wear the most beautiful dresses known to man. And when you're a five-year-old girl, parties and beautiful dresses are kind of a BIG DEAL.
Being at college these past couple of years during the Oscars has been great, but it just isn't the same as being at home and watching them with my mom. Yes, the mom I bicker with constantly, that one. Yet while we argue on so many things, the importance of the Academy Awards has never been one of them. I know it's because she loves the allure of it all just as much as I do. As a kid growing up, I truly and wholeheartedly believed for about thirteen years of my life that I was going to grow up and become a famous actress, that one day my mom would be sitting in our same living room, eating dinner and watching me win an award on the big screen (because apparently I wasn't nice enough to invite her to the Oscars with me in this fantasy).
I think, even now, a part of me wants that dream more than anything. I've always been in love with the bright lights and the rolling cameras and the fancy dresses and cocktail parties. I've wanted that beautiful, surreal Hollywood lifestyle longer than I've wanted any other thing out of life; it sounds so shallow to admit, the fact that fame and beauty have long been my #1 goals, but I think it's the most honest desire someone can have. Who doesn't want their five seconds in the limelight? I'll gladly take ten.
Anyway, watching the Awards at college is different than being at home. At home, I've never been distracted by a Twitter feed; I've never had to "unfollow" Perez Hilton because he takes up too much room with his million-and-one opinions. At home, watching the Awards with my mom was a ceremony. We would comment on dresses; we would make predictions for everything. We would gossip like little old women for that one night a year, a night when the idea of bickering with each other seemed completely foreign. I miss sitting in my dad's big blue chair, picturing myself on the carpet years into the future, imagining who I'd be wearing that night and what my speech would say if I won.
More specifically, I miss being young and immature. I miss being a dreamy little girl who could drift off to Hollywood in her mind, a place where it didn't cost anything to live and becoming famous was as simple as a wink and a smile. Oh, how I wish that were really true. In two years when I plan to fly to L.A. and stay for good, I'd love to think that a simple wink and a smile could pay my rent. But the city of angels isn't begging me to hurry up and head west, no writers or directors are dying to pay me millions of dollars to be in their movies, and those beautiful bright lights certainly aren't shining for me.
Yet at the same time, I'm not ready to give up the dream just yet. True, I'll probably never get my five seconds of fame, but I know I'll be just as satisfied standing behind the velvet rope. It's like the American dream on steroids, wanting to be famous; while few will obtain it, it's a dream millions of us have, and one that we admire too much to let go. Nights like this remind us girls (me, my mom, and all you women out there) that even though we're not the princess at the ball tonight, there are princesses out there, and they are having their moment in the spotlight. And that means we've still got a shot at it, too.

What I Miss

Found this untitled word document on my computer which I must have typed a while ago. I vaguely remember writing it, but can't remember when or where I did, or what drove me to get all mushy. Anyway, reading it brings back a flood of beautiful, colorful, and personal memories, which was clearly the intention at the time. And as the "naked girl scout" that I claim to be, I will hide none of it from you. Behold, a peep into my past, unedited and a little sappy...

"I miss the eighth grade. I miss Christmastime. I miss looking too young, feeling too young.

not knowing what kisses taste like on the  lips.

eating way too much pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.

lying next to my best guy friend on the grass on Halloween, knowing neither one of us were cool enough to be anywhere else besides with our families, and not caring.

stealing people's crayons.

John's curly Q's.

themed birthday parties; gluing fluffy stuff to flip flops from Michael's.

I miss being young and blissfully unaware of how I looked. If my hair looked like it had been washed sometime in the past week and there were no food particles stuck in my braces after lunch, that was a good day. I miss not having MySpace, Facebook, or a cell phone. I miss making movies with my neighbor, Anna. If I've ever truly had a "best friend", it was her. Anna has been there for me since I was about five years old. I've grown up with her. I know her family as well as I know my own, and although she's two and a half years younger than me, she always got me. She was always the friend I needed. I hate that we've grown up and forgotten the kids who sang along to S Club 7, who made peanut butter & gummy bear sandwiches for their little brothers, who played in the snow until they were so frozen and numb that they could do nothing but blink and breathe.

I miss seeing The Polar Express for the first time. That will always be the best Christmas movie I have ever seen. It makes me so warm. It makes my heart want to cry. I know you've felt that feeling--that hurtful clutch on your heart that makes it hard to breathe. You get it when you watch someone you love board an airplane, or when you see the first snowflakes of winter beginning to fall.

I miss snow days, those precious early Christmas gifts God leaves for mid-western children. I miss seeing how happy my family could be on Christmas mornings. I think the most magical times in all of life are the minutes before you fall asleep on Christmas Eve as children, and the very seconds before you wake up the next day. Those are the most magical hours anyone could ever get--when you're a child, when you know Santa is coming the moment those sleepy little eyes drift shut, when everything seems like peace. When you're too young to understand the heartache of others all over the world--when you would never believe that there are children out there, younger than you, who already know Santa Claus isn't real and he's never coming to brighten their Christmases--those moments, for a child who hasn't even begun to see through her dreams, are bliss. Because ignorance is bliss. There are people who have been cheated on or had some horrible disease that could have been treated if only detected sooner who would beg to differ with that statement, but I'm holding to it. Because I've experienced it, and it's true. I thought Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid was one of the happiest Christmas songs ever created. When they sing "feed the world", I thought they were just praising God. Every time I heard it, I'd bob my head and want to throw my arms in the air and party with all the African children, who it sounded like were having an awesome party over there.

I miss thinking that pre-drugged Macaluay Culkin, the one who kicked the snot out of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, was the coolest kid around, and that things like forgetting your child at home on Christmas could really happen."




And that's all there is. It stops, just like that. Like I had this little epiphany of how beautiful it is to be a child, and then I remembered I had homework or something more productive that needed finishing. But this is good, too, being able to just drift off from time to time and slip into the past when we need a little respite from our busy adult lives. It's nice to remember those innocent Christmas nights, and summers when the only decisions we had to make were what movies to watch during a sleepover. It may be tacky, but I'm glad I found this. It's always good to remember yourself, and I hope this inspires you all to do the same.

Credentials

                Sitting in a dark car riding back to B-town on a Sunday night, I freak myself out thinking about all I have to do over the next four days and decide that sleep is very negotiable for this Tuesday. Rest is not a priority; rarely is it even a word in my vocabulary. Four chapters of law to read, a magazine article to write (meaning three more phone interviews, taking into account the time difference between Berkeley and Atlanta and Bloomington), an application to fill out (eventually), and that’s not even considering my hours spent behind a deli counter and the 19 credit hours to which I must dedicate even more time. Oh, and then there’s worrying about my future. God bless, my future.

                That word gets scarier and scarier every day. Even now when I go to bed, I kick myself thinking, one more day wasted. One more day when your time wasn’t fully spent trying to get an internship or taking on some new task that will further your future. China looks good, but what about Africa? You gave that up this summer, you screwed yourself over, you’re going to fail because this business requires credentials. And you do not have credentials.

                Why is it that all the work I did in grade school has absolutely no effect on my life now? Being the top cookie seller in my Girl Scout troop for like, what, eight years in a row, doesn’t make my resume more attractive to potential employers? The fact that I participated in choir, youth group, piano lessons, and practically every sports team available for most of my childhood just doesn’t matter? On top of that, I had near perfect attendance from sixth grade until the time I graduated high school. I was a Tiger Ambassador, Link Crew leader, Teens for Life secretary, Thespian society member, PowderPuff football player, and member of the Yearbook and Newspaper staff in high school (plus continued my involvement in choir, youth group and piano).

                I look back on high school and grade school and realize how much of an overachiever I was. No, really, pre-college Jeanine was a very impressive person. And I see that now. Back then, I didn’t get perfect grades. I got A’s and B’s, of course, but I wasn’t valedictorian and I didn’t win any scholarships for my grades. There were too many other more impressive individuals in my class. And that’s how I used to judge myself: Damn, Jeanine, why can’t you be like so-and-so? Why can’t you try to get straight A’s, just this one semester? Oh, and no detentions would be awesome, too (that’s another story, though).

                But now in college, where last semester I did meet my straight-A goal, I feel like it doesn’t even matter. It’s all the extracurriculars that get you noticed; the clubs you’ve been in, the titles you’ve held, the elbows you’ve rubbed, the coffee you’ve carried and dubbed an “internship.” I hate it. I seriously loathe this process of watering down what I consider an incredibly full life and making it sound like a waste because it doesn’t involve a summer spent in New York, writing for a fashion mag and getting little bags of lip gloss every week. And don’t get me wrong; I love a good lip gloss and that summer sounds like the bomb-diggity, but I just haven’t had it yet. And it’s the scariest thing ever.

              Being a journalist, I feel my breath sometimes catch when I think about all I haven’t accomplished. And I’m not even TWENTY YEARS OLD!!! This should NOT be happening yet! It’s ridiculous and so unhealthy. And just because other jobs may have a better job market, I know I’m not the only collegiate kid who feels like the time is slipping by for me to make my move, get my internship, and be all achieve-y. For all you people freaking out like me, heed this word of advice from a guy I know and love: It will never go away, the feeling that you haven’t accomplished anything yet. You will always compare yourself to other people, even if you’re crazy impressive and have won a ton of scholarships, had an awesome internship the summer after your freshman year, and written your own screenplay by age 20. I don’t care if you spent your summer working for the President; chances are, you’re now going to feel inadequate because you’re not sitting in the Oval Office.

 The truth is, I can rant about this all day long, but tonight I will still be running around, rushing to do as much as I can before crashing. Come Tuesday night, I will most likely still attempt an all-nighter. This is college, and there’s a dog-eat-dog world waiting for us once we leave behind all the parties and free booze (free if you’re a girl). So yeah, I may fear resumes and applications and the word “internship”, but when it comes down to it, I’ll drive to Starbucks every day in a heartbeat if you’ll just let me sit in your office for eight weeks next summer.

That being said, I would love to work for you.

Hire me?

xo, 

Jeanine

Ernie Pyle: More Than the Name of a Building

Ah, finally, a Friday night in. A bottle of red wine on my desk, me all snuggly in my pajamas, and Christina Aguilera playing in the background for a little nostalgia. What's not to love?

If only my reality were as sweet as that image.

In reality, I can barely keep a straight face as Christina Aguilera whispers, "Pero me amo, pero me amo," in what I expected to be "Genie in a Bottle." Pero no, this is "Genio Atrapado." I guess I was a little too giddy in scooping up the album from the library to make sure it was the English version. And as far as snuggly PJs go, I've been in these babies since I went to bed last night. Oh don't worry, I showered today, but as soon as I got out I slipped these red-and-white bad boys back on. So they're probably needing a shower as well....Now the wine, the wine is gorgeous. It's a sweeter, soft red wine, not bitter or sour. At least, that's what the label tells me, because I happen to be short one very vital corkscrew.

Yay, Friday.

I tell ya what though, last Friday was a fun time. On that morning, I boarded a bus and tagged along for a FREE fieldtrip (something free in college!) to the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum in Dana, Ind. As a journalism student at IU who spends 90% of her scholarly time in Ernie Pyle Hall, you'd think I knew more about the guy. But to tell you the truth, I was clueless. So when I left that morning, I hoped to come back with the ability to give a better description of him than "war correspondent."

And I did. I learned about his life growing up in a town even teenier than mine, a life where sons are raised to be farmers and he wanted none of that. Pyle wanted to see the world, and so begged his mother to let him enlist. But his mother was The Enforcer, a lot like mine, and she said he was finishing school, so that was what happened. After high school he decided to go to IU, and enrolled in the School of Journalism with friend Paige Cavanaugh (Note: Paige is a dude...this fact eluded me for most of the day). He dropped out a semester before graduating and went to work at the LaPorte Herald for a few months before marrying Jerry Siebolds (yet this one is a chick), who he referred to as "that girl." She struggled with depression and alcoholism, and their marriage wasn't a happy one.

He went on to become managing editor of the Washington Daily News in Washington, Ind., which is eventually where he became a war correspondent after doing several pieces on the road and traveling all over the states. He reported from Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. He and Jerry got a divorce in 1943 while he was home from the war for a period; in 1945, he was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on an island near Okinawa.

I could go on and on about this man, but I'll let you guys check Wiki instead cause otherwise I'd write forever. I will say this, though: I am so proud to gain an education in a school that honors his legacy, and I'm so grateful to know we're not so different. He wanted to escape that small Indiana town and see the world. He loved to write, and not just the cold hard facts. He gave faces and names to the masses, those boys and men across the sea; the ones who had moms just as crazy nervous as his, and whose names deserved to be remembered and put down in ink.

Ernie Pyle made those men into more than "soldiers" for the American public, and for that he is much more than a "war correspondent" to me.

Ernie, center, shares a cigarette with Marines on Okinawa.

A photo of Ernie, left, near an issue of LIFE magazine all about WWII.

Saying Goodbye

Well, this is it. Another year has already come and gone. Most days I feel like the hours go by so slowly, but as I look back on the passing year I can't remember where all the time went. 2012 felt like a year of goodbyes for me. I said goodbye to one of my greatest friends, Katelyn Baker, in May, and learned a few months later that she couldn't return to IU when school rolled back around. I said goodbye to another great friend and roommate, Kaitlyn Klabunde, as she set off for Michigan State to be closer to Jimmy and her family (and, of course, Lola and Moose). I missed saying goodbye to a good friend and ex-classmate, Natalie Kamp, when her life was cut much too short last Halloween. That was a goodbye I didn't think I'd have to make so soon.

I also said goodbye to my first year at college. I said goodbye to the vomit-stained carpet (thank you, Sark) and tall double bunk-beds of 1165; I said goodbye to living on a floor where Ries' guitar, Smoke's singing, and David's ability to create awkward moments/go days without sleep were nightly occurrences. I said goodbye to one of the greatest times in my life, my first year away from home and my first year at IU. While it wasn't always perfect, it was a memorable experience, one that taught me so much about my life and relationships.

And speaking of relationships, I said goodbye to David McCracken much, much too often. {Just a sidenote: getting into a relationship with someone who lives 2,000 miles away from you, two months before starting college, is not the smartest decision in the world. So if you're planning to do this, you'd better have a whole lotta love for the person at the other end of those 2,000 miles.} If I gave you a dollar for every day we didn't see each other this year, and then took away a dollar for each day we did, you probably wouldn't even notice the difference. Long distance is not a fun time, but if it's worth it, you'll make those goodbyes count 'til you can share the next hello.

The one goodbye that sticks with me most from this year is the one I never got the chance to say. One of the most beautiful, inspiring women I have ever met or could ever hope to emulate was Josephine Miranda, who by some saving grace also happened to be a part of my life and my family. My Auntie Jo instilled in me at a young age a love for California so deep I never wanted to leave; being there meant being near her. When she died of pulmonary fibrosis in late March of this year, a big piece of California and everything it's ever meant to me died with her.

But goodbyes aren't always a bad thing. Just as Newton's Law holds that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, my "law" is that every goodbye leads to another hello. Each time I hug David goodbye in some airport terminal, I remind myself that this goodbye will put us one step closer to the next hello. Even a permanent goodbye, like losing my Auntie Jo, isn't so permanent after all. Her spirit lives on in the places she's been and the people she's known. Flipping through old photographs of my gorgeous great-aunt (who never seemed to age), while enjoying lunch and reminiscing with family at one of her favorite old sandwich shoppes in LA, brought her to life in every way but physically.

2012 was a wild, exciting, and unpredictable year. And for all the goodbyes I've been saying, maybe 2013 will be a year chock-full of hellos. Whatever happens in these next 365 days before the clock strikes midnight in 2014, I resolve to look on these upcoming experiences with an open heart and peaceful mind.

Goodbye, 2012. Hello, 2013.

Thoughts of a Restless College Girl

Listening to the reggae version of "Everything I Own" is, I think, the perfect way to stare out the window and enjoy a dark, meteor-less night sky. I missed the meteor shower. [But at least I can say I took a real shower this morning. That doesn't always happen.] Are you ever afraid that you're going to miss everything? Not just meteor showers, I mean. Do you ever feel like life is going to pass by day after day and you won't realize? Sometimes I just get so restless. I'm tired of falling asleep in the same bed every night. That sounds trashy, but it's truthful. Sometimes I don't even want a bed. My mother tends to think my life will be a complete mess, and maybe she's right. If I told her about my dreams of a bed-less lifestyle, she'd say, "Oh that's nice, Jeanine," in that snide tone that tells me my money will melt like ice water in hell when I "move to California," a statement I'm sure she still puts in air quotes in her head. But you know what? I don't mind. I think it's kind of fun proving people wrong.

Life is just too short to not make a mess sometimes. It's a cliche, saying life is short. It's what gets said when someone dies too young or the summers pass too quickly. But it's starting to mean something to me. We grow up listening to lies and insults and start believing the things we're told about the world and the people in it. And I think life is just too damn short to listen to it anymore. I want to travel. I want to make up my own mind. I want to go back to Evansville and point fingers and say, "You were such a BITCH in high school, and you know it!" Of course I'd probably giggle after saying that, because I can't even think of anyone who was really, truly a "bitch" in high school. I mean, weren't we all? But that's the thing about growing up; you don't think about the mistakes you're making, because you're young, you're supposed to make them. You think the entire world lies somewhere on Lincoln Avenue.

Yeah, St. Ben's graduates, I stole your crayons. Kindergarten through fourth grade. All of them. I think that's the least of my mistakes, but I figured I'd start at the beginning, when my sins were much smaller and more forgivable. I've done a lot of wrongs in my life, and there will be many more to come. But I'd also like to think I've done some rights. My point, I guess, is that we tend to view our lives in terms of what we've grown up hearing from others. If we do_____, we're good. If we don't, we're bad. Etc, etc. But the truth is, the people we grew up taking orders from were once just as careless and clueless as us. They probably still are. My mother chastises my dreams because she once dreamt the same things, but because she was smarter and safer with her life, she thinks she made the right choice. And maybe she did. But I'm too stubborn to be smart or safe, and my life is far too short.

In Catholic school, kids are taught to honor their mothers, fathers, and teachers like they're taught to tie shoes. Swimming against the current and questioning those authorities can be detrimental; receiving detention seven years in a row taught me that. And yet, I have to push the buttons a little more. It's in my blood. I'm as curious about those buttons as I was about Nick McNeer's insulin needle...another detention, if I remember correctly. I don't want to sleep in the same bed every night because I don't like routine. I make mistakes, and I'm too curious, and I have so many questions that are still unanswered, many of which I probably shouldn't ask.

I just want to take this moment to be grateful for all the chances I've been given so far. I'm grateful that my mother didn't make me go to school twenty miles away from home. And I'm also grateful for my mother. She challenges me every day to do the best damn job I can without even knowing she does it. Her "ice water in hell" theory wakes me up every morning with a vigor. I am determined to earn a degree in a penniless career and move to one of the most expensive cities in the country, all in less than two and a half years. I'm determined to take the less safe, less smart path. Many of the people I grew up with will live in Evansville their whole lives, comfortably happy, and that's not a bad thing. There's already enough people in other parts of the world...lord knows there's enough in LA.

But I hope that these people I've known get a chance to leave every once in a while, too, to make their way out of the city limits and get lost for a little bit. There are so many places and experiences in this world that we've already missed...a million meteor showers could come and go, and half of us would still never pull our faces away from the computer screens fast enough to see them. In the St. Ben's school cafeteria, there is a painting of doves in a garden on one wall that reads: "There are two lasting things we give our children: One is roots, the other is wings." Personally, I feel like I've got roots out the wazoo. What I need now is a good pair of wings. Evansville is a fine place, one that makes me want to hum the "Cheers" theme song and sends a wave of memories flooding over me each time I return. But I don't want the world to pass by while I read about it in the news. I want to live it. I want my wings.

My thoughts are too big to keep in order most of the time, so forgive me if none of this even makes any sense. My whole point is, don't let life pass you by. Don't get too complacent in the place we've called "home" all these years and forget that there's another world out there. I'm just now learning it. And my mother, who thinks I could live a comfortable life in Evansville--one where I wouldn't have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck--isn't wrong by any means. I could live comfortably here, in this state known for Catholics, corn, and Fall Festivals. But I would be complacent. And that's basically the same as having clipped wings. So for those of you like me, longing for adventures and not-so-comfortable lifestyles, know that those who roll their eyes and write you off as kids were once kids themselves. Those who call you "dreamers" have had their fair share of dreams. And never forget the wise words of Mr. Robert Downey, Jr; when someone says you can't do something, "listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the f*ck you were gonna do anyway."