An International Affair Anonymous

I have always envied those amongst my peers who have figured out what they want to do with their lives, down to the exact job description. That highly pinpointed sense of direction and purposefulness in regards to my future is what I have always lacked, and consequently, always craved. Not until recently did the scattered pieces of my mental landscape begin forming themselves into a more cohesive map, with an "X" marking the spot of a career involving foreign affairs.

In the jumble of classes at school, no subject has ever quite piqued my interest like Spanish has. One of my earliest childhood memories is of my kindergarten self, perched on a stool in a corner of my elementary school library, learning the letters of the Spanish alphabet. Whether it was because of my early introduction to foreign languages or not, my love for languages continues to be one of my greatest passions. Nevertheless, as I looked towards the future, I was faced with the troubling and also incorrect notion that a career involving foreign languages would have to be something along the narrow lines of linguist or translator, neither of which particularly interested me. With mounting pressure from my peers and society to decide on a life path, I was once...