My friend Nathan sits on the couch, making a list of pros and cons about Chicago. To his left, Chad leans into the computer, searching for jobs in Burlington, Vt. I stand on the other side of the room, pushing Alaska.
"We could live outside Anchorage in a small town and try to do a morning radio show," I say.
They laugh. "Like Northern Exposure?"
Instead, we opt for Cheers.
We are moving to Boston, two of us without jobs, all of us without any purpose other than to see what happens when three California boys uproot themselves and try something new. We are leaving Stanford after four wonderful years, hoping we don't call them the best of our lives. And we are trying to convince our friend Tor, who grew up in Idaho, to come along--in case we need to know how to drive in the snow.
"Ahhh, man," I moan, the realization setting in. "Does this mean I'll need to buy long underwear?"
It's not that we don't have a plan for the year after graduation. This is the plan--to put our careers on hold and to make the transition into the "real world" together.
It shocks most people at Stanford. Not the prospect of needing long underwear, but the part about putting friends above career. For years, like many students here, I have done exactly the opposite. In hopes of becoming a better writer, one summer I moved to Colorado Springs and another, to Little Rock, to work for newspapers. Each time, I left my friends back in California.
But at some point during my time at Stanford, I realized I would probably bounce around the country like this for many years to come. It could wait. For once, I wanted to pick the city instead of it picking me. For once, I wanted to search for experiences to share with my companions, rather than for companions to share in my experiences.
The four of us have been close since the first weeks of our freshman year. We're part of a group of seven friends who have done everything together. Living with them will be easy. Finding a writing job as a novice in a big media market won't.
So why Boston? It looked like an exciting city in an area of the country where we haven't lived.
Besides, we like the Red Sox.
But it's been terrifying to go through senior year limiting my job search to one unfamiliar city. To make matters worse, every time someone learned I was graduating, the dreaded question came. "So, what are you going to do next year?" they'd ask. "Live in Boston," I would say. "Great!" they'd respond. "What are you going to do there?" Pause. "Um . . . live in Boston."
I was never really sure if the answer satisfied them. So, sometimes, if I was feeling especially courageous, I told them about "the shop."
The shop came out of Chad's and my desperation to find jobs. While Nathan got excited about a position he landed at a top consulting firm, Chad and I came to the astute realization that we had no way to pay rent. At first, we thought we could cook and clean and have Nathan claim us as his dependents. Nathan didn't go for the idea.
So Chad and I sat down to brainstorm. I told him about my dream of writing books and plays. He decided he wanted to be a carpenter's apprentice. Suddenly, the fit seemed perfect. "They could watch my plays, while you make their chairs and stuff," I said to Chad. It would be our own specialty shop.
Then I got the call. A medium-size newspaper in Colorado had an opening in the features department. I was the top candidate.
It caught me off guard. "This is my dream job," I told Nathan. A few summers back, I had held an internship with them, and occasionally I still sent stories for suggestions on how to improve. But I had not applied for a permanent job there because I knew that if I got an offer, I might be lured away from my plan to go to Boston with the boys.
My head throbbed as I tried to rationalize not pursuing the position. I asked the newspaper editors if they would wait six to nine months for me to finish my "commitment" in Boston. They said no. They said if I turned this down, maybe I wasn't ready for the real world. "Life experiences take place everywhere," one editor told me. "Good work experiences don't."
Nathan didn't see it that way. He said it was a question of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Maybe the job at the paper was such a thing, maybe not. But he was positive that living with three friends for the transition year, exploring a new city together, was.
I agreed. I also felt sick.
It's a leap of faith, no doubt. I just have to hope that I'll get another good opportunity, either while I'm in Boston or afterward. There is something to be said for taking this risk, for valuing what's really important in life. Regardless of how the year turns out, I think it will teach me something. I think it won't ruin my dreams. And I think it will make an excellent subject for my first play.
Brian Eule, '01, is a communication major from Los Angeles.
