Wow. Guys. I’ve been back and forth these past couple days like you wouldn’t believe. I whined to EmmySuh about it, and to my oldest best friend Nadine, and my best friend Sandra here in Maastricht, to Twitter, to my host family in KY, and to my mom just this morning.

The problem is that I don’t know how to deal with the likely situation that I won’t be able to go back to my beloved America anytime soon. Not this summer, not during the 2010 fall semester abroad, not during the summer of 2011 because I’ll be busy job hunting (my dad is already pressing me about this), and not after that when I’ve hopefully found a job to start paying off my student loan – about 20,000 euros ($27,000) to be paid back starting one year after graduation at the latest – and will no longer enjoy the luxury of three months off in the summer.

I’m back online more often, as you may or may not have noticed, and that only fuels my wanting to get back to the States as soon as I can. It means: original country music radio, US television series, blogs of people living my dream, American news sites, and so on. And it’s hard to escape that loop and avoid that urge. The fact that I can Google everything I miss – read about it, hear it, see it – doesn’t necessarily help either.

So yesterday I begged our International Relations office to reconsider my Sweden placement, and if there was maybe a teeny tiny possibility that I could spend my semester abroad near Columbus, OH instead, I’D TAKE IT. I haven’t even really researched that college yet and I don’t see why Ohio would be more appealing than Sweden. I really don’t. I just want to get back to the States NO MATTER WHAT. And the semester abroad, I thought yesterday, would’ve been the perfect opportunity because it wouldn’t interfere with my studies overall or any of the financial/job stuff coming up soon after that I mentioned above. Plus, tuition would be paid by my uni here. But it wasn’t to be. International Relations emailed back, saying they understood why I asked but couldn’t offer me the position because all six spots had already been taken. I felt absolutely crestfallen for about half an hour because I’d had HOPE, you see, that this could actually still happen.

Then, I realized that at least now I knew. That was a relief in itself, I gotta say. Back to the US for the semester abroad: off the table. It’s sad news but it’s another decision I no longer have to wreck my pretty little head about. I checked out the website of my university in Sweden this morning, and already felt better about going again. It’s fine. It’s a much better match academically and it’s a beautiful uni. It will be cheaper and easier to get there, and I’m lucky to be offered to go at all given my grading average. I think I’m okay with it now. But that doesn’t mean going back to the US is off the table altogether.

I need to figure out a way. And I welcome any ideas you guys might have!

One option would be graduate school. The problem: money. AS FUCKING ALWAYS. I would basically need a full scholarship or something to pay tuition and fees and whatnot in the US and make enough money at an on-campus job (can’t do anything else as a non-citizen with the J1 visa) to start paying back my student loan over here. Only candidate so far is Murray State in Kentucky which Emmy suggested yesterday and Jenny had recommended during my last freak-out. I’m not sure about the course catalog; they offer about anything I could think of but nothing special enough for my dad to approve of. However, if it weren’t for the damn finances, I’d go in a heartbeat. The university in Sweden actually offers an interesting master’s program so if my semester abroad there turned out to be really great, that might be the kind of thing my parents could get on board with. Which brings me to the second issue besides the money: whether I should get my MA in the first place. Which also bring me to the third issue: my parents don’t get the AMERICAN APPEAL. They see the money they’ve already put into my education and the daughter’s degree they get out of it. Emotional considerations have nothing to do with it. It’s BA, MA, real job. No stops, no unnecessary hesitations, no moving back home and wasting time in between. And I get it; it’s their hard-earned money I live on, after all. I shouldn’t go to graduate school just to be in Kentucky. And I don’t even know if I could handle graduate school, I’m stretched to the limit getting my BA.

Another option would be an internship after I graduate here in Maastricht. The problem: I don’t think any KY companies necessary offer paid internships to foreigners that are just as or perhaps even less qualified than Kentucky’s own college graduates. I’ve done some research online and couldn’t find anything. If you got any thoughts on this, let me know!

This leaves the third option, a good old vacation. The main problem here is: time. When can this possibly happen? Two weeks isn’t enough, it isn’t worth buying that expensive plane ticket. So: summers. Not this summer (already got a short family vacation planned right in the middle), so next summer. But my dad is already not happy with my going to Sweden because he thinks I need to be on big girl-job hunt for at least one year prior to graduation. So he’ll probably laugh me right in the face when I suggest to him I’m going to KY for a couple months that summer (2011).

I know the common reaction to all this is: just do it. Go this summer or next and worry about the whole serious side of things (job, finances, yes or no on graduate school) later. JUST GO.

But. HOW? I just hate that it always always always comes back to the money.