People ask me all the time what I’m
doing in Prague. The short answer is PR, in which I successfully reduce my
entire post-collegiate existence to the general line of work I’m in. The long
answer has more to do with stress-induced insomnia, several volumes of Murakami,
one panicked phone call and a frequent-flyer program. It’s also entirely possible
that I watched one too many Woody Allen films.
One thing I did know was that I wanted
to do something in PR. The problem was I had no real experience and no
connections. I’d heard it was nearly impossible to get a job at any of the big-time
PR firms without knowing someone, not to mention the fact that I was job
hunting at the height of the economic crisis. What I’m saying is: I was six
months away from graduation with no clear vision of what I was looking for in a
job, much less in life, and I had no real prospects. And what was the point of scratching
and clawing my way into a position I wasn’t sure was worth fighting for in the
first place? Huxleyesque montages of corporate
American drones infiltrated my dreams until I literally couldn’t sleep. What I
needed was something more temporary; what I needed was time to think.
Within a month I landed a full-time job
at an international preschool and, as fate would have it, my one-year teaching
plan quickly turned into two. What started out as a victory lap proved to be
the most formative year of my life to date, and as I neared the end of the
2012/2013 school year, I knew I wasn’t ready to leave Prague.
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photo
credit: Honza Zima
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Driving to Bloomington, Indiana for
my final year at university after spending the last semester in Paris felt like
the start of a year-long sentence to solitary confinement. The journalism
program in which I was enrolled is nationally recognized, the campus party
scene is virtually unrivaled and, I swear to God, school spirit permeates every
last drop of safe drinking water. I was in a well respected sorority, I had
plenty of friends, a great house; I could legally consume alcohol… What else
could a 21-year old ask for?
But while most of Indiana
University’s graduating seniors were fantasizing about starting their lives in
the big metropolises of the Midwest—while they were asking themselves which
trendy Chicago neighborhood they should move to, or whether they should plan
next year’s reunion in Mexico or Vegas—I was busy looking back at the life I hadn’t
yet lived feeling like everything worthwhile had passed me by. I felt out of
control and chained to a lifestyle I hadn’t yet committed to. It’s not that the
problems of my peers weren’t real; mine were just way more existential.
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Indiana University Kappa Alpha Theta Pledge Class '08 (Colleen is top, left)
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In November, I organized a prison break.
I applied to a TEFL certification program in Prague, a city I had never
visited, and within a week I’d booked a flight. Graduation came and went—coincidentally,
I have yet to pay a visit to my alma mater—and in August 2011, I boarded a
plane.
At some point, standing in the rain on
a curb somewhere in Žižkov, suitcase in hand, the phrase “be careful what you
wish for” took on a whole new and all-too relevant meaning. The landlord had
clearly forgotten to hang a shower curtain in the bathroom, the duvet was
obviously too small for the bed, which was obviously too small for me, and
where in God’s name was the microwave? What was truly terrifying though is how
quickly I adapted to this simpler, shower curtain-less lifestyle; by the end of
the first week, I didn’t even miss television, and by the end of the month, I
couldn’t remember what it was like to have one in the first place.
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Bicycle
ride in Prague, one Saturday afternoon
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Thanks to a little bit of luck and a
whole lot of patience, I suddenly find myself working for one of the top PR
agencies in Central and Eastern Europe. I’ve stumbled across something very
unique at Best; the work is meaningful, the perks are great, but it’s the
people that make it more than just a nine-to-five. I wish I could say it was my
plan all along: to run away to Prague and land a life-changing opportunity like
this one. Or maybe, on some level, it was. What I do know is that I did it my
way, and getting on that plane was the best decision of my life. That, and
upgrading to economy comfort for the extra leg room, of course.
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Cesky Krumlov with friends, December 2012
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