I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying.

[beboots]

Chapter Four: Intermission

 

Author’s Note: (Wow, would you believe that this is my first author’s note of the entire fic?)

I just wanted to address a few things that I’ve been getting in reviews, namely: who’s getting paired with who? Now, I like romance as much as any young woman. I actually really like slash, and the NarutoXGaara pairing in particular (that’s your cue to recommend some good fanfics with that pairing, by the way ;) ). However, as I’ve written to a few of you before, I’m actually planning on making this fic gen, overall. Naruto and Gaara have other things on their minds, after all. ;) Romance doesn’t really fit in well with the plotline, unfortunately. :(

I also thought that I would like to mention some of my motivations for writing this fic. I love the time-skip genre of fanfiction, but I have noticed some rather strange clichés. In writing this fic, I’m writing both what I think would be awesome and what I think actually makes sense. I do so love anti-clichés. :3 I hope that I’m succeeding in developing an original plot and accurate characterizations! Please tell me if I’m erring in any way (even if it’s a typo). I really do need constructive criticism.

But in any case, please enjoy the chapter! :D Oh, and review. Some of you may have noticed, but if your review is longer than a sentence or two, I reply and may or may not give hints for what’s going to happen next. :) I also tend to write faster if encouraged by reviews. (Just a subtle hint. :3 )

(If you skipped these paragraphs, here is a brief summary: THIS FIC SHALL BE GEN. NO PAIRINGS (sadly). AT ALL. WHATSOEVER. REVIEW AND THOU SHALT BE REWARDED.)

 

Naruto found it strange… adjusting. Less than a week previously, by his reckoning, he had been all but worshipped by the populace of a Konoha that he loved and protected. He had been their defender, their leader, their friend…

Things weren’t going particularly well for Naruto.

He had thought that he had grown thick-skinned enough to deflect verbal barbs and glares from the villagers, but apparently he had become rusty over the decades. He felt each hissed insult as a sharp pain in his chest, like he was going to have a heart attack, but on a more psychological level. Children didn’t have heart attacks, after all... fortunately or unfortunately for him.

He would cope. The past and future Hokage of Konoha wouldn’t be taken down by mere words.

Or thrown rocks.

Or rotten vegetables.

Well… he would cope, regardless.

That wasn’t the only thing that was… making him feel grumpy. There was also the fact that it had taken him several hours to remember where his run-down little apartment was. The place had been demolished – as in, turned to rubble by a wayward explosive note - during the war with Sound before he had turned twenty, and he hadn’t lived in it for over half a century, after all. He could hardly remember what it looked like. Luckily, he had found a small orange-painted key in his pants’ pocket. Someone (probably the Sandaime, because he was the only one who cared enough about him to do it) had had the apartment number engraved upon the key when it was made. Then, it had been only a matter of time: trying the key in every apartment with that room number that looked even vaguely familiar. A few hours, some trespassing, and a few pissed off villagers later, he had finally stumbled into his scruffy little apartment.

It was a good thing that he was such a small child, because this place was just tiny. It didn’t help that the floor was scattered liberally with, to put it simply, junk: a ratty old sofa, empty ramen containers, a half-dead potted plant, several cheap scrolls, and the few items of clothing he could afford (he had no closet to hang them in, you see, so they were all on the floor). Naruto stood at the door, looking out upon the mess, trying to ignore what his eyes (and nose) were telling him. He sighed. Something would have to be done about this.

And the smell.

Luckily, that’s what Kage Bunshin were for. Unlike some stuck up ninja he had come to know over the years, Naruto had no compunctions about using a jounin-level technique to do laundry. What else would you use it for?

Many hands make light work, after all. He had to help himself, because no-one else would.

Meh, the blond thought dismissively. What didn’t kill you made you stronger, he had always heard. He had found this to be generally true so far.

 

It was strange, Gaara mused, how even a few, relatively insignificant changes in events could drastically alter his life.

By this time, he would have been, to say the least, borderline homicidally insane, nihilistic, and incredibly depressed. The only thing that had helped at that point had been, well, indiscriminately killing people.

In his past, on this day, he had killed his uncle after a botched assassination attempt.

Instead of lying in a sandy pool of blood somewhere on a lonely rooftop, or in some scorched and bloody crater, his Uncle Yashamaru was making his siblings and him supper in the less-than-spacious kitchen they were now to share. The food was steaming, and from the smell Gaara could tell that he was cooking chicken and rice.

Gaara was well aware that the man still harbored a lot of negative feelings for him, but Gaara did his best to dissuade his uncle of them in the only ways he really knew how to.

He stopped killing people, for one. That helped.

Unfortunately for him, people had long memories, especially when it concerned close relatives who had been killed. He hadn’t “murdered” them, per se. A monster didn’t murder someone (that would imply humanity on his part, as only humans can murder other humans). People were “killed” by Gaara, like how people were tragically “killed” by natural disasters... only this “disaster” had a sense of malice. Many still held the deaths he had caused against him.

However, there wasn’t much Gaara could do about that… except, perhaps, pull an Uchiha Itachi and just slaughter the whole family of people who objected to him.

…It was just a thought. He wouldn’t actually go through with it. Again, it was just a thought. It appealed to Shukaku, not to him. He would resist. He was good at resisting.

Besides, he was going to become Kazekage. He couldn’t go around giving into his demon and willy-nilly killing people anymore, unless, of course, they wore the forehead protectors of an enemy village. Then he had free range to kill however many of them he liked, provided that they weren’t there for peaceful, diplomatic reasons.

Gaara had also done his best to, well, become sociable. Or, at least, sociable in comparison to how he had been before he had gained memories of the future. Even after he had become Kazekage the first time around, he had never been the friendliest of people, but he had long since learned the value of friendships.

When he had been young, before Yashamaru’s death, he had coveted friends, purely for the sake of having something called a “friend”, mostly because it was something normal that he didn’t have. He hadn’t really understood the value of people – both their friendships and their lives – until after he had met Naruto. Before he had encountered his peer, he had seen the world in three categories: himself, that thing inside him that spoke with mother’s voice, and Everybody Else. Everybody Else had contained a short range of ranks: those to watch (which consisted of the Kazekage and his siblings, and later on his jounin sensei Baki) and those to ignore or kill, sometimes both, as the situation demanded it.

That was it; that had been Gaara’s vision of the world.

Things had changed.

He still classed people in his mind, but under different categories: those to protect (his “precious people,” consisting of his siblings, Naruto, and a select few trusted ninja of Suna), those to watch over (the members of his village, sometimes extending to certain members of Naruto’s village), and those to ignore or kill (a smaller group than before).

He was slowly changing, and he found that he didn’t mind doing so. The demon inside him still raged, but even though Gaara could hear the commands, he could ignore them quite easily. Gaara was firmly in control.

Gaara watched the world through black-rimmed eyes.

 

Clearing out his apartment had been a learning experience for Naruto. His youth had been reduced to dim memories of hunger, yelling villagers, particularly cool pranks, the punishments for enacting them, the difficulties of Academy classes, the shame of failing at what seemed to come so easily to others, and, later on, Iruka-sensei’s kindness.

But as he sorted through the junk scattered liberally around his apartment, he found himself discovering details of his own long-lost past.

When he unearthed his goggles, he had turned them over and over in his hands, examining them from every angle with delight. How had he forgotten these? They had been a present from Old-man Hokage, for his fifth birthday.  They had been one of his most prized possessions until Iruka-sensei had bestowed upon Naruto his own forehead-protector. 

Naruto wasn’t sure what to think of his walrus nightcap. It was undignified for a future Hokage, but then again, he himself wasn’t exactly a dignified person. He decided that it would be deemed “cute” by anybody who saw it, and put it aside to be worn that evening.

He had also rediscovered his beloved Gama-chan change purse. The thing had been consumed by the Kyuubi’s chakra during a training session with Jiraiya when he had been seventeen. He had found this one originally in a discount bin at the green-grocers when he’d been... wow, he couldn’t even remember that far back. Needless to say, he’d had Gama-chan since he was very young. He cuddled its greenness to his face, squishing it against his whiskered cheek and giggling like the child he appeared to be. “I won’t lose you so quickly this time,” he told it. The frog purse watched him with its button eyes. Naruto grinned again.

 

Gaara was silent at supper. This was not something terribly unusual. There had been some weeks that had gone by in his future that had never been in which he had actually managed to get by without speaking a single word to anyone.

Of course, back then, he had been a politician, one that people insisted on speaking with all hours of the day (and, sometimes, night, especially once it had become commonly known that he didn’t actually sleep), so it had been more of a challenge than presently, when he was ignored more often than not.

The others at the table also held their tongues in a more forced, awkward manner. What did you say to something that you were afraid would snap and kill you at any moment?

Well, perhaps he was being unfair upon his erstwhile un-introduced siblings, Kankuro and Temari, whom he sat beside at the dinner table. They seemed to be acting awkward because he was so quiet and they didn’t know him, not out of any particular hate they may have had for him, personally, or his demon. There was a definite note of nervousness in Yashamaru’s posture and voice, though, even as he smiled (it didn’t reach his eyes) and served up the dinner that he had made. His uncle had flinched when Gaara had raised his hand in the innocuous act of picking up his chopsticks. Gaara moved slowly, as one would move around a wounded animal. He knew that he was seen as a predator. He would act the part of the lamb. He tried to exude harmlessness.

It was incredibly difficult. He had massive amounts of oppressive chakra, due to his inner tenant, and it was tiring to reign in the demonic aura. He hadn’t had to repress it when he had been Kazekage. Intimidation had kind of been the point.

He thought of what Naruto did to put others at ease. The blond had at least four times the amount of chakra that he had, and even surrounded by malevolent energy the Hokage made people relaxed around him. Gaara pictured Naruto in his mind; the Naruto of old, Naruto in his prime. He was smiling in that infuriatingly cheerful way of his, eyes drawn into happy slits, the sun shining off of his golden hair... Gaara knew that if he grinned like that… well, far from making his family members comfortable, it would likely be interpreted as a threat. The only time he had ever really smiled more than a slight upturn of the lips had been when he was being controlled by Shukaku, so perhaps the threatening association wasn’t unwarranted.

And so, instead, he awkwardly cleared his throat and stated in his usual, flat tone: “This food is delicious.” There. He had said something. It had even been a compliment.

Yashamaru had frozen at these words, chopsticks stopped mid-way between his plate and his open mouth. Gaara could feel the man’s stress levels spike even at his simple sentence. What did the man think he was going to say? ‘Delicious; it reminds me of the taste of human flesh?’ Gaara suppressed his initial offended reaction and merely looked back down at his plate, silent once more.

His siblings, however, apparently hadn’t developed their once infamous sense of self-preservation yet.

“Yeah, Uncle Yashamaru’s a really good cook, isn’t he?” Kankuro, age nine or thereabouts, said in reply around a mouth full of chicken and rice. Gaara nodded minutely in response.

Gaara… wasn’t unused to seeing his older brother without his habitual war paint on his face. Kankuro had often walked around, “bare faced,” in their shared mansion. His older brother only decided against wearing his makeup when he was at his most comfortable. Gaara’s siblings had been his most constant companions and bodyguards (not that he really needed the latter, with his sand) throughout his years as Kazekage. However, whenever things got tense, the first indication that Gaara would normally have would be the emergence of that purple makeup. It was a literal mask, a defense against outside troubles. 

And things were definitely… tense around this table. Gaara assumed that his brother hadn’t yet taken up the mantle of puppeteer or the face paint that went along with it just yet. He supposed that was understandable. They were both young, still.

Little known fact: the famous techniques of the other two sand siblings, Temari and Kankuro, were initially developed so that they could get around Gaara’s sand attacks. This had been done mostly out of self-defense. With her fan, Temari could delay the approach of, say, a wall of sand just long enough so that she could escape. Kankuro, too, had become exceedingly good at replacing himself with his beloved puppets just in case his little brother had had enough and decided to crush him with sand; he needed an escape route.

Gaara wondered if they would develop the same techniques this time around. Perhaps he could push them in that direction by testing them with his sand. Or he could let them be, and see what they developed independently of his influence. It would be… interesting, he decided, to see how much just he himself could change things.

He had no doubt that Naruto was doing the same.

 

Naruto spent the evening much more alone than Gaara did. Despite the crows of clones, he had technically spent the day cleaning alone; Kage bunshin didn’t generally count as people. When they talked, or argued, it was essentially like conducting an inner conversation out loud. Granted, it was useful for brainstorming purposes and for those times that he really didn’t want to go to a meeting himself (it had actually taken his assistants nearly a decade to figure out that he was sending bunshin in his place), but… He himself wasn’t exactly stimulating conversation.

He ate dinner alone.

If nothing else, Naruto could think of at least one positive thing about this experience: he had rediscovered the joys of instant ramen. Ever since he had become Hokage, gone had been the days in which he had had to prepare his own meals. No cook worth his salt would prepare instant ramen for the Rokudaime Hokage – even if said Hokage requested it – and so it had fallen out of Naruto’s diet.

It was good to have ramen back. It had a nutritional value of almost zero, but an awesomeness value of five billion, by his reckoning. No joke.

Of course, such thoughts inevitably lead him to wondering how the Ichiraku ramen stand was doing. The old man who had run it back when Naruto had been young had died when Naruto had reached the age of forty, and even though the man’s daughter had taken over running the stand and had ample experience, there had been just a little bit… missing from the flavor. Perhaps it was ‘love’. Or MSD. Whichever. There was something missing, anyway.

At that moment, he decided: he would start the next day with breakfast at his favourite restaurant. He had become their most respected patron over the decades that he had been going there; he would start early this time… even if the fact that he ate there initially drove away some of their business.

And so Naruto happily slurped up his ramen – the only food that was in his apartment’s tiny kitchen apart from half a carton of spoiled milk and a wilted piece of lettuce. Tomorrow would be a fresh start.

 

Gaara excused himself from the dinner table before he had finished eating even half of the food on his plate. His uncle didn’t stop him. Kankuro once again didn’t know when to keep his tongue behind his teeth: “Hey, where’re you going, Gaara?”

The redhead hesitated, wondering if he should bother to reply. Finally, he settled on a short lie. “I am not hungry.” He left the room before he could be questioned further, refusing to look backwards to check his family members’ reactions. He could, however, hear Yashamaru’s sigh of relief through the closed door. Gaara allowed a small frown to grow on his face, now that he was alone.

This was going to be more difficult than anticipated.

His brows furrowed in an uncharacteristic display of determination. He would win over his family again. He had no other option. He had once negotiated treaties between Sand and their traditional enemies, the ninja of the Waterfall, after all. That had been considered an impossible feat until he had achieved it. He could do this. He was – had been – Kazekage, after all. Failure was not an option.

According to Naruto, hard work and determination could easily be substituted for lack of ability when it came to things such as these. Gaara, personally, preferred to use his brain.

In any case, Gaara actually had ability as well as determination. He just had to utilize them.

But first, he had to go to the bathroom. He needed to throw up.

 

Up next: Meeting the Pawns

(Quote in subject title by Woody Allen; it's very true.)

So currently, I'm almost overwhelmed by mid-term studying. That's why I'm on here, updating fanfiction - because I need a mental break from 17th century China. It's interesting as all hell, but after a while, my brain starts cramping up. D:

In addition, one of my reviewers on fanfiction.net used this emoticon:

b._.b

It is utterly awesome - thumbs up, man! :D I intend to use it ad nauseam from now on. b._.b

Comments

[xlirealx.livejournal.com]

lol. Yes, ramen DOES have an abnormally high awesomeness value.

But why did Gaara get sick? Was it hinted at or will it just be mentioned in the next chapter?

Gama-chan is full of win!

[beboots.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your review! :D Yes, Gama-chan is full of win (and moneys). As for why Gaara threw up... Well, Yashamaru is still out to kill him, right? As in, he hasn't attempted his ill-fated assassination attempt yet. Remember who prepared supper...? :3

[xlirealx.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah...dude, I had a total blond moment, didn't I? lol.

Smart move, Gaara! You're so smart...even though it basically means you starve...unless you go kill something to eat when nobody is looking...I bet that would make Shukaaku a little happier! XD But seriously, poor Gaara. His childhood sucks. b._.b

(lolz I used it too!)

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

=_= I don't get what's wrong! FFN cut out a lot of my review, and then when I tried to PM the rest to you it cut out the exact same parts! *hits FFN* So yeah, I'm just putting the entire thing here. :)

---

I am quite fond of gen, and your rationale is perfectly fine. :D They’ve got other things to worry about besides who’s knocking whom up. :P And anti-cliches are great! You’ve already done away with some cliches—Naruto and Gaara traveling back, for instance, and coming back when they’re at that age, and doing their best to change people’s perceptions. Quite frankly, I don’t think I’ve seen another story with that theme in the Naruto fandom as far as I know—and I’m a time-travel fic junkie, I actively search out these kinds of fics. :D

Aww, there is something very wistful about the fact that he can’t even really remember where his apartment is. And that his key is painted orange. <3 Does remind us that there’s a lot of history/events Naruto has lived through, and it must be very strange for him to get used to former!Konoha.

Gaara! :D It’s especially nice to see how Gaara’s changing stuff around him, because he really did have a horrible childhood. And this line: “He stopped killing people, for one. That helped.” It was amusing in a bitterly ironic kind of way. I liked it. :) And I love your description of “Gaara’s world” and how it changes, especially the remark on how the group of “people to be killed” became smaller. It does remind us that, you know, Gaara didn’t turn into someone who loves fluffy bunnies and dances with unicorns across the rainbow, but he *did* change for the better. XD And good introspection into Gaara’s perception of a “friend”—how he wanted a friend simply because it was something he didn’t have and it was supposed to be “normal.”

Ah, Naruto’s nostalgia is really touching. The goggles! :D And the nightcap! XD And the change purse! Awww, when you said that the purse watched Naruto with “button eyes” and Naruto giggled, it was just a very cute scene. :)

Awkwardness abounds at the Suna house, it seems. Do Kankurou and Temari really know *who* Gaara is? Or did Yashamaru just tell them, “There’s someone who’s going to live with us, behave yourselves”? Because like you said, they seem to be wary more out of unfamiliarity than out of pure fear of Shukaku.

“He had massive amounts of oppressive chakra, due to his inner tenant, and it was tiring to reign in the demonic aura. He hadn’t had to repress it when he had been Kazekage. Intimidation had kind of been the point.” --> XDDDD Intimidating!Gaara would be something scary to see, I’d imagine. :P

“What did the man think he was going to say? ‘Delicious; it reminds me of the taste of human flesh?’” And this, this was funny too. Om nom nom. XD Even though Gaara’s honestly doing his best to make Yashamaru more comfortable—and this is serious too!—his inner commentary makes everything really funny and LOL-worthy. ;)

Really interesting analysis of Kankurou’s facepaint, and how he and Temari developed their attack techniques. :D

“the crows of clones” --> Er, I think you just mean “rows,” right?

“It had a nutritional value of almost zero, but an awesomeness value of five billion, by his reckoning.” --> Yay for ramen! :DDD

I like how Kankurou is still mouthy. Even in canon, Kankurou did talk back to Gaara—occasionally. :P Although why is Gaara throwing up? Is it because he didn’t like the food, or he just has absolutely no appetite and can’t keep things down?

Lovely chapter. <333 And I’m sorry I only reviewed this now, but I didn’t want to toss off a random “nice!” because your story is made of so much awesome. :) <3 I hope you finish the next one soon, it would be great to see what happens next. :DDD

----

And also, good luck with your mid-terms! What subjects do you study? ♥

[beboots.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you for your (second) massive review! :D

I worked hard to write Gaara as a believable character; he's very difficult to get in-character! D: I'm happy that you like my version of him. :3

I actually wrote the nostalgic!Naruto scene and put it in at the last minute; I just needed something to offset the massive amounts of Gaara time I had this chapter. But it's actually become one of my favourite moments so far. :)

I address Gaara's relationship with his siblings more in the next chapter (well, I have a scene with him and Temari, anyway) that probably explains the "who is Gaara to them?" thing better than I can here. ;)

I love the idea of intimidating!Gaara. :3 He's trying so hard to play nicely, though, and it may just come back to bite him...

I'm glad that you deem my fic worthy of more than a one-word review! :D Thank you very much. I'll try to get the next chapter out as quickly as possible, but I'm grappling with writer's block and long essays.

(Oh, and I'm actually a history major at the University of Alberta. Currently, my minor is French, but this semester I'm taking Japanese. I'm also taking two history classes, an English language arts class, and a Classics class. I hope to become an English teacher in Québec. At the moment, I'm in the process of writing a historical book review, a research essay for English class, and a research essay for History of China and the West. I've barely even started that last one. D: Must... do... research...)

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

♥ It was a great chapter. :DDD Your Gaara is wonderful, and the Sand sib interaction makes me happy. :) So now that you say there's a scene with Gaara and Temari--I'm definitely looking forward to the next one. :D

Ahhh, I hope your writer's block goes away! :/ And essays, agh... *shudders* Good luck with those! Essays can be so painful sometimes. ♥

Chinese history, cool! When you say "China and the West," are you writing about interactions between them in the 1800s and stuff like that? Boxer Rebellion, Opium Wars, etc.? *curious*

[beboots.livejournal.com]

I'm currently working on the Temari scene, when I'm not feeling stupid because of essays. D:
"China and the West" covers everything from Marco Polo up to like, last year. We've only just covered the Boxer rebellion, which was fascinating. Now we're talking about chinese immigrants abroad, and how they were viewed. This course is actually unique to the University of Alberta, as my professor was the one who came up with it. He's Australian, and awesome. He likes assigning a lot of readings, though, which would be fine if I was only taking one of his classes, but he's assigned a lot of reading in History 290 (History as a Discipline), which is the other history course I'm taking this semester. D: In Hist.290, we have to write four papers. They're mercifully short, at least, at 1200 words apiece.
Gah, essays... D: They suck away all of my eloquence.
How about you? Are you highschool, university, independantly wealthy...?

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

That is really cool! :D Um, have you read The Chinese in America, by Iris Chang? It gives a really good and comprehensive look at--well, the Chinese in America :P, and how they were treated in California and etc., like the distinction between ABCs (American-born Chinese) and FOBs (Fresh-Off-Boat). I wish I knew more about Chinese history--I'm pretty ignorant about it, I think, and I'm Chinese-American too. XD I don't know how Chinese immigrants were treated in other countries though.

Essays can be such killers! I wish I were independently wealthy... >_> But I'm a high school student--my last year of school now, so I've already suffered through college apps and all the wonderful essay-writing that entails. :/ I am looking forward to university. :D

[beboots.livejournal.com]

That certainly sounds like an interesting book to perhaps write an essay on... unfortunately, it's due in a week. D: I might have to look it up for some summertime reading, though... And I'm debating on whether or not I want to switch my topic or not. I'm going to spend some time in the library tomorrow to see what I can come up with... D:
You're chinese-american? Sweet. :3 I'm just boring and white, although I do look native if I'm tanned. ;)
Do you know what university you're going to? I would reccomend not taking a year off; it's not worth losing your momentum. University is so much fun! ... when you're not completely swamped with work. Moral of the story: procrastination = very, very bad.

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

Ah, I hope your essay works out all right in the end! :) And you're not boring at all. :DDD

I don't know what university I'm going to yet--the results for acceptance/rejection come out usually in the first week of April. So it'll be soon. :P University does sound like a lot of fun :D, but as for procrastination... >_> I originally wasn't much of a procrastinator, but junior and senior year sort of introduced me to the concept, and ever since then I've been getting better at it. XP

[beboots.livejournal.com]

Procrastination is bad, and wrong, and you should never do it... too much. I sincerely reccomend doing SOMEthing every day - whether it be readings, assignments, or even just picking a topic for an essay. Sure, you can waste a lot of time making busywork while putting off the big papers, but in the end, you'll have technically spent a lot of time working on the stuff, and gotten much of the mential, time-consuming and distracting things done with so that you can focus on actually WRITING something. D: Yep, essays are slowly taking shape... kind of. Hopefully... where's my thesis again? D:
In any case, I wish you luck with your university acceptance! Do you have any idea what faculty you'll be in? (ie, science, engineering, arts...?) Do you know what you're going to do with your life? (Don't worry if you don't - I know some fourth years who still have no clue what they're doing)

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

What I usually do is work ahead on assignments for classes that are easy, like statistics, and I leave the huge assignments usually until the night before. I've found that I have a remarkable ability to bs stuff--I really think I work better writing things under pressure than if I were given a lot of time to do it. Aw, I hope you get your thesis down! :) And thanks! Right now I'm planning to go into international relations and economics, or something of that kind. I think I'd like to be a professor. ^^

[beboots.livejournal.com]

Your ability to BS things shall definitely come in handy. I refined the art of BS through the incredibly pretentious AP exams. Although it sucked to go through them, they ultimately helped me become stronger, with the ability to imitate pretentious-sounding essay writing style, which is invaluable in a University level English class. b._.b
Being a professor would be pretty cool... But then again, so would working internationally. I'm thinking of doing the JET program after I get my undergrad - essentially, you get sent to Japan for a year to teach English as a teaching assistant, and they pay you, get you housing, etc. I think I'll need money by then, and it'll all be good for teaching experience...
International relations? What sort of jobs are in that? I've spoke to some consuls before, and that certainly sounds interesting...

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

Oh, the AP exams! XD Yeah, they really do promote the pretentious "I know all this" writing style, but oh well.

I've heard of the JET program, and that does sound really cool. :D Do you get to choose where you go, or are you just assigned somewhere? As for international relations, I think the jobs would probably be like diplomatic stuff/State Department stuff/or consultant stuff. I like the subject, but I don't want to bother with the actual "let's be diplomatic" part, so that's why I'd rather be a professor. :P

[beboots.livejournal.com]

I'm actually uncertain of how they select people. I've heard it both ways; I think that you can request specific areas, but you'll only go there if they have a position open... or so I've heard.

Yep, professors don't really have to be diplomatic, except for the occasional disclaimer. In China and the West, my teacher was talking about views on chinese immigrants, and how they were viewed as either stupid or incredibly cunning and deceptive, and he actually interrupted himself to appologize to the Chinese people in class, and to clarify that of course HE didn't believe that, etc.,etc. It's all very interesting, though.

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

I see. Either way, it would still be a very interesting experience. :) As for diplomacy, while I find diplomacy itself interesting, I don't think I would want to have to pick and choose words carefully all the time. I don't think I would be able to react fast enough, honestly.

[beboots.livejournal.com]

There's also the axiety of worrying if you're going to slip up and cause World War Three because you insulted the wrong person. ;) Still, I think that I'd enjoy living in another country. I've been to the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, and MAN that is a gorgeous building. The funny thing about it was that it had "No-smoking" signs up everywhere in French and English, which is a typical sight around Canada but a rarity in Japan. XD We really felt like we were back on Canadian soil.

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

Haha exactly! XP It would be like, "Wait, you don't have to drop that bomb--" >_>

I haven't been to many places outside the U.S., just Canada (Toronto) and China (relatives), so I'd like to go traveling around the world, as much as that sounds cliche. :P Go throughout Europe, and stop by Thailand and Singapore and India, and so forth. It's a bit of a pipe dream, but I wonder if I could manage it during the summers between college years. Although then I might have to give up on getting an internship here and there. :/

[beboots.livejournal.com]

I was born in Germany (Canadian military base), but I left before I turned three, so I don't speak German or remember the place much. I've been to England and France (for a week and three days respectively), and I spent thirteen days in Japan on a school trip. If you ever get a chance to go to Japan, GO. It's awesome. :3 Oh, and I've been to Québec, which is almost a different country. ;) Old Québec city is really nice. I'm going on a month-long university program to France this summer (hopefully). You could do something like that; many universities have sister campuses in different countries. It's very fun, to travel. :)

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun at the university program in France--bwee, I'm envious. That's one thing I'm glad about in college, there are so many opportunities to go to different countries. :D

[beboots.livejournal.com]

I agree. The U of A is actually very good for foreign travel opportunities. I know a chick who's going to Hokkaido for two semesters starting this September, another who's going for half a year to Turkey of all places, and someone who's hoping to go to Cortona, Italy in a year or two. Those are just a handful of what's out there, too. If you ever get the opportunity to go to France, go! It's gorgeous. :) They say that the reason that there are very few French tourists abroad is because France has everything that anyone could need. ;)

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

I will certainly keep that in mind. France sounds lovely. :)