I'm ready for something, anything.

"So, where do you go to school?" asked the friendly acquaintance.

"Huntington University," I said. "Its close to Ft. Wayne. "

"What is your major?"

"Journalism."

"Oh, so you're gonna change the world, huh?"

End of conversation.

I cannot even convey to you the number of times I have had this conversation since I started school. The next time someone asks me what I'm studying, I think I'll say I'm just here for my Mrs. degree. They'd probably be happier with that than to hear that I plan to be a part of the evil liberal media.

I just thought that this was a humorous pattern of conversation for me. I've begun to laugh a little when people ask me the question because I know how they are going to react to my answer. I don't know how aspiring to be a reporter became this joke to people. And at the opposite of that, a lot of people view it as this noble profession that's "going to change the world," as my acquaintances have often said to me tongue-in-cheek. Why can't it just be a career choice?Like studying business or English or biology. People assume that I have all of these convictions and that I'm a journalist because I need a means to carry out some kind of agenda. But there's no agenda. I'm just in love. With real, objective journalism. I love telling other people's stories. They are far more interesting than most anything that has ever happened to me.

And most times--in my very amateur experience writing thus far--the reward has not been the story with my byline at the top, but the interview process. When you ask just the right question, and the subject starts to open up to you like a friend and you can't scribble fast enough because everything they say is fantastic.

But this kind of (not really) leads me into something I've been struggling with. Lately, I don't feel like life is happening to me. Its like I'm a reporter in this capacity as well, and everyone else's stories fill my time and thoughts and life to a point where I don't even notice anything happening to me. And maybe that's it. Life just isn't happening to me right now, and the drama that comes with it has been missing for quite sometime (no complaints about this though). I'm in some sort of strange limbo. Let's look at a few examples.

One of my friends has been calling me with a life full of drama and indecision. And it all stemmed from a simple question her boss asked her--"What makes you the happiest?"She didn't have an answer for him. Warning signals started to sound as she realized that her answer probably should have been something like this--"When I'm spending time with my boyfriend." But she admits that she doesn't enjoy being with him anymore, but she doesn't want to deal with breaking up with him because they will probably split up when he heads off to grad school next year anyway. Tonight she told me that she is happy with him, but she knows she could be happier. Happy is happy, isn't that enough? I listened for awhile and we discussed and I played my famous role of devil's advocate until she got frustrated with the complexity of it all. But the conversation left me with one question...

When is life going to happen to me?

My old roommate is studying abroad in Oxford. She's overwhelmed most days but loving every minute of it. She doesn't get the chance to email very often, but when she does it is all about the people she's met and the places she's getting to see in both London and Oxford. Her classes start this week which are going to be so hard and she knows it, but I think she's excited to see if she's going to be able to cut it. To see how she'll fare among some of the brightest students in the world. I'm so happy for her through all of this, but it left me asking...

When is life going to happen to me?

My new roommate is in the middle of a budding relationship with a guy she's been friends with for 2 years. She gets giggly when she talks about him and anxious waiting for her cell phone to ring. His name pops up into almost every conversation we have and it has been really fun witnessing all of the "pre-lab" steps to their potential relationship. But seriously...

When is life going to happen to me?

I promise that I'm not just sitting in my room, waiting for something good to hit me over the head. I've felt so numb and in the middle of everyone's life lately that I feel like I'd take anything at the moment. Which leads me to one more story...

One of my closest friends is going through a divorce. He's 23. I know it sounds awful, especially when you know that his wife was cheating on him. With another woman. It has all of the stigma and religious complexity thrown into it to make it more hurtful than simply a broken relationship. And through all of it, he maintains that he still loves her. After nearly 6 months of her being emotionally absent in their marriage. After forcing him to live at his grandma's but still make payments on their home, a house that she's most likely sharing with her girlfriend most nights.

But three months later, my friend is picking up the fragments of his ideal life and starting to build something for himself that will hopefully exceed every dream and expectation he ever had for himself. He's going back to finish college and playing in his church's worship band, just trying to recover. I talk to him a lot about all the things he's learning and how much his life's changed so fast...

But when is life going to happen to me?

Maybe I'm a journalist because telling other people's stories is all I have right now. Maybe. And just maybe, I'll start to feel like I have my own stories to tell. Maybe. When life starts happening to me.