It has come to my attention, by me, that I have not put forth the time and effort into this blog that I initially set out to do. New ideas, I am full of them. Following through consistently? To quote Mariah Carey, “I don’t know her.” I have been this way for as long as I can remember, full of dreams and plans but haphazard in execution and follow through. But I am changing that aspect of myself, along with many others and what better way to do that than with an introduction. Apologies in advance, the word personal “I” will appear frequently in this post, but I (see??) promise this is not an Ayn Rand levels self-objectivity.
My name is Jean David. I am 35 years of age, at least for another month. I grew up in a town in Louisiana not necessarily associated with the quintessential Louisiana culture, but the culture exists there nonetheless. I have two wonderful parents who are coming up on 48 years of marriage. I have two much older sisters (52 and 46), as well as a nephew and niece (25 and 19). In school and growing up, I was chatty, creative, competitive, distracted, and flippant. I made good grades, played violin and a variety of sports with tennis being the one I favored the most. In high school, I was active and ended up being senior class president. As social as I was, I also had a lot of alone time. Part of this I attribute to the location of my childhood home. Our town has about 50000 inhabitants, but my parents lived on the outskirts. A single road with about 70 stately, middle class homes, each sitting on approximately 2 acres. There were some neighborhood children, but not a ton. After graduating from high school, I went off to college in Jackson Mississippi. I attended a PWI and was in a fraternity. My college experience was as good as I made it. The professors were fantastic, I made great friends, and took advantage of the opportunities presented before me. My intended major was not offered, so I self-designed the Latin American Studies major for myself. To my surprise, two colleagues from my year joined in and we became the first Latin American Studies graduates from our institution. To this day, the major is still offered. In 2011, I graduated with a double major in LAS + Spanish, along with a concentration in violin. I study abroad twice, a summer in the Yucatán peninsula, and seven month semester in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.
I left college with the intent to do something non-profit, or government, or academic. I was unsure, but those fields spoke to me. I wanted to move to Chicago and spent practically the entire summer looking for jobs there only to end up in Lewisville, Texas, a sad excuse of city part of the DFW metroplex, working in the pre-foreclosure department of a mortgage lender. I had fun while there, but it was not what I wanted to do. I spent the next few years perusing and considering different graduate school programs, enrolling in prep courses, taking my LSAT, switching careers. In the over 10+ years since undergrad, I have held jobs mostly in finance and energy, with a focus in business analytics and project management. I have also spent sometime in upscale retail, travel consulting, and of course, my current job as a foreign language assistant in Spain.
Spain has opened my eyes in ways in which I was not prepared. The opening has been slow but necessary. I am in a fairly remote village that completely dies at 9pm during the week, and not much happens on the weekend. Growing up, I was raised Baptist and sometimes attended Catholic mass which I preferred due to the shorter service time. Now, I practice Nichiren Buddhism – we are the ones who chant nam myoho renge kyo. I have known about the practice since childhood because my aunt and uncle are longtime practicers. However, I began my journey around three years ago after, what? Yup, you guessed it, after a boy broke my heart. He was technically my fiancé, but that is no longer important and neither is his place in my life, though I wish him well. Rumor has it he is cheating on his current boyfriend but who am I to gossip? Anyway, Buddhism has helped me navigate the solitude of this journey in Spain. I have allowed myself to slow down and figure out what path makes sense for me given everything I enjoy, excel in, and have learned. As silly as it sounds, I found a career that speaks to me and my interests. Without going too much into it, I discovered a program that would not have found out if it weren’t for being in this cultural exchange in Spain.
Localization project management speaks to my love of languages, culture, collaboration, learning, etc. Honestly, it felt weird typing that out. I feel sheepish sharing my interests at times if I don’t think others would find them impressive. But it is what I want to do at this moment in my life and I am committed to doing it. I am committed to taking and passing my CAPM certification exam and finding a job in localization project management – one in Spain. I do not feel the need to return to the US at this moment. I am also committed to improving my Spanish, Portuguese, French and picking up Mandarin. I am also committed to nurturing my childhood interests – getting back into playing violin, resuming tennis, learning how to dance, to sing on-key. To develop physically, spiritually, fiscally HELLO. This blog post came about because I recently posted on TikTok that I am done not showing up for mysefl. It is easy for me to break promises to myself and not be accountable. I have 0 children and am the youngest and only male child, so I do not really owe anyone anything in a societal sense. But I owe it to myself to not give up and to bring forth all the love that was poured into me and turn into something more amazing than myself. I want to build community and empower others to realize we are more than our circumstances. I want to do something like bring clean, sustainable energy to underdeveloped places. I want to grow this blog, my TikTok, my fledgling media enterprises into a greater business. I want to change my internal environment so that my outer one reflects the inner beauty, expanse and love. And I will do all of those things and more. Lead with Love. Do the work. Reap the rewards. Share the love. This is my mantra. And this is me. “I’m real” – some woman Mariah Carey doesn’t know.
And if it wasn’t obvious – lambily –
From Bayou to Beyond 