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TI: And so after you graduated, you went, you continued on to graduate school?

JO: I, I actually went to Berlin for one year. And my father said he would support me for a year, and then I was just on my own, and so I went to Berlin. It was West Berlin back then.

TI: And why Berlin? Why did you decide Berlin?

JO: Because my friend, who now lives on Bainbridge Island, was going there. I had no idea what, what to do, and she said she was going to Berlin, "Do you want to come?" And I said, "Okay." I, seriously, I did not have a plan. Let's see, I went there and I took a language. I was in a, at the Goethe Institut, I took language classes in German and I loved learning German. And I became, by the end of the year I was fluent and I was, I mean, I, I knew enough to get into the university there, but I decided not to stay. I took the university entrance exam in German just because I thought for visa reasons I might want to stay, but I ended up coming back. But, and my friend and I also rented a studio and were painting there. So it was a very free, wonderful year and, I mean, West Berlin, it felt like, really, the center of the world. Then I came back and I actually returned to New Haven and I worked as a waitress, I was waiting tables five nights a week and renting a studio downtown and trying to put together a portfolio for graduate school. And then the year after I did start graduate school in Bloomington, Indiana. Failed miserably, just had, that was my first bout of doubt that I'd ever experienced in my life. It's just something, it was all psychological but I just lost all faith and fled after, I think I left in, started in September, I left a little after Thanksgiving and I didn't know what to do so I just, I went to New York, so I'd met -- a friend of mine, I'd met a friend in Berlin and she was from New York, and so I knew one person in New York and it seemed like a good city to go to, and I started temping, doing temp work. So...

TI: And painting on the side?

JO: No, I decided to give up painting for good.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.