Semiotics is a Crock!

Not Every Sign Points Right: Lessons from Messy Moments

Have you ever experienced an unexpected setback that opened a new path for growth? Share your turning point below!

I’ll go first…

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After bragging about my Dutch prowess only a couple of days ago, I feel I have to be honest about my recent flub. This isn’t the first time I’ve turned my life upside down to go abroad, nor is it the first time I’ve made a boner move.

My first experience with living abroad was right after college where I was lucky enough to study at the Moscow Art Theatre. We lived in dorms with Harvard grad students alongside young men and women who would go on to star on Russian soap operas. Our American group lived in a bubble, moving together and almost always traveling with a native speaker; however, I still managed to learn a few harsh lessons about what happens when you don’t understand your surroundings.

While approaching the Pushkin Theater for a production of Romeo and Juliet that would’ve made Judi Dench reconsider enjoying Shakespeare (blacklight, hula hoops, and clunky as fuck Russian iambic pentameter), I was pulled aside by several guards with Uzis because I looked like a Balkan separatist…or that’s what the translator said. A quick flash of my Moscow Art ID and all was finished but a memory that sticks in my mind.

That’s not the only time I’ve been held at gunpoint abroad as there was a very tense trip returning from a nightclub in Ocho Rios where our cab driver was splayed across the hood while the menacing guards paged through every bit of documentation on his vehicle.

It’s funny that I’ve had more experience with firearms outside of the US…