Although I’m native to Jacksonville, Florida, I moved to North Carolina in May of 2019 to attend Appalachian State University. After my junior year in 2022, I decided to study abroad in Aix-en-Provence, France to develop my language skills and deepen my cultural understanding.
My summer in the south of France was incredible, one of my favorite experiences being attending PRIDE in Marseilles with friends I made that summer in Aix (pictured left).
I loved being surrounded by French so much–speaking, reading, writing, and practically laughing in it–I decided to look for a job as an au pair beginning in the late fall of 2022.
By July of 2022, I signed a contract with a family and agreed to move to Roubaix, France, in late October to begin working as an au pair.
So, I headed back to Jacksonville, Florida to complete the paperwork needed to apply for an au pair Visa and other legal work needed for my move abroad.
While there, I interned as a financial intern with Pioneer Equipment Company. It’s a small, family-owned business based out of Jacksonville that sells and exports heavy equipment, rents equipment locally, and builds dredges.
There, I specialized in back-office financial work and print marketing, an odd combination known only to small businesses.
After a successful trip to the French Embassy in Miami, I received my Visa and off to Roubaix I went!
I loved caretaking for the young children of the Moroccan-Algerian family I worked for. Aside from my daily duties of waking the children and preparing them for school, I drove them to their activities and helped them with their homework.
And mitigated the occasional temper tantrum, of course.
A few of my favorite memories of us together include fashion shows (in my closet, of course), chaperoning their son’s school field trip (we ran around the woods of a nature preserve), and trips to the local park (damn those kids were fast runners).
I also used my time there as an opportunity to be a cultural observer and participant.
I scrimped and saved for private French lessons with the children’s schoolteacher to continue advancing my study of French grammar, regularly went to museums, attended a college lecture, and only read books in French.
As a queer person, it was really important for me to immerse myself in the local queer community.
Using social media, I formed friendships with queer, French-speaking young adults living in Roubaix and Lille, the neighboring city.
My friends taught me about issues the queer community is facing right now: degendering the French language, the use of gender-neutral pronouns, access to gender affirming healthcare, intersectional feminism, and discrimination against queer people of color and trans people among others.
Amidst the chaos following an abrupt end of my job as an au pair, I decided it’d be a waste to leave before my Visa expired.
So, I traveled for the next few months: sometimes with friends, sometimes with family, sometimes alone.
I saw the lights of Paris and skied in the snowy mountaintops of the alps; my eyes watered from the cans of teargas thrown in Bordeaux and squinted in the radiant sunshine of Montpellier.
I learned a lot about trusting my instincts and the importance of keeping up with the news–you never know when a strike will cancel a train or flight!
To commemorate the privilege of these experiences, be it their wonder or hardships, I stopped in Madrid, Spain for a throat tattoo.
Seeing it in the mirror every day reminds me to keep my chin up during hard times because something beautiful comes from all of the pain.
Side note: If you’re wondering where the rest of my abysmal au pair paychecks went, here’s your answer.
I returned to the US in late April of 2023. Undecided as to whether I wanted to return to school or not, I applied for a position as the Director of Marketing and Events at Raging Bull Harley Davidson in Durham, North Carolina.
My past experiences of developing and implementing a successful marketing strategy for a queer mentorship organization I founded at App State, an ability to learn and adapt to niche cultural environments, my experience in print marketing, and a love of creating mixed media led to me being offered the position on the spot at the end of my third interview.
In this position, I really learned the grit of low budget, in-house marketing. If I wanted to do something, I had to make it happen: modeling for retail campaigns, acting as a spokesperson for the dealership on CBS-17, and narrating a service commercial are three among many examples.
Fun fact: I rode a motorcycle on the evening news!
I left my position in September 2023 after being accepted into the University of Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism.
I’m a Journalism major with double minors in French and Creative Nonfiction Writing. Together, my degrees enable me to pursue my dream of becoming a bilingual cultural reporter.
Although I’ve moved away from advertising, I’ll never forget its biggest lessons: leveraging social media to capture interest and the importance of accessibility.
I kept this in mind during my visit to the Triangle Business Journal in October of 2023. After an afternoon there, I knew I not only wanted to be surrounded by storytellers, but to also be one crafting stories worth telling.
If you’re interested in hearing them, feel free to check out my website, follow me on social media, and reach out to me through the contact form.
Signing off from, well, my bedroom,
Aria Allen (and Vincent, my dog).