Published: July 25, 2008 11:30 pm            

Living her dreams: Achieving goals comes easily for Conemaugh Grad

In the sometimes vanilla tradition of “future plans” read aloud at high school events for the graduating seniors, Amber May’s list was a bit out of the ordinary.

On that list was studying abroad, learning to speak French, becoming a girls varsity volleyball coach, studying fashion design, and being involved in architecture and film.

Lofty goals for sure, but the 1998 Conemaugh Valley graduate is awfully close to hitting most of them.

Study abroad and learn to speak French? Accomplished from 1998-2001 as a student at the American University of Paris, Lisaa and La Sorbonne.

“It’s little things, like being in French class and studying about another culture,” said May, the daughter of Rick and Yvonne May of Dunlo.

“It’s kind of been ingrained from my parents. I’ve always wanted to travel. Once I did that first trip to Paris, I realized I wanted as much different in my life as possible.”

In between years at the school, May found herself working in a lumber mill for a few weeks and as a waitress for a few months. Then it was back overseas, where she put herself through school working full time as a nanny.

She came back to the states a week before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and already had gained acceptance into the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. But that chapter of life would have to wait. She put off entering the school until fall 2002, and headed for California.

She found a place to stay through an online roommate service, bought a bus ticket to San Diego and spent the next three days going across the country. She worked for a father and son as a cook, chauffeur and painter from January to June 2002, when she returned to the area.

Study fashion design? May set off for New York in August 2002 for classes at the FIT.

“I spent three years and got an associate’s degree in fashion design,” May said. “I went to start my bachelor’s degree there, but that third year, they had me repeating classes I had already taken and done well in.

“I talked to the head of the department, who said I’d just have to take them again for the new degree. But I was paying for it, and if I wasn’t learning something new, I didn’t want to be there.”

Work in film?

Jogging through New York City one day, May stopped when she saw some of the big movie trucks, and started asking how she could get involved.

Eventually, she found a producer who agreed to bring her on for two days.

Her work with that film, the Oscar-winning “The Departed,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson, led to a short stint working on a film starring Zach Braff, called “The Ex.”

“That’s when I decided I wanted to do film,” said May, who then had a month to find a school she could go to in order to study the subject.

“I researched schools and from money issues, I went to Brooklyn College, and I ended up graduating in two years from there with my bachelor’s degree in film studies in May 2007.”

While putting herself through school in Brooklyn, and working full time, the travel bug bit again. A quick call to Rob, a friend from Paris, and her vacation plan was complete: A two-week backpacking trip through Guatemala. The fact that May doesn’t speak Spanish was hardly a concern.

So off she went, hiking through Guatemala when she ran across another Rob, who was fixing up a giant pirate ship off the coast of Belize. She stayed there for six days with a few other people, trading a place to stay in exchange for her help in restoring the old ship.

Her stay with “Captain Rob” helped her land in San Diego after graduation from Brooklyn College. In July 2007, she headed west, and spent two weeks living in “the second house up from Mexico, on the beach.”

She spent a few weeks there, then found some friends from Johnstown living only a few minutes away, so she spent a week with them, and ultimately rented a room with a friend in a trailer park, where she lived while waitressing and waiting for the next opportunity.

That came in the form of a temporary spot with the Cirque du Soliel as a day prep worker in the wardrobe department.

She and a friend followed the troupe up to Portland, Ore., and then into Seattle, where she was hired full time by the company in the touring show, “Corteo.”

“I’m a wardrobe assistant and my specialization is dealing with hats, hair, basically anything above the neck. Eventually I’ll be cutting hair, but not yet,” she said while driving in Canada through the mountains on the outskirts of Vancouver.

She has a week off after the seven-week run in Vancouver, and will find herself in Calgary next, for another six weeks.

That’s the cycle, six or seven weeks on, a week off.

After Calgary, it’s on to Ottawa and then to Miami. She heads out with the Cirque to Japan in January for 18 months, and will hit either Australia or Europe after that.

“I’ve always said my ideal job would pay for me to travel, and if they could take care of housing and food, that’d be perfect.

“Voila.”

        

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