I'm in MAINE, visiting a girl I've known since I was a fetus. This is the last time I'll see her, or her family, for two years. It's weird to think of the Peace Corps service in those terms, but it's true. It'll be two whole years until I see about 99 percent of the people in my life. Crazypants. I'll be 26 years old when I come home- a number which seems incredibly old, refined, and ancient to me right now. Twenty six year olds have cars, retirement plans, husbands, and dogs. It seems like an age where people have their shit together. I wonder how different it'll be than 23.
I'm excited about getting to teach in Ecuador. The Welcome Book says that we will have classes of up to 70 children- gaaaaah! Will they be teenagers, or five year olds? Unruly or well behaved? Gung ho about English or apathetic? Only time will tell. I do hope that I'll be a good teacher, and learn to practice my PATIENCE skills that I've acquired during the Peace Corps process. I hope that the TEFL group can help the school systems update their methods of teaching English. We were invited specifically to do this. Some of my favorite memories in class involve playing games, and making shit up, so I plan to incorporate a ton of that into lessons. And candy. Candy is magic. I want to give out candy. And, unlike my wicked French teacher J. Feld, I will NOT act bitterly towards the students, and will hide any semblance of favorite playing. I still rem
Today is my last day in Maine. It's been 33 degrees all weekend, and there is a wicked strong wind blowing through the state tonight. We saw Acadia today, which is one of the most beautiful places I've ever laid eyes on. Pine trees, bare birch trees with their white bark facing the sky, and clear, blue (freezing) water make up Acadia. And there were lobster symbols EVERYWHERE. Will post them later on.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Talked to my sister today. It is her first month in Asheville, North Carolina, in massage school, found a fellow hippie classmate, has friends and is hiking. She is living in a city with a weekly communal drum circle, the best portabello mushroom burgers in the world, and yoga studios everywhere you turn. Heaven.
This is for you, Codie:
"We live our days as we live our lives" -Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard's words have been getting to me. If, as she says, life is a collection of days, some more memorable than others, I wonder what this past year would say about my life. It's brought into my life new love, new people (the refugees I work with, the little girls I babysit for, the ragtag team of travelers/writers/artists that was the Census crew), new music, and new books. I look the same as I did when I graduated, and many of the things thoughts that ran through my head then still do now, like a record on a two-year repeat.
But since last year, I've been yearning for more. It was a year to this day that I applied for the Peace Corps, 13 months since I got home from Israel and was not satiated, but filled again, with the desire to travel. Peace Corps has been a pipe dream of mine since high school, when my godmother told me stories of being a PCV in Senegal with a Belgian boyfriend.
Now, it's two months away. Two and a half, to be precise. I haven't thought about packing. If I think too much about it, I almost explode of excitement. And then there is a thought that gnaws at me. What if it is not great? What if I'm not enough?
I have to believe that I am, and that it will be hard, lonely, and frustrating, but amazing. Hannah and Kristen, returned PCVs I work with, both tell me to keep my mind open. "Don't go in with expectations," they say. Which is hard- hard because the human mind wants to plan, to research, to figure out exactly what to bring and what we'll be eating, and who we'll get to know, and all of that jazz. But, like we saw from the earthquake in Japan, or the chaos in Libya, you never know. Embracing the chaotic world is hard. But the pleasant, relative stagnation of this past year, at home in my Dad's house in Silver Spring, is not something I can continue doing if I want to live a realized life.
Will start making a packing list in April. Next week, I go to Maine to say "bye" to my oldest, and first to be married, friend. The only time I've ever studied abroad, she was there too, one country away, talking about this strange intellectual guitar player from Tennessee who she couldn't figure out. Now, he's her husband. Strange world.
But since last year, I've been yearning for more. It was a year to this day that I applied for the Peace Corps, 13 months since I got home from Israel and was not satiated, but filled again, with the desire to travel. Peace Corps has been a pipe dream of mine since high school, when my godmother told me stories of being a PCV in Senegal with a Belgian boyfriend.
Now, it's two months away. Two and a half, to be precise. I haven't thought about packing. If I think too much about it, I almost explode of excitement. And then there is a thought that gnaws at me. What if it is not great? What if I'm not enough?
I have to believe that I am, and that it will be hard, lonely, and frustrating, but amazing. Hannah and Kristen, returned PCVs I work with, both tell me to keep my mind open. "Don't go in with expectations," they say. Which is hard- hard because the human mind wants to plan, to research, to figure out exactly what to bring and what we'll be eating, and who we'll get to know, and all of that jazz. But, like we saw from the earthquake in Japan, or the chaos in Libya, you never know. Embracing the chaotic world is hard. But the pleasant, relative stagnation of this past year, at home in my Dad's house in Silver Spring, is not something I can continue doing if I want to live a realized life.
Will start making a packing list in April. Next week, I go to Maine to say "bye" to my oldest, and first to be married, friend. The only time I've ever studied abroad, she was there too, one country away, talking about this strange intellectual guitar player from Tennessee who she couldn't figure out. Now, he's her husband. Strange world.
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