Musings on a Podcast about Love in the PC

Yesterday I was listening to an episode of PRI's The World in Words, a podcast dedicated to language- and international-related news from around the world.  I am chronically out of date, sometimes years behind on podcast episodes, so the idea of using them to stay up on current events is a bit of a joke for me.

This particular podcast was meant to be heard in February of last year, I believe.  And the topic was love: words for love in other languages, stories of internationally-crossed lovers and things of that nature.

What got me particularly interested was when they started talking about the Peace Corps, which readers of the blog will know, I served with in Peru back from 2008-2010.  In the segment they interviewed RPCVs and had them tell their love stories.  One statistic that was given was that 3/4 of all PCVs fall in love or get engaged or married to another PCV (and in some cases, nationals of their host country).

And while listening to the podcast, I felt how Cupid had apparently dodged me again.  I was surprised how much it stung.

It would not be quite accurate or fair, however, to say that I found absolutely no chances at romance of any kind in Peru: I was lucky enough to meet a couple of women who where interested in me.  However, timing was always off, so these possible would-be relationships were short-lived, precious though they were to me. 

As with most people when I was younger, finding a partner was the primary goal of my life.  I had other dreams of course, but if I only found the right woman, then that hole in my soul would be filled.  I would be complete and my life would be balanced.

Of course, that's a crock of shit, but it feels believable, and it caters to our physical feelings as well as the nonsense popular culture pushes on its victims.  But it's baseless: No person can fix another person, and what's more to the point, it's selfish to lay that responsibility on another person who has a life of their own.

As life has gone on, this need in me to find a girlfriend has died down quite a bit, or its matured away, as I've become more comfortable with myself.  But of course, it's still there to a much lesser degree.

For some reason unknown to me, the Fates, if there is such a thing have more or less given me a single person's life, where I look all around me and see people in relationships.  That has made some of the few romantic connections I've made in life to be extra sweet, and something I cannot take for granted.  And I would certainly say that's a good thing.  And perhaps why with many of those people I still am close friends with, despite the relationship having to change, usually, again because of timing (ie, leaving the country because my job there was finished, or because my visa had expired). 

It is quite possible that people have sent me messages that for some reason I've not seen.  I don't like the thought of that, but that's how humans work (or don't work, as the case may be).  And if that is indeed the case for anyone, I wish I could somehow give an appropriate apology and say that for some reason, I just didn't notice the signs.  That's probably of little comfort, but I can say from experience I know how it feels, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

In any case, listening to this podcast reminded me that, although I have grown to become much more comfortable with myself, there is still a yearning in me that feels that desire for a connection, for a relationship that isn't cut short by the fact one of us is soon to move on to another location.  And although by now it's often dormant in me, it never lets me forget that it is there.  Life is already precious, but (I imagine) it can take on a unique shade of wonder when shared.

Writing from Vacation

Dear Readers,

I recently took a much-needed vacation away from the lumberyard to visit a friend I made in the Peace Corps.  We hadn't seen each other in almost 3 years but had kept in touch via snail-mail letters.

Recently she invited me up to visit her in Colorado and participate in a 5K race she had helped organize.

The vacation has marked the first time I've been able to travel away from home for more than a day or so, and it has been like a breath of fresh air.

Since I last wrote in January I have been busy with work and I started studying for the GRE to go to grad school and study library science.  However, in the course of contacting librarians I started to see that librarianship might not be what I had originally imagined it to be.  Over time and with consideration, I have decided to not pursue this path.  I am currently looking for a more international or language-related profession, and while I have some ideas, I am not prepared to write about them here just yet.

I have also been making plans to move.  The fact is, as I've stated before, I cannot stay in my small hometown and find what I am looking for in life.  I need to move, I need to be in a city around people and opportunities who can help me point me in a direction, and quite frankly, I need to be around people my own age who I can have a social life with.  It is as simple as that.

To stay sane, however, I have continued with classes from the local community college, and am just on the point of finishing an intro to ASL (American Sign Language) course.  I have found ASL to be a beautifully expressive language, and when I move I hope to find a community I can practice it with and learn much more.  I doubt I'd want to be an ASL interpreter professionally, but I don't rule that out, and besides, it's a culture I'd like to learn more about.

Things are going well at the lumberyard, although it has been one of the most difficult jobs I've ever had in terms of work culture.  I have great respect for people who work in construction or hold blue-collar jobs.  They do the work that is dirty, uncomfortable, heavy, hard, and so forth.  But they are really the ones who make the world go around, at least in a very significant way. 

I've also learned something by being around them (and others, it's not just work related) on days when things are exceptionally challenging.  I feel that this is an important lesson and one that so many people miss:

If someone has upset you, it is more your problem than theirs, if you want to call it a problem even.  Often, people - be it coworkers, friends, family or whomever, will say or do something that hurts your feelings.

The pain is natural and I don't think it should be fought against.  However, if you hold onto it, that is  your problem.  And moreover, we are never exactly in the other person's shoes and so don't know why they said or did what they did to hurt us.  Often, I suspect, they didn't intend that way or even realize they had said something.  But even if they did, whatever caused them to be a pain in the bum is something they'll have to live with. 

I think this is quite liberating because it helps one to not dwell on why someone did what they did, and also, if you are not holding onto resentment, the energy feels like it flows more naturally and more healthily, to help heal any wounds that might have formed.

In any case, that's my wisdom for the night.

I wanted to add one more thing: Some readers (maybe even you) have left me messages.  If I don't get to them for a long time, I apologize.  I often write when I feel I have something to say, and lately that hasn't been very often. :-P  But as a result, I usually don't know when I get a message.  When I see one, I try to respond as soon as I read it.  I just found a way to get notifications when someone leaves a comment, so hopefully this will no longer be an issue.

Peace,
Tristan

Annual Books I've Read List

Dear Readers,

For the past two years at the end of the year I've included a list of all the books I've read in those past 12 months.  With only six and a half hours left in 2012, I thought it was safe to assume I wouldn't be finishing my novel this year, so I'm including my list now.

Also, starting in 2013, I'm considering doing the same thing for movies that I watched that year, or at least a recap of what I thought the best were.

So, without further ado, here is my list of my 51 books, with comments where I felt moved to write something about that book.  (CZ) means I read it while in the Czech Republic, and and as usual, books with a * symbol indicate books that were above average:

1.  20 Something Manifesto, The:  Quarter-Lifers Speak Out About Who They Are, What They Want, and How to Get It by Christine Hassler  (CZ)* -(I'd recommend this book to anyone who is in their twenties or just about to enter them.  For people just trying to get on their feet, this book might just have something to offer.)
2. Alien by Alan Dean Foster (based on screenplay by Dan O’Bannon)
3. Atlantis Code by Charles Brokaw (CZ)
4. Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet (CZ) *
5. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
6. Case of Need, A by Michael Crichton (writing as Jeffery Hudson)
7. Catching Fire (The Hunger Games Book II) by Suzanne Collins *
8. Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King - (I actually first read this book back when I was just in grade school or middle school, but it was so long ago that I felt like I needed to re-read it before I set out to read the series.)
9. Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three Stephen King
10. Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands by Stephen King
11. Do It NOW! by J. Donald Walters
12. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (first in 2005?), November 2012* (I first read this as a freshman in college, but I've come to start re-reading books I've enjoyed in the past, so I wanted to put this towards to front of my to-re-read list.  An amazing sci-fi novel, even for those who don't like sci-fi.)
13. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (I was in Prague when this came out, and when I got back everyone seemed to be talking about it, so I read it to see what the big deal was.  It's not as good as everyone says, and it's not as bad as everyone says.  I won't bother with the sequels, though.)
14. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The by Stieg Larsson (CZ)*
15. Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, The by Stieg Larsson (CZ)*
16. Girl Who Played with Fire, The by Stieg Larsson (CZ)*
17. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (CZ)
18. Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker (CZ)
19. Hunger Games, The (Book I) by Suzanne Collins*
20. Langoliers, The (Novella in “Four Past Midnight) by Stephen King
21. Mockingjay (The Hunger Games Book III) Suzanne Collins*
22. Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist by D.T. Suzuki (CZ)
23. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden by Mark Owen with Kevin Mauer*
24. One Essence by Sailor Bob (CZ)*
25. Patriot Games by Tom Clancy (CZ)
26. Resonance in the Heart by Gilbert Schultz (2x) (CZ, USA)*
27. Rogue Warrior: Red Cell by Richard Marcinko (CZ)
28. Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damndest Thing by Jed McKenna (CZ)* (This book is almost worthless for those seeking spiritual fulfillment, but I gave it an excellent rating because it actually is very entertaining.  I listened to the audio-version, which was excellently produced.)
29. Teach Yourself Czech by David Short February 2012 (CZ)
30. Thinner by Stephen King (CZ)*
31. Ultimate Twist, The by Suzanne Foxton
32. Walking Dead, The: Survivor’s Guide by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
33. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
34. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 2: Miles Behind Us by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
35. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 3: Safety Behind Bars by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
36. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 4: The Heart’s Desire by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
37. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 5: The Best Defense by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
38. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 6: This Sorrowful Life by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
39. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 7: The Calm by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
40. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 8: Made to Suffer by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
41. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 9: Here We Remain by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
42. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 10: What We Become by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
43. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 11: Fear the Hunters by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
44. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 12: Life Among Them by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
45. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 13: Too Far Gone by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
46. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 14: No Way Out by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
47. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 15: We Find Ourselves by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
48. Walking Dead, The: Vol. 16: A Larger by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore*
49. Why Men Don’t Have a Clue and Women Always Need More Shoes by Allen and Barbara Pease (CZ)
50. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
51. You Are No Thing by Randall Friend* (The book of the year on my list.  By far one of the most sublime books I've read, and also one of the shortest.  This obscure little title will be read by few, but for those who find their way to it, it might change their life completely.)

How I Became Interested in Foreign Cultures

One of the themes of my blog (and life) has been my interest in foreign languages.  In this entry I'm going to say how that really got started, the first turning point in my life that I can really remember.  It changed my interest away from wanting to be a director, and this evening has somehow impacted almost everything in my life ever since.  

I wrote this story earlier this year for a memoir writing class I was taking at the local community college.  Enjoy!

(I have tried to double check spellings on names, I can only ask pardon if I misspell someone's name.)

***

Company was coming for dinner.  My aunt Jane – my mom’s sister – would be staying for a few days.  Jane’s visits were always special because she could only come by once a year or so, and then only in the summer, since she was teaching the rest of the year.  This visit was extra special because Jane was bringing her families to visit my family.  One family was her husband and children.  The other family was the family she au paired for in France before she became a French teacher. 

When they arrived from their home near Denver we helped set the guest table in the living room while my other aunt and uncle, who live in Ogallala, came by and helped prepare dinner. 

Only flashes come up now in my memory as I think back on this occasion.  I met the Rouleau family: the twins Mathilde and Adeline, who were fourteen or so – the same age as me, the older sister Charlotte, the mother Annique and her husband Phillipe.  There was also a brother, and I think his name was Mathieu, but I can best recall the women.

I remember asked the girls a question and they said I was talking too fast for them.  This made an impression on me because I wasn’t talking fast at all, at least as far as I could tell.  Another memory is that at some point during dinner I tried to show the twins our dog, but earned only a scolding from my other aunt who lives here in town. 

At some point Jane mentioned that Mathilde and Adeline were identical twins.  This struck me as strange because until then it hadn’t occurred to me that they looked so alike.  After she said it though I found it very difficult to tell them apart.

Jane told us about her life as an au pair, watching the girls grow up in the Rouleau’s hometown of Tours.  Throughout the whole dinner she translated the conversations, even though the French family all had some grasp of English.  In general I remember very little of the dinner, what we ate, or what precisely we talked about.  I simply remember being curious about these people from another country, speaking another language, and the subtle feeling of something alien in the air.  They looked like me, but didn’t exactly act like me.  Later on I would come to see that, for instance, a room on a street in one culture is not just a room on a street in another one: in your native culture, you are familiar with the smells, sounds and feels around you.  Often you don’t notice them anymore: how a phone ring sounds, what cars sound like, the smell of the trees outside.  In another culture, you may not be familiar with the fine details of any of these, and this sensory overload can knock a person slightly off balance. 

At the time I was unaware of any of this.  I just sensed that these people acted like they were from a dimension that resembled mine by about 90%, and I just couldn’t exactly nail down the 10% that was off.

Dinner ended.  People cleared off.  Eventually only three people were sitting at the table: Jane, her host mom Annique, and myself.  I don’t remember why I was sitting there: I just didn’t have any desire to wander off alone, but my introverted self needed a reprieve from the bustle activity in the rest of the house.  So I sat and listened to Jane and Annique babble back and forth in French. 

Unexpectedly and through no effort of my own a simple and previously utterly overlooked thought occurred to me.  Jane was speaking at such a rate that she didn’t need to translate anything.  She had explained she didn’t need to some years before, but I never exactly believed her.  At that age I had simply thought everyone knew English and translated into other languages to speak.  I never questioned why they would go through that much trouble, but in my mind English made such perfect sense, and so how could there ever be anything can came close?  Now, years later, I understood better what she meant, but with no knowledge or great experience with foreign languages I couldn’t grasp her meaning of “not needing to translate.”  Until now.  It appeared to my Anglophonic ears that Jane handled French as well as her native English.  The thought was simply: “They are communicating easily.”

Logic, of course, defied this, because they were speaking in a different language, one that I could not at that time make any sense of.  In my memory, it doesn’t even sound French, it sounded like garbled noise.  Yet somehow my aunt wasn’t drowning in this river, but handled it as naturally as dressing herself.

It was at that moment that the mystery of languages started, in one way, to really fall away, at least in terms of an unbreakable obstacle, a nebulous challenge to be figured out with logic.  Instead it started to become something that I saw as a natural extension of people, those who look like me and act mostly like me – and of course, as I went just a bit deeper this extended to people who could look like anything at all.

Of course I didn’t walk away with a magical knowledge of French or any other language.  Nor did I lose my fear of languages, as I fortunately never had any to begin with.  But from that very subtle shift onwards, I started to understand that languages – and as my aunt proved, their cultures – were not abstract as long as they were seen through the eyes of those who spoke them, and that this mystery was open to anyone who had eyes to look and the heart to learn.

** 
**

A New Job and Ideas for Grad School

For the past month I have been employed.  I was working two hours a day for my aunt and uncle in their furniture store.  Naturally, this wasn't cutting it for me if I'm looking to save up and move, so I applied to a few places locally and got hired to work at the local lumberyard.

In the past four weeks I've managed to learn a few things about my now place of employment.  Starting there was a bit of a culture shock though.  The new jargon of the place confused me and if I stood back and listened to the technical terms and shorthand-like speech used, it was as mystifying to me as yet another language.  The difference between transfers and deliveries, what a striker is, what an air chuck is (which I learned right as my foreman launched it off the air hose and at my head), and things that I am still figuring out.  The layout of the place is becoming clearer to me, but physically I am not yet as strong as the other 3 guys I work with and so cannot work as fast as them.

Not that I've ever been a fast worker anyways.  I've always been more meticulous rather than quick and getting tasks done.

There is also the expression "to not see the forest/wood for the trees" meaning someone is so intent on the details that they miss the big picture.  I've found that my personality definitely tilts towards the details.  I can focus on getting a task right and miss three other things around me.

This has been interesting for me to learn, to figure out how I can adapt away from it when necessary (still figuring that out, actually), but also the more important thing is learning how to be comfortable with it.

It must be completely frustrating to have someone who's not as strong, is still quite green to the lingo and protocol, and quite frankly is more familiar with books working indoors with teaching and so forth rather than the physical work needed at a lumberyard.

All said and told though, I do enjoy it.  I like the people I work with, and of course I like to learn new things.  It's fun to do something different, and my coworkers are a salty group of people who are generally fun to be around.

The bigger news in my life, speaking of learning things, is that I think I've finally decided on a grad school subject: Library and Information Science.  From what I've read so far, this sounds like a great fit for me since my favorite thing in the world is learning new things, and learning how to sift through information is naturally a huge part of learning.  I haven't yet decided on a school, although I've ruled out (probably) studying in DC.  For a long time I've thought about moving there, but due to cost and the super professional nature I've seen of the city, I'm not sure I'd fit in there very well.

I don't know anything about applying for grad schools, or deciding on how to choose one, so any advice would be very welcome.

Likewise, any advice regarding career possibilities, or people I can contact concerning Library and Information Science would be very appreciated.  I've found that people can work in museums, and I also think it would be fun to work in university or research libraries, but all that is still a bit down the road.  My investigations have only just begun.

More to follow, and I'll try to make things sound not so dry in my next message.

Kindly,
Tristan

Confusing Life Paths

I've been meaning to write sooner.  I've been meaning to do a lot of things, but it's this coming-to-terms with myself that has made me take a long hard look at lots of things in my life.

Anyway, I've been a little scattered, and tonight I tried to get to bed at a half-decent time.  But since my body is confused by the fact I'm trying to use some common sense, I cannot sleep, and so I figured to stop procrastinating on my blog and update it.

When I came home my life was in flux and it still is.  I suppose life will always be in flux because that's simply the nature of it: things are always changing.  If it weren't changing/growing then it would be that terminal opposite of life.

My transition back to American life has been far easier than any of my other transitions, with the possible exception of coming home from Germany.  But it has been hard too.  Whom should I blame the difficulties on?  The economy and the shitty job market?  That would be easy, but pointless, because that's just how it is and it doesn't solve anything.

Should I blame myself?  I suppose that would be easy, too, and in some senses more practical, because in everything "bad" that's happened to me, I'm the one constant.

But that's also a bit pointless if you take the point of view that everything you do is part of a learning process, even if you fuck up a lot.  To use that tired old cliché about the baby walking and stumbling, a baby doesn't stumble once; it stumbles a lot.  But it can't give up....and it also can't afford to sit around philosophizing about how often and how hard it falls.  That's also a stumble, I'd wager.

I must be a late-bloomer in life, or at least that's how it feels.  One of my friends is constantly happy and chipper and sometimes I don't know how to relate to that.  I don't know how to relate to that because my compass in life is spinning around like mad.  I look at envy at those around me who have some kind of path: nursing, law school (or grad school of any kind), and who are in a place where they can meet people their own age and form relationships.

But I'm struggling on finding a path to go down.  I know it is something international, and something with languages.  TEFL teaching is fun, and I'd like to do it again someday, but probably not as a career.  Peace Corps is in the same category, although I'd be more inclined to do that on a permanent basis as there are more things to it than just English-teaching.  I'm certainly interested in finding out more about other development groups, as well as refugee groups.

I thought about becoming a professor, but TEFL-ing more or less showed me that teaching and all that goes with it isn't really in my blood.

Travel writing/photography would be great, maybe.  And as I've mentioned before, I've thought of translating, which I haven't ruled out yet.

But how do I get established?  I'm not in any position to work as a free-lancer yet, and frankly at this point in my life I'm not yet interested at all in freelancing.  Someday maybe yes.  But not today, or even next year.

Mostly I'm tired of negativity and have been working very hard on changing my attitude and becoming more positive.  And I've made a lot of progress but it's hard not to fall back into old habits when the going gets tough or when the environment around you is full of negative people.  I think the secret is to simply not believing your own thoughts, an appetite of the mind as it was once put, but under a barrage of frustrations, it's hard to keep one's wits about.

And finally, I often need change, I've found.  Whether it's in my reading material, or my work activities, or the languages I'm learning, or my hobbies in general, I tend to cycle among interests ranging from writing, to photography, to drawing, to learning the piano, to running, to learning math and history, and so forth.

But first thing's first...I need to save enough to move out of my hometown for good.  I was hoping that when I left Prague, that would be it, but as that didn't go as planned I had to come home.  However, this most recent home-coming has only solidified that I cannot stay here.  It's shaped a lot of who I am, and I'm happy to call it my hometown, but I've long-since outgrown it, and it can't be a lifeboat for me forever.

Home From Prague

As things go, I flew home from Prague on Wednesday.

This was something I had hoped to avoid. I wanted to rack up a couple years' worth of experience working as an English teacher and get a bit more established in Prague. But to make things simple, there was a visa snag which turned into a headache of titanic proportions: getting papers, having the time to go to the various offices to get the papers, costs...and that's just the standard procedure. Into all those steps one would have to figure in additional hoops to jump through while you were given the run-around because a clerk wasn't clear in their instructions, or a rule had changed and someone wasn't informed, or God knows what, and so steps would have to be repeated.

On top of all this was the language barrier. I unfortunately didn't learn nearly as much Czech as I had wanted to during my time there, and this was one of the big reasons I wanted to stay longer in the country. Now that I'm home, I will continue studying it, but after I work on some other languages that have been on my list longer.

The visa process is the most bureaucratic thing I've ever seen so far in my life. It makes joining the Peace Corps look like signing a birthday card.

Naturally, this wasn't exactly a bad thing, as I do now have more experience in working with visas, and I better know what questions to ask when applying for one.

It just wasn't according to my plan. But most of my plans haven't worked out the way I thought they would: the first person I ever fell in love with, my study abroad trip to Mexico, my time in the Peace Corps, my plans to study in Japan, etc. All of those events took on minds of their own, and most of them caused me a lot of heartache at the time.

This time, however, I realized that I'm tired of fighting the flow of life. I can be active all I want towards a goal (and I think one probably should be if they have a goal) but sometimes things just will go in a different direction, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's natural to feel sad or bummed about it. I'm sad that I had to leave my friends. I'm sad I didn't get to stay longer to learn more Czech, or before I could see more of Europe (I still have not yet made it to Austria, Hungary, Poland or Norway) but I'm not unhappy. Because what is there to be unhappy about?

Being back in my parents' home isn't exactly thrilling, but I'm glad I have a place to come back to. And it's good motivation to make some money and move out on my own again ASAP. The night after I got back my mom said she was frustrated that I don't seem to know what I want out of life, or that I don't have a better defined game-plan. And actually, sometimes I do envy those who seem to know where they are going. I don't know where I'm going. I know that I would like to have a challenging job, and hopefully something international, or at least lets me do something in that field, and there are a few other things I know I want (like to know what it's like to be in a serious and long-term relationship) but in general my life is in flux, and looking back, I see that it's always been in flux. Even when it didn't appear that it was, like in university, the potential for change was so huge (going to Germany instead of Japan was more of a snap decision I made over the course of a week or so after I realized that going to Japan was going to be almost financially impossible).

So, I wished I had a better answer for my mom's question, but I don't. My answer is: I don't plan on being passive. But I'm kind of playing life by ear right now. I never thought I'd be like this; I didn't even want to just decide things as I went along. I wanted my steps figured out ahead of me, because the alternative was terrifying. But it hasn't happened that way. And there is something very liberating in finding out you are probably something you never thought you could be or even wanted to be, and that you are doing fine, and maybe you are even a natural at it.

So, I have no idea what's next. In the past I could say, "I'm going to college," "I'm going to study in....", "I think the Peace Corps is next" but now I can't say anything for certain. The best I can do is say, "I'm going to stay in my hometown, find a job and save money and then move out to somewhere else." I don't know where, or to what. I guess we'll see what catches my eye given my interests in languages, travel, working with people, and so forth, and if it's possible I can join something that falls into any of those categories. Maybe it'll happen in a month. Maybe six months.

That's how it goes, sometimes. And it can be fun to realize you are not just on a journey, but also are the journey itself.

To the friends I made in Europe: Thank you for sharing part of your life with me. I miss you and I hope we will cross paths again. With love,

Tristan