Everything changes and nothing stands still

So much has changed since my last post here, and yet so much is exactly the same.

I'm preparing to move to a new place to continue my journey as a teacher - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

If you had asked me a few months ago where I wanted to live, I would not have said Tanzania. Honestly, I probably would not have mentioned Africa at all. But life, circumstance, and a great school presented me with an intriguing opportunity that ultimately I could not say "no" to.

And so for the next few months I am preparing for this new chapter: moving to Africa.

So far my focus has been on deciding which parts of my past I want to take with me to my new home via photo enlargements and travel wall art. I printed and framed some of my best photos from the last ten years. I'm considering easy to pack posters that represent places I've been and the journey I've been on. Strangely, this is the first time I have really thought about creating a sense of "home" in a new place. I just have a good feeling about this next adventure.

I'm not convinced Tanzania will be where I ultimately "settle down", if a vagabond such as myself can do such a thing. But I do feel ready to create a life and be present in this new experience. My goal is to document some of that here, on this blog.

Join me this July as the journey begins.

the experience of travel

before i continue with my nicaragua saga (later tonight for sure, when i'm procrastinating and should be doing school work) i wanted to share something that i read this past week while we were traveling. it comes from the book the pilgrimage by paulo coelho. i bought this book for two reasons: 1. i had read the alchemist by the same author (i believe i borrowed it from cassie) and liked it. and 2. it was on sale. why not.

so here is a part that i really liked (just a little peek inside my head):

"When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak. So you are like a child just out of the womb. You begin to attach much more importance to the things around you because your survival depends upon them. You begin to be more accessible to others because they may be able to help you in difficult situations. And you accept any small favor from the gods with great delight, as if it were an episode you would remember for the rest of your life. At the same time, since all things are new, you see only the beauty in them, and you feel happy to be alive."

:)

my first day of unemployment

and AWWWW YEEEAAAH it feels good to be unemployed. :) well, more truthfully, it feels good to not be going back to that particular job... i do realize i will have to work again at some point. but still. for now, i'm pretty happy.

two months from now i'll be starting my teacher training course in costa rica. it's meant to be pretty intensive, so in the meantime i plan to get myself organized as much as possible. relax as much as possible. study up on some english grammer. and possibly take on some temp work after i get back from hawaii.

for now i'm reading through my let's go costa rica (which is 3 years out of date, since, irritatingly enough, the new version will come out just after i leave for CR - grrr), flipping through my costa rican spanish phrase book, and thinking about starting to listen to my spanish cd's. i'm also thinking about taking a spanish language course down in CR after i finish my training course. it makes sense, since i'm intending on staying for a while...

anyway. i'm sure these two months will just fly by, so if i don't call you, you should definitely call me. :) more later.

4 jobs and 3 years ago

i can hardly believe it has been so long, but three years ago today i wrote in my journal:

5 February 2003
am here, finally. it's strange. can't believe i'm really here - all the preparation, planning. my nerves come and go. and sometimes i can't believe this is only the beginning, that i'll be wandering for two and a half months...

i had just arrived in london after an overnight flight and was trying to settle into the whole idea of long term travel. and the idea of traveling alone. it was the beginning of an amazing adventure in my life.

after working a contract job for almost 5 months and being turned down twice for a full time position in the group i decided to take my money and run - to do something a little crazy. and it felt a little crazy at the start. as time passed though, i eventually got into the rhythm of travel. lazy mornings, sitting hours at a cafe with only a coffee and my journal, making sandwiches from the supermarket, visiting a museum or sitting on the beach, scoping out a restaurant for dinner.


by the end of the 10 weeks i was feeling confident enough in my travel skills that i was giving advice to other travelers at my hostel. but i was also looking forward to being home again, to staying in one place for a while.

now that i've had 3 years to reflect on that trip, i've learned a lot of things and become a better and happier traveler. a couple of tips for long term travel:

* when everything seems to be going wrong - throw a little money at the problem. sometimes a night in nicer hotel or a meal at a proper restaurant is all you need.
* don't schedule yourself too much - sometimes you just don't feel like seeing the most famous sight in wherever, so don't do it and don't give it another thought.
* take pictures of the people you meet - it'll make your memories that much stronger.
* write everything down - that way you can relive the adventure whenever you want!

lately i've just been dying to be back on the road, i miss the variety, the pace of life. luckily i have my journals, my blogs, and my photos to transport me back to those times. and before i know it, i'll be on the road again. you can relive my france and italy 2003 trip vicariously through my fritaly blog. and until my next big trip i'll continue writing about my adventures in japan.

entiende? (my spanish speaking skills)

i'm making the final preparations for my trip to spain. picking up the miscellaneous travel sized items i need. deciding what to wear, what to pack, and what to leave behind. checking permitted and prohibited items for carry-on luggage at the tsa website (i'm a carry-on only kind of girl). and reviewing all the spanish words and phrases i've learned over the past 2 months of study.

naturally, it is also the week that my continuing ed french class begins. i have to say, that despite having studied far more french in my life than any other language, i have still managed to displace parts of my french vocabulary with my new spanish vocabulary. i find myself forming questions improperly. leaving out personal pronouns. oy. and as excited as i am to brush up on my french, i had to resist starting my assignments for the next class immediately.

i have one more lesson in my spanish cd course. once that's done, i'll have 9 days to try it out on actual spanish people (and maybe even some non-spanish people who are willing to listen). after that, who knows if or when i'll use it again...

next time i post, i will be in spain. bon voyage, uh, buen viaje, i mean!

goodbye roommate, hello karaoke

friday, two weeks after my arrival, was natasha's last day of work with nova. that evening another teacher from my school (and a friend of natasha's) named bec came over and we drank wine and chatted until the wee hours of the morning. by the end of the night i had planned the next year and a half of my life: after a year of teaching i would take off and do some traveling around japan. after i'd seen what i wanted to see i would head over to the asian continent and make my way through thailand, cambodia, vietnam, maybe malaysia and some islands. *then* i would go to india and meet bec and natasha at an ashram. after a month of yoga and meditation i'd finally go home.


bye natasha!
good plan. fueled by the chatter of two australian girls who had already visited much of asia and, along with me, drank quite a bit of wine. bec left and natasha and i finally went to bed around 4 in the morning, only to wake up a few hours later for work. (the worst part of a nova teaching schedule: weekends are early shifts, weekdays are late shifts)

saturday evening was natasha's last night out in marugame. the plan was to meet a bunch of other teachers and friends at an izakaya and then go to karaoke. despite having gone to an izakaya the previous week with natasha and mariko, i wasn't prepared for the amount of food we had. there were some heavenly cabbage and cheese rolls, sashimi, fried cheese balls (which i burnt my lip very badly on, had a scar the next day), fries, grilled garlic with miso, edamame.... so much food and so good.


grant, dave, and gavin
after we'd eaten our fill it was off to a karaoke bar, which was on the 5th floor of a building just down the road. (while most floors above street level would be residences in america, they are often businesses in japan) it was a small place, not at all like karaoke bars in america - there is no stage, nor much light. along one wall there was a long bar with stools, on the opposite wall was a long couch, in front of which were tables and small benches. we sat down and were given warm cloths for our hands and a basket of chip-type things. straight away people started looking through the telephone directory sized song book. once i got up the nerve to sing my first song ("it's not unusual" by tom jones) there was no stopping me.

also on this momentous first night of karaoke i met two of my future favorites: dave and paul. i went over and talked to paul after he sang a U2 song (my *favorite* band). i was introduced to dave, as he was new and soon to be teaching at my school. while chatting with dave i was glad to hear that he was interested in going out for some beers sometime. natasha had told me that most people didn't really like to go out that much. i now had hopes that we could change that.


me
it was 6 in the morning by the time we left the karaoke bar. i had to work the next day and natasha had a bus to catch in the morning. she asked me to make sure she was up, i was instructed to hit her if i needed to. that time came too soon and while i had quite a time waking her up. but when she finally did wake up, she popped out of bed still dressed from the night before. i walked with her to the station and we said our goodbyes, still talking about meeting up in india. then i walked home alone.

the other side of the planet

my great france and italy trip in the spring of 2003 came after a 5 month contract that was leading nowhere. i decided that since i had nothing holding me back - no rent/mortgage, no car payment, no full time job - it was the ideal time to make the trip. and it most definitely was. however. i never imagined my job search post-france-and-italy would be 3 times harder than the pre-france-and-italy one.

naturally i took it easy after arriving home. i watched soaps, sat in the sun with the dog, and cooked. but after a couple of months i started to run out of money. and i started to think about finding work. plus after not really doing anything or having any museums or historical sites to see, i was getting bored.

my father knew someone at his company who was looking to hire some junior level database admins, people to be trained to take over for the experienced dba's when they moved on to bigger and better things. so with my computer science background, some basic database experience, and an inside connection i managed to get a phone interview.

and then i waited. and waited. for this manager to call me back. my father's contact said i was a good candidate and would almost certainly get the job. but still i waited. and nothing. i started thinking about moving to hawaii, living in a small shack on the beach, and working at some technology company. i often have this fantasy when i read a trip to the stars, by nicholas christopher, which i have done 5 times. i even applied for a job in hawaii, though never really expected anything to come of it.

"i just feel like something else is in store for me, that this is not how things are supposed to be for me. i'm craving something else. something different and new and exciting. something else..."

disappointed, i started contemplating other careers. i started thinking about getting back into dancing, maybe auditioning for disney in the fall. i thought it would be fun to be a travel agent (my nana already thought i was hers), i could study to do that and talk about travel all day. i started looking at some crappy jobs, just to get some cash. i applied for an answering service job, and even starbucks. but i never heard back from anyone.

then i finally got a call from a headhunter, he had this junior web developer job. only a 6 month contract, but i thought as long as i don't go to europe at the end of the contract i should be in good shape. i was excited, but again i was left without a response, positive or negative...

until one day in august i saw a posting on monster.com for english teachers in japan. how it ended up in my technology keyword job search, i will never know. but as i read the job description i became more and more animated. they wanted to know if i had a passport, had i traveled internationally before (why, yes...), did i have any teaching or tutoring experience (well, sort of...). the more i read, the more i felt this was the perfect job for me. i applied right then and there.

things moved quickly after that. i received a letter saying my profile was a match for what they were looking for. i was asked to come down to boston for an "informational interview". and then i was offered the job. i had a job. I HAD A JOB! on the other side of the planet, but a job no less.

i discovered the joy that is temping, allowing me to work menial jobs that i could leave at any time. i managed to save up enough money to cover my flight. i started planning and packing and preparing. i was alternately thrilled and terrified by what lay ahead of me. and by the end of october i was making my final preparations for the adventure of a lifetime...

next time, the journey.

in the beginning

...there was spacekitty.net. but those days are gone. the impending due date for renewal of the spacekitty.net domain got me thinking. since my server account was once again unaccesible (it was free - through a friend of the family, someone i do not know) i decided to take matters into my own hands. and the solution i came up with was push button publishing - with my own, personal style. my intention for this site is two-fold:

1. to share a few post cards from my trip to france and italy (first one is below), and some excerpts from my personal journals on my experience living and working in japan
   
2. to have a way to communicate my thoughts and experiences when i hit the road again (it's bound to happen, my wanderlust is strong)

as for my current situation - i do have a job, yes a real, full-time, benefit giving, vacation time earning, US job. and as with all things there are pluses and minuses. but for now i'm looking forward to a steady paycheck, vision care, paying off my credit cards, and saving for that next, inevitable fall off the employment wagon. this postcard was written to my family, and now i'm sharing a bit of it with you, and hoping you are as amused by it as i was when i read it again. for those of you with more freetime than you know what to do with i've also put links (bottom right of the page) to my old blogs from france and italy in 2003 and from india in 2004

3 march 2003, monday ...in an attempt to be more frugal after my confusing expensive lunch i went to the grocery store and got 8 things totaling €8.80 - the wine being the most expensive at €1.97 and everything else being somewhat healthy. do i know how to grocery shop or what?! i can eat for two days on this stuff.

i do love to grocery shop... according to my personal journal i bought: wine, bread, cheese, butter, lettuce, juice, water, and soup (clearly i was so impressed with myself that i thought this worthy of note). that was pretty much my diet in a nutshell while i was traveling.

the best thing about sandwiches in france is that they put butter on them. i met a boy from california when i was in arles, in the south of france, and we got to talking about sandwiches. we both felt that buttering sandwiches was the most fab idea. he also had this idea for sandwich sandwiches.... where the filling of the sandwich was another sandwich. so if you ever see a sandwich sandwich somewhere - i know that guy!