So here we are. I fly in just a few hours. Months of planning, of prep, of wondering -- it all comes down to this.
Last night my father and I grilled steak. I opened my 2004 Amarone that came back with me from Rome, and it was easily the very best wine I've ever tasted. We lit a fire in the chiminea as it got dark. I opened my full-size bottle of Fabbioli raspberry merlot, and played old school rock n' roll on my iPhone for about the next five hours. Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, CSNY, Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin. Mom got home and joined us, and then we played Linda Ronstadt, David Cook, Judy Collins and ABBA. We opened more wine. I played them the song JC recorded for me from the party. I may have cried a little, but less than I was expecting. It was exactly how I would have wanted my last night to unfold, and I went to bed at 2:00 in the morning with Blondie's "Heart of Glass" playing in my head.
Departure for the airport is in less than seven very short hours, so I will leave you with this: a very amusing video for a very cool song that has been my personal Theme Song ever since I first decided I was going to give this crazy idea a go.
I'm looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something to help me burn out bright
I'm looking for a complication
Looking 'cause I'm tired of lying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Send-Off!
Two posts in one evening! I don't mean to oversaturate y'all, but to me, both that last post and this one deserve their own headline.
Yesterday was my Going Away party. My amazing folks worked their butts off and put out an amazing spread, and then my amazing friends and neighbors all came to celebrate my last Saturday in the States.
Because I am dumb and don't think of these things, I didn't take a single picture all damn night so have nothing visual to share with you. But to everyone who made it -- Thank you, thank you for coming out! A particular shout-out to those who made trips from out of town -- Meg and BJ, JC and Jenny, Christy, and surprise guest CC! (If I've forgotten to mention any additional out-of-town names, please forgive me and know that it meant the world that you made the drive!) And thank you also to JC for my song!
The weather cooperated which was such a complete bonus. Folks got to be out on the deck and in my father's beautiful backyard garden. We grilled out, lit a bunch of tiki torches, had a fire in the chiminea, and I made both my white and red sangria, which had a lot of people a lot of happy. :) By request, here are the recipes. Everything is really "to taste" so you can use whatever porportions of the liquor that suit your needs, and of course substitutions can be made for whatever fruit you'd like to feature.
Red Berry Sangria:
Cheap red wine
Fresh blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries
Cran-raspberry juice
Vodka
Black raspberry liqueur
White Peach Sangria:
Cheap white wine
Canned pears, peaches, mandarin oranges
Juice from said cans
Vodka
Peach Schnapps
I had an utterly wonderful time and it was just fantastic to be surrounded by so many incredible people who wanted to say Bon Voyage! Yesterday was a piece of everything good that will be so hard to leave behind. I wish I could go across the world and still be able to come home on weekends. Lots of love to you all.
Yesterday was my Going Away party. My amazing folks worked their butts off and put out an amazing spread, and then my amazing friends and neighbors all came to celebrate my last Saturday in the States.
Because I am dumb and don't think of these things, I didn't take a single picture all damn night so have nothing visual to share with you. But to everyone who made it -- Thank you, thank you for coming out! A particular shout-out to those who made trips from out of town -- Meg and BJ, JC and Jenny, Christy, and surprise guest CC! (If I've forgotten to mention any additional out-of-town names, please forgive me and know that it meant the world that you made the drive!) And thank you also to JC for my song!
The weather cooperated which was such a complete bonus. Folks got to be out on the deck and in my father's beautiful backyard garden. We grilled out, lit a bunch of tiki torches, had a fire in the chiminea, and I made both my white and red sangria, which had a lot of people a lot of happy. :) By request, here are the recipes. Everything is really "to taste" so you can use whatever porportions of the liquor that suit your needs, and of course substitutions can be made for whatever fruit you'd like to feature.
Red Berry Sangria:
Cheap red wine
Fresh blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries
Cran-raspberry juice
Vodka
Black raspberry liqueur
White Peach Sangria:
Cheap white wine
Canned pears, peaches, mandarin oranges
Juice from said cans
Vodka
Peach Schnapps
I had an utterly wonderful time and it was just fantastic to be surrounded by so many incredible people who wanted to say Bon Voyage! Yesterday was a piece of everything good that will be so hard to leave behind. I wish I could go across the world and still be able to come home on weekends. Lots of love to you all.
A Lot Can Change in 40 Days
To those of you that celebrate, a very Happy Easter to you.
This Easter has particular significance to me. After all, it really wasn't that long ago that my life, my body, and my mind were one disapointing hot mess. I'd come out the worse for wear from a short but passionate romance, I'd come to realize the gravity of my mistake in turning down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the truly insane negative stress of my job had crossed over into the realm of nightmares. The effects all this was wreaking on my body meant that I'd pretty much stopped eating for a little bit there. Got lots of compliments on my too-big pants but aside from that silver lining, I was a wreck. I spent a lot of time staring into space or bursting into tears without warning, which was embarrassing if that happened, say, in line at Starbucks.
That opportunity I turned down? This very one. You see, I was originally supposed to leave for Georgia in early January. By my own choice, that didn't happen. And now, also due to my own actions, it was entirely possible that I wouldn't be able to join up with the Georgia program at all. In fact, by the time Ash Wednesday rolled around, I'd pretty much given up on it. And I had no freaking CLUE how to fix my life back into something resembling sanity, let alone happiness.
By a series of fated circumstances, come Ash Wednesday I found myself walking down the street and into a DC Catholic church. This was a fairly stand-out event, as I was raised Catholic but am not exactly what you would call religious. But I was getting well and truly desperate for some grace, and nothing else I'd tried recently had made even the slightest dent.
I enjoyed the service. It actually felt pretty cool to check in with God about my state of affairs. Georgia didn't really even come up in my mind; like I said, I'd more or less written that off at that point. But when I got back to my desk later that day, that was when I got the email saying that all was good to go with my departure and that I would be leaving for Tbilisi with the April 30 group of teachers.
That was 40 days ago. Today, in respect for the truly staggering list of things I have to be thankful for, I checked in with God again, attending Easter service with my Mom for the first time in decades. I don't consider this to be a religious epiphany or myself to be a sheep returned to the fold or anything. But when I look at what my life was like, waking up that Ash Wednesday morning, and what that life looks like now, I am floored. Astounded. Humbled, and grateful like I have never been so grateful for anything in my 31 interesting years.
If someone had told me my future 41 days ago, I would have called them a malicious liar. It seems rediculous that so much could have happened, that it is really me who is on this brink of an incredible adventure. That I Got Out. That my prayers were answered. I'm not gonna waste one second.
This Easter has particular significance to me. After all, it really wasn't that long ago that my life, my body, and my mind were one disapointing hot mess. I'd come out the worse for wear from a short but passionate romance, I'd come to realize the gravity of my mistake in turning down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the truly insane negative stress of my job had crossed over into the realm of nightmares. The effects all this was wreaking on my body meant that I'd pretty much stopped eating for a little bit there. Got lots of compliments on my too-big pants but aside from that silver lining, I was a wreck. I spent a lot of time staring into space or bursting into tears without warning, which was embarrassing if that happened, say, in line at Starbucks.
That opportunity I turned down? This very one. You see, I was originally supposed to leave for Georgia in early January. By my own choice, that didn't happen. And now, also due to my own actions, it was entirely possible that I wouldn't be able to join up with the Georgia program at all. In fact, by the time Ash Wednesday rolled around, I'd pretty much given up on it. And I had no freaking CLUE how to fix my life back into something resembling sanity, let alone happiness.
By a series of fated circumstances, come Ash Wednesday I found myself walking down the street and into a DC Catholic church. This was a fairly stand-out event, as I was raised Catholic but am not exactly what you would call religious. But I was getting well and truly desperate for some grace, and nothing else I'd tried recently had made even the slightest dent.
I enjoyed the service. It actually felt pretty cool to check in with God about my state of affairs. Georgia didn't really even come up in my mind; like I said, I'd more or less written that off at that point. But when I got back to my desk later that day, that was when I got the email saying that all was good to go with my departure and that I would be leaving for Tbilisi with the April 30 group of teachers.
That was 40 days ago. Today, in respect for the truly staggering list of things I have to be thankful for, I checked in with God again, attending Easter service with my Mom for the first time in decades. I don't consider this to be a religious epiphany or myself to be a sheep returned to the fold or anything. But when I look at what my life was like, waking up that Ash Wednesday morning, and what that life looks like now, I am floored. Astounded. Humbled, and grateful like I have never been so grateful for anything in my 31 interesting years.
If someone had told me my future 41 days ago, I would have called them a malicious liar. It seems rediculous that so much could have happened, that it is really me who is on this brink of an incredible adventure. That I Got Out. That my prayers were answered. I'm not gonna waste one second.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
One Door Closes...
Yesterday was kind of incredible.
It was my last day at work. And I survived! The kind of day I had, I wouldn't wish on anyone, but even the longest closed-door meeting has to end eventually. I shut down my computer, wiped the berry, turned off my desk lamp. I was done.
My boss actually gave me a really sweet champagne reception at the end of the day. And then several of my co-workers took me out for a truly impressive send-off at a couple of my favorite DC watering holes. And my Caps pulled ahead in the quarterfinals, 3-1.
Today I woke up in a panic, thinking that I was late. I laid there and thought about not having an office to drive to anymore. No more waking up and reaching for my blackberry before I even get out of bed. No more hour and a half commute. Man, that commute really freaking blew.
It's hard to say how I feel. I'd been with this job for almost five years. That's longer by far than any relationship I've ever had. Irrationally, now that I really think about it, it does feel kind of like that -- like ending a relationship. There are quite a few people I said goodbye to that I will miss. We had a lot of good times over the years, and made a lot of memories.
Fate is not without a sense of timing, because as I was wrapping up my last day in a DC office, I recieved the most important email since the one where I was told I'd been accepted into the program.
They've booked my flight. I leave at 10:55 PM, April 29 out of Dulles. Connecting in Istanbul, and finally touching down in Tbilisi.
No turning back now. And I'll make my way back home when I learn to fly.
It was my last day at work. And I survived! The kind of day I had, I wouldn't wish on anyone, but even the longest closed-door meeting has to end eventually. I shut down my computer, wiped the berry, turned off my desk lamp. I was done.
My boss actually gave me a really sweet champagne reception at the end of the day. And then several of my co-workers took me out for a truly impressive send-off at a couple of my favorite DC watering holes. And my Caps pulled ahead in the quarterfinals, 3-1.
Today I woke up in a panic, thinking that I was late. I laid there and thought about not having an office to drive to anymore. No more waking up and reaching for my blackberry before I even get out of bed. No more hour and a half commute. Man, that commute really freaking blew.
It's hard to say how I feel. I'd been with this job for almost five years. That's longer by far than any relationship I've ever had. Irrationally, now that I really think about it, it does feel kind of like that -- like ending a relationship. There are quite a few people I said goodbye to that I will miss. We had a lot of good times over the years, and made a lot of memories.
Fate is not without a sense of timing, because as I was wrapping up my last day in a DC office, I recieved the most important email since the one where I was told I'd been accepted into the program.
They've booked my flight. I leave at 10:55 PM, April 29 out of Dulles. Connecting in Istanbul, and finally touching down in Tbilisi.
No turning back now. And I'll make my way back home when I learn to fly.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Planning for the Unknown
So last Friday I recieved a very exciting email from my recruiting company... we teachers who are going to be there over the summer will be placed in summer camps, and work there for ~3 months until we meet our host family in September and go on to business as usual teaching in the schools. According to the email -- "They are located in the resort areas throughout the country: on the Black Sea coast, in the mountains, and in the national parks... Volunteers will educate in a more casual atmosphere with games, sports activities, music, drama, and have a really good chance to show the initiative and let their creativity shine. Volunteers will be teaching only part time and spend the rest of their time on leisure and travel."
Damn if that doesn't sound fantastic.
Of course, this means I went even more overboard during my Mal-Mart Buying Extravaganza this past Sunday. As just a random sample of highights, the trip included: a snakebite kit, 2 large and 2 travel-size bug repellants (98% DEET, baby), black and nude pantyhose, an entire gamut of full-size toiletries, crayons, chalk, four different kinds of stomach medicine, condoms, a miniature high-powered LED flashlight, spiral notebooks, batteries, and a 25-foot ethernet cable.
And this was the final, fill-in-the-gaps trip. The guest room is already overflowing. North Face, L.L. Bean, Magellan's, Jockey, Clark's Shoes, and the Earplug Superstore. Soon, it will be time to see exactly how much of this I can fit in two suitcases, a backpack, and a laptop messenger bag. I am generally a very minimalist packer, but the combination of the long duration and the unknown locations have turned me into a person who buys a dozen shopping bags worth of economy-stimulating goods at Wal-Mart.
I find it funny that when I first started planning for this adventure, I called it "preparing for a life without things." For the past weeks my life has been consumed with things. Trying to have a little something on board for every hiccup or problem or homesickness jag, and that is just impossible.
Today is my third-to-last day of gainful employment. I cannot wait for Wednesday at 6:00. Turning in my blackberry (wiped, natch) is going to feel SO amazing. Today went by pretty quickly; I walked down to the Natural History Museum during lunch today, in case I don't have the chance to make a proper Smithsonian visit before I leave.
It's sad that right now the majority of my thoughts and emotions are tied up on getting the hell out of my place of business and considerably less so on the far more important future. The idea of surviving the next two days gives me far worse butterflies than the idea of hugging my parents goodbye and steeling myself to suffer through ~12 hours of Coach. (Ugh.) Old life well and truly left behind, new life beginning and not the foggiest clue what that will mean.
I'm expecting that focus to shift after Wednesday, however.
Damn if that doesn't sound fantastic.
Of course, this means I went even more overboard during my Mal-Mart Buying Extravaganza this past Sunday. As just a random sample of highights, the trip included: a snakebite kit, 2 large and 2 travel-size bug repellants (98% DEET, baby), black and nude pantyhose, an entire gamut of full-size toiletries, crayons, chalk, four different kinds of stomach medicine, condoms, a miniature high-powered LED flashlight, spiral notebooks, batteries, and a 25-foot ethernet cable.
And this was the final, fill-in-the-gaps trip. The guest room is already overflowing. North Face, L.L. Bean, Magellan's, Jockey, Clark's Shoes, and the Earplug Superstore. Soon, it will be time to see exactly how much of this I can fit in two suitcases, a backpack, and a laptop messenger bag. I am generally a very minimalist packer, but the combination of the long duration and the unknown locations have turned me into a person who buys a dozen shopping bags worth of economy-stimulating goods at Wal-Mart.
I find it funny that when I first started planning for this adventure, I called it "preparing for a life without things." For the past weeks my life has been consumed with things. Trying to have a little something on board for every hiccup or problem or homesickness jag, and that is just impossible.
Today is my third-to-last day of gainful employment. I cannot wait for Wednesday at 6:00. Turning in my blackberry (wiped, natch) is going to feel SO amazing. Today went by pretty quickly; I walked down to the Natural History Museum during lunch today, in case I don't have the chance to make a proper Smithsonian visit before I leave.
It's sad that right now the majority of my thoughts and emotions are tied up on getting the hell out of my place of business and considerably less so on the far more important future. The idea of surviving the next two days gives me far worse butterflies than the idea of hugging my parents goodbye and steeling myself to suffer through ~12 hours of Coach. (Ugh.) Old life well and truly left behind, new life beginning and not the foggiest clue what that will mean.
I'm expecting that focus to shift after Wednesday, however.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
CTL+ALT+DEL
Welcome to the Maiden Voyage of my blog!
Background: About a year ago I'd realized that I'd reached the unenviable time of life when most people around me were doing things like pairing up, making babies, and buying living spaces to put them. I don't mean to knock those of you who have done these things or are doing them currently -- but the fact of the matter remained that the track of my life had never pointed to babies and two and a half baths. Well, all right, how about the other route? Career Girl! Except that I found myself stuck in a dead-end job with a boss who reminded me of a cross between an old-school James Bond Villain and Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Less singing, more evil. I began a lackluster job search, finding little motivation to move from one office job to another, where in all likelihood I would find the same heartburn and sleepless nights under a different DC address.
And so, at the always-lovely age of 30, I found myself just sort of coasting. Studio apartment in cool Old Town Alexandria, job that chewed holes in my stomach but that offered free parking at Metro Center. Drinks and hockey games on the weekends. I am a serious Caps fan.
What was I going to do to wake myself up?
I've always loved traveling; I feel it is unequivocably the best way to learn about another culture, and to learn about yourself. But due to life being, well, life, when I got my passport stamped to go to Rome in 2009, it had literally been ten years since I had set foot outside the United States.
That just sucks. Because seriously, life is too damn short to spend it stuck in traffic.
So I turned to an idea that had been germinating for a while. Finding a job abroad. Unfortunately I'm not an IT guy or an engineer, jobs that are pretty hot overseas right now. But I do know my own language. I know about comma usage and subject-verb agreement. Maybe someone would pay for me to come to their country and teach their young people English.
And that's exactly what I found. It wasn't easy. Took a while for me to find a program that both offered the things I was looking for, and that would actually accept me. The application process itself took forever. A bunch of other stuff happened that maybe I'll tell you about in another post sometime. But then, finally, I got the email. I was going to the Republic of Georgia. I would be teaching English.
There were some caveats. I wouldn't know what grade I would be teaching, until I arrived in the country itself and signed a contract. I also wouldn't know where in the country I would be living, or what my host family would be like. I thought about it and talked about it and wrote about it, and finally decided that I didn't care about all the unknowns that came along with this opportunity. Because that's exactly what it was. An amazing, incredible opportunity to experience another culture and country in a way I never had before.
After I decided to go, I wrote the following in my Journal.
"Despite decades of hopeful searching, I never did find the wardrobe or the wrinkle in time. And now, well into Adulthood, it would seem that a desperate bid for ex-patriotism is in fact my very last chance to slip the noose of a 'normal life.' And I will go. I will go because I know all too well that I will regret it for the rest of my life if I don't. And there have been far to many of those cluttering things up already.
A year away from my dearest friends, and a family that is my rock, my lifeline. I think maybe it is time to live without a lifeline. I want a challenge, an adventure. It is time to press CTL+ALT+DEL, and restart this stalled and frozen life of mine. I want to break myself down to my base elements and find out exactly what I am made of."
Background: About a year ago I'd realized that I'd reached the unenviable time of life when most people around me were doing things like pairing up, making babies, and buying living spaces to put them. I don't mean to knock those of you who have done these things or are doing them currently -- but the fact of the matter remained that the track of my life had never pointed to babies and two and a half baths. Well, all right, how about the other route? Career Girl! Except that I found myself stuck in a dead-end job with a boss who reminded me of a cross between an old-school James Bond Villain and Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Less singing, more evil. I began a lackluster job search, finding little motivation to move from one office job to another, where in all likelihood I would find the same heartburn and sleepless nights under a different DC address.
And so, at the always-lovely age of 30, I found myself just sort of coasting. Studio apartment in cool Old Town Alexandria, job that chewed holes in my stomach but that offered free parking at Metro Center. Drinks and hockey games on the weekends. I am a serious Caps fan.
What was I going to do to wake myself up?
I've always loved traveling; I feel it is unequivocably the best way to learn about another culture, and to learn about yourself. But due to life being, well, life, when I got my passport stamped to go to Rome in 2009, it had literally been ten years since I had set foot outside the United States.
That just sucks. Because seriously, life is too damn short to spend it stuck in traffic.
So I turned to an idea that had been germinating for a while. Finding a job abroad. Unfortunately I'm not an IT guy or an engineer, jobs that are pretty hot overseas right now. But I do know my own language. I know about comma usage and subject-verb agreement. Maybe someone would pay for me to come to their country and teach their young people English.
And that's exactly what I found. It wasn't easy. Took a while for me to find a program that both offered the things I was looking for, and that would actually accept me. The application process itself took forever. A bunch of other stuff happened that maybe I'll tell you about in another post sometime. But then, finally, I got the email. I was going to the Republic of Georgia. I would be teaching English.
There were some caveats. I wouldn't know what grade I would be teaching, until I arrived in the country itself and signed a contract. I also wouldn't know where in the country I would be living, or what my host family would be like. I thought about it and talked about it and wrote about it, and finally decided that I didn't care about all the unknowns that came along with this opportunity. Because that's exactly what it was. An amazing, incredible opportunity to experience another culture and country in a way I never had before.
After I decided to go, I wrote the following in my Journal.
"Despite decades of hopeful searching, I never did find the wardrobe or the wrinkle in time. And now, well into Adulthood, it would seem that a desperate bid for ex-patriotism is in fact my very last chance to slip the noose of a 'normal life.' And I will go. I will go because I know all too well that I will regret it for the rest of my life if I don't. And there have been far to many of those cluttering things up already.
A year away from my dearest friends, and a family that is my rock, my lifeline. I think maybe it is time to live without a lifeline. I want a challenge, an adventure. It is time to press CTL+ALT+DEL, and restart this stalled and frozen life of mine. I want to break myself down to my base elements and find out exactly what I am made of."
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