My life for the next year....

It's not quite the hemisphere I'm used to. Adventure and an abundance of new things awaits me. See the last book on the bottom shelf? I'm now a proud owner of that book thanks to Borders' going out of business sale. :)

Keeping my sanity.... or at least trying to

"Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos."

-The I Ching

Lack of information

Going through this process of applying for this teaching position and getting things sorted out (classes, books, location of the school, etc) has been interesting to say the least. Lesson learned so far is that the people I am dealing with like to be very vague. I ask: "when do we start/fly in?" and my response is "in August. I guess I should have been more specific with my question, so my response would have come out a bit more ... informative. So, thank you for your answer, as it was A) very beneficial and B) it was totally new information! (insert a hearty dose of sarcasm)

Is this something I'm going to have to get used to?

A little bit of home (kinda) in a foreign land

So this little birdy told me that China has been getting in the habit of making western town replicas. "China is reportedly building a replica of the Austrian town of Hallstatt, complete with winding roads and a lake." I could not be more excited! link to article

Now I know that when I start missing my western life/scenery, I can take a mini hiatus and for this, I am thankful.

Un-joke-like joke

I was reading a friend's blog, who happened to have sold most of his possessions (minus his car) and bought a one way ticket to Mexico city and has now been backpacking for almost a year, when I came across this joke that he shared:


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An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.

Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

The tourist then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"

The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."

The tourist then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The tourist scoffed, " I can help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you could run your ever-expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

The tourist replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then?" asked the Mexican.

The tourist laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions?...Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
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Like my friend, I was inspired by this. Yes, it's a joke, but in reality, it's far from it. I think in America we have lost focus of what it is to live, and we focus on money instead. We can't enjoy a nice day sitting in the park people watching or reading a book, instead, we get this nagging feeling that we should be doing something else, and that something else usually involves money. I want to be more like the fisherman.

New Passport

I got my new passport! It's maroon (the color of the EU) and it doesn't look like a fake! My picture is actually printed on a plastic page instead of paper. Pretty snazzy! Only problem with it is that it's completely blank. Hmmm I wonder how I can change that....? :)

A reason to move

"And then there's the passage of time. Another old friend -- my oldest, in fact -- wrote an email to me after I told him the news of our move. We've both been in New York for two decades, and we are both watching our kids growing up at lightning speed. "Change like this slows down time," he wrote. When you're in your routine, frequenting the same old haunts, time seems to accelerate -- was it just four years ago that our youngest son was born? But all the complexities of moving -- figuring out where to live, getting there, and then navigating all the new realities of the changed environment -- means that the minutes and hours that once passed as a kind of background process, the rote memory of knowing your place, suddenly are thrust into your conscious awareness. You have to figure it out, and figuring things out makes you aware of the passing days and months more acutely. You get disoriented, or at least you have to think for a while before you can be properly oriented again.

So that is why we are moving: for the natural beauty, yes, and the climate, and the Bay Area tech scene, and the many friends out there we haven't seen enough of over the past twenty years. But more than anything, we're moving to slow down time. "

Excerpt from Ben Casnocha's blog.