I have never been good at
consistently keeping daily journals. For
my whole life, I have tried to keep journals of my thoughts, starting whole new
books, only quickly forgetting each time that I had started in the first place. Many people in my family have been good at
this. My grandfather is a good example. "Pop-Pop" Ray entered short,
half-page entries into journals for years on end, eventually filling up at
least 7 full-volumes comparable to an Encyclopedia Britannica set (if anyone even
remembers what those are). This, like
everything else about Pop-pop, is an inspiring thing. His life-stories, his great adventures, his
exploits in WW11, will be remembered forever by him and by anyone with enough
patience and interest to sit down and read.
And believe me, his stories were
interesting. He was the second of (at
least) three generations of my maternal family to go into military
service. In the army, Pop-pop traveled,
often on foot, all over Western Europe by age 25. Inspiring, no? My dad has similar stories, most of which
took place in the cockpit of an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker that flew all
over the Pacific.
So how does a 22-year-old college
graduate with zero intentions of
going into military service, in an attempt to live up to the family name, live
such adventures for himself? He decides
to make it his goal to work as a civilian in a foreign country after
graduating. This, as you can well guess
by now, is exactly what I did. Or, at
least, what I am about to do. See, I had
this crazy idea in my junior year that I wanted to work in Spain, the home
country of one of my most influential professors. But with the financial structure of the
Eurozone beginning to melt, giving rise to what Spanish journalist Antonio Jiménez
Barca coined “La generación de los Mileuristas” (a whole generation of extremely
well educated and qualified young Spaniards who were unable to earn more than
1000 Euros per month), I decided that little work was to be had in Spain. Instead, over the subsequent year of college,
I began to look south. At that point, I
had 5 years of Spanish language experience, and had spent two weeks wandering
around Costa Rica, drinking and making friends. Eat your heart out, National Geographic:
I can handle anything.
This brings me to now, when I must
make good on all of that (possibly misplaced) confidence. On August 3rd, I leave for
Santiago de Chile to complete a certification for teaching English as a Second
Language, and to fulfill a 6-month teaching contract. I will be living in the city, hopefully with
my own apartment, a decent job, and too much free time. The plan is to use this experience not only
for the physical certification and teacher training, but for the opportunity to
solidify my fluency in Spanish. If all
goes well, I will be proficient enough to take a Spanish-English medical
interpretation exam when I come back. Speaking
in economic terms, this seems like one hell of an investment in human capital,
an investment which will hopefully lead to a job that does not involve
troubleshooting orders of pasta.
It may
be a bit presumptuous to start a travel blog a month before I even travel
anywhere. I understand this. However, I have been thinking about it a lot,
and I feel that getting it started counts as one task checked off the vast to-do
list that separates me from beginning my journey. But let’s be honest, lots of things separate
me from beginning my journey: summer plans with friends, spending time with the
love of my life who I will be leaving behind to accomplish my goals, taking care
of family members who are ill, not to mention the downright terror of living
somewhere new after 21 years on the same side of town.
All of that said, I will try to
keep things relevant. Before I go, I
will post only interesting things that pertain to this experience (whatever
that means). After I arrive, I will try
to post regularly about the things that I learn. Of course, I’ll be busy enough
that I may revert to old ways and forget to post consistently. I’ll try not to let this happen. I will also have a personal, hand-written
journal for when I have no internet, or just to write more personal
thoughts. I may, at times, transcribe
some of these entries into this blog.
All in all, there should be plenty of things to read, if anyone is
patient and interested enough to read my story.
Stay tuned.
