What's Going On?

Go to my new blog - It's Okay To Say That

- gasp -

Long break. What have I been doing?

1. Finally moved to Portland, Oregon (arrived on 10/22/2006)
2. Saw the G R A N D C A N Y O N
3. Lost $200 in Las Vegas, Nevada (damn you Casino Royale!)
4. Drove with my older sister Lydia and saw: Death Valley; Bodie (a ghost town), CA; Yosemite National Park; Sonoma Valley wine country (2.5 cases of excellent vino); the northern california coast & redwood forest; and stayed in a "tree house" resort in the southern Oregon woods. Four days, man... four days.
   
5. Bought myself an eisle and some painting supplies and have been painting 4-6 hours a day ever since.
6. Went to the coast, saw the beach, almost got flooded out. Ah, the hot-tub.
7. Falling in love, meeting new people, drinking lots of good micro-brew beer, walking up to Alberta street everyday.
8. Got a job teaching English (the irony is perfect) on a little university campus in NE Portland. Just part-time right now, but it's been good to continue exercising those "teacher" muscles.
9. Spending time with my neices, my sister, my brother-in-law, and my brother.
   
10. Went to a Trailblazer's game on 11/26. I turned 34 the day before.

Now I'm just in a holding pattern of waiting to get an apartment. Speaking of... I have to go see one in 15 minutes. Gotta go.

New Mexico

It's stunning here. Absolutely beautiful.

Photos can be found here.

Where the heart is...

You'll never be in doubt
That's what it's all about
You can't take me for granted and smile
Count the days I'm gone
Forget reaching me by phone
Because I promise I'll be gone for a while.
-- Sly & the Family Stone

Back home again in Indiana... but only for another couple of days, thankfully. Good to see some friends after a couple of months gone and get one more meal at a few of my favorite eateries here in town. But, the time has most definitely come for me to saddle up and hit the open road. Mexico, for those who may still care or be curious, turned into one of those I was happy to let off the hook and swim away. I might still go there - or anywhere - and start using my shiny new TEFL certification to teach English and "see the world". But, for the time being I'm more focussed on taking my time driving out west and settling into my new home town, Portland, Oregon. I've been waiting to move there since at least 1992, having abandoned two seperate attempts to do so over the years. It will be good to be close to my sister and brother and start putting down some new roots. It's funny to be back here, though, and encounter a few people - some happy and some surprised and others not that happy to see me. It is what it is. The fall weather has been a nice welcoming committee, too. This ol' blog will probably start growing some cobwebs soon as my updates will become less frequent and more rambling when they do appear.

Jiggity Jig

But it's been no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise -
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race -
And I ain't gonna lose
-- Freddie Mercury

Welcome to the United States of America. Now, take off your shoes and stand in this line for an hour...

Four airports. Three flights. Two baggage searches. One rental car. I'm home, for the time being. It feels odd. Was driving up from New Orleans to my folks' place and flipping around on the radio. We are the Champions came on one station, so I left it there to sing along. When it's done*, the rural Lousiana/Mississippi DJ comes on and tells everyone listening that the band is called "Queen". He then goes on to say, "They took that name before being a queen was a bad thing. Hehehe." I just laughed in disgust and told myself "don't turn around." So wrong on so many levels. I mean, how can a DJ at a classics station not know about Mr. Mercury being gay? Okay, maybe he was bi. Aren't all rock stars from the 70s at least bi? I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure calling someone a queen as some kind of pejorative for being a homosexual was around in the 1970s, too. Ah... the good old US of A. Gotta love it, right? Especially ignorant assholes given access to public airwaves. I flipped around some more and found a dial-in Bible discussion show where one guy was calling the other a "dummy" because he didn't know some verse from Isaiah or Ezekiel or what the fuck ever. I guess he wasn't going after the whole "meek" thing.

I paid $9 for the Sunday New York Times in Prague this morning, so desperate was I for a paper with some substance. The Int'l Hairy Trib is good and all, but it's a little thin. And with a dead iPod (I lost 853 songs into the ether a few weeks ago when it crashed), I needed all the reading material I could get my hands on.

Have a phone interview tomorrow or Friday with the new Director down in Mexico. I'll reserve judgement on going or not going until we get a chance to speak. Glad to see they've moved ahead on filling the position. But, I'm having a bit of the jetlag blues and can't think rationally about leaving again after enduring the pain and aggrivation that is the US Customs procedure in Washington-Dulles airport. The only thing more intimidating was the Czech passport guy with a sub-machine gun carrying partner when I left. That was fun. Apparently there was a major terrorist threat in Prague a week ago and they didn't bother to tell anyone.

* was actually "corrected" by one of my "tutors" in Prague (the one American, no less) that only Turkeys are done and people are finished. That's the kind of quality insights you can expect from Oxford TEFL. I tell you one thing I'm glad to be both done and finished with and it's getting useless feedback like that following a one-hour lesson on the ridiculously subtle differences between first and second conditionals.

It's late - I'm off to bed.

You Learn Something New Every Day

My buddy said he had a new girlfriend,
Prettiest thing he's seen since he didn't know when.
He took me out to meet his girl one night,
That's when I learned that his girlfriend was my wife.
-- Tommy Tucker

There's really no smooth way to say that someone is dead. They're just dead. Brian, the director of the Language Institute who hired me, died of a heart attack last Thursday. At first I didn't believe it. Couldn't or didn't want to. Too surreal to be real. But, it's true. I've communicated with both his bereaved fiance and the secretary at the Institute and it's 100% for real. It's amazing how delicate life is. How the connections you make, even from 5,000 miles away via email and chat, can just dissappear like that. He was a huge part of why I decided to go to Mexico. His experience (12 years as a teacher before going into the administration side), his attitude and philosophy about teaching and mentoring new teachers, and especially his love for living the good life and appreciating all that true Mexican culture has to offer. All of that and more made me want to work for him. He would have been a great first boss for my teaching career. But, now he's gone and my job offer is in all kinds of limbo. There's no one who has replaced him yet.

After some initial doubts about going, I've decided to keep my plans in place. I'll meet with the Interim director on October 16th and we'll see if they still need/want me to start. If not, what's so bad about that? I'll be in Mexico where there are plenty of teaching jobs to be had and I'm also interested in exploring Costa Rica and maybe even some points south of there. Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina all have good markets for English teachers. And, my goal of becoming fluent in Spanish hasn't gone anywhere.

Life is a good teacher. It's precious. Hold on to that and never forget that we have but a fleeting amount of time on this planet.

Last Day...

Just took the grammar test (quick, come up with a simple rule for comparative adjectives!) and I think I did all right on it. I'm certainly much more confident of my grammar knowledge now than I was 30 days ago. I have to teach one more practice lesson to my students tonight. I teach about 9 (sometimes 6, other times 10) pre-intermediate students. After that I'll meet with the Trinity moderator on Saturday to review my "Materials Assignment" in which I developed two sets of original class-room materials and then analyzed how effective they were. Should be a snap.

The Current

It's crossed my mind that anyone reading this or anyone who knew/knows me may be wondering where Mexico fits into this whole 'go to Europe' thing I insisted on talking to you about beginning back in May of this year. You would be accurate in your description of Europe if you excluded Mexico as a part of it. Mexico is not in Europe. This is true. An argument can be made that I'm leaving too early, that I may never have this chance again. But, that's true about anything you do - you may never have that chance again, be it something small and trivial (getting to drink New Coke before it disappeared) or it may be something big (losing out on the lottery with your co-workers because you were on vacation). Regardless of what it is, you have to make a choice. Europe has been wonderful to see again and in so much more detail this go-round. Living here has been even more than I thought it would be and it's such an interesting place to see the world on parade everyday. Prague would have been fun to stick around in and hang-out and cement the friendships I've been making this month. But... right now, the thought of it makes me know I'd be bored to tears. As BB once said, the thrill is gone. Mexico will be about as far from this as I can imagine and the thought of becoming fluent in Spanish is just far too tempting to pass up. I'm hopeful that the relaxed lifestyle I imagine will be there is actually the case. I like cream in my coffee and flour tortillas with eggs over easy. I don't think that will be hard to find down south. Anyway, I'm rambling and paying $3/hour at this sleazy little internet cafe to do it. Anyone who had hoped to come see me in Europe next year... sorry 'bout that, mates. Mexico in January is nice, I hear.

Adios mis amigos.