Senor-itis

I can't wait for the last day of school!

approximate time left at the job: 3 1/2 months. that's 15 weeks. that's 15 TGIF's. only 15 more "uggg. monday"s.

15 weeks ago it was December 10th. hmmm. it's been longer since then that I hoped. I still have some time to wait. that's okay. now i can reset my "i want outta here!" a little bit cause i know it's further away than christmas is past. that's cool.

but, man, it's coming.

HAH!

Well, since last I wrote, I've decided to go to Ecuador instead of Mexico. This may change again. It may change a few times. But I'm more excited about going again than I've been in a long long time and that feels great. Cause it's my hot reality and I can do what I want! Amazing how much different it feels. When this whole thing started I wanted to be in South America, then I planned myself right out of it and into Mexico. Thank goodness I realized that the dream isn't Mexico, even if there are reasons that it makes more sense. The dream is South America, and that is where I'm getting my juice from. It feels exactly like it did when I first decided to do the trip at all. So right. Glad to have been paying attention to that.

But what else have I done?

I got the first of the hep A shots. My mom was able to do it so I didn't have to pay for the office visits. And I learned a trick about shots. If you let the alcohol dry, they don't hurt. The sting is from the alcohol getting in as the needle pricks the skin. I was also skeptical. Until the shot didn't hurt. At all. Cool trick.

I haven't heard back from my uncle yet about the questions for him, I'll report in when I do.

I made a list of things to put up on my wall at work to try to tick off as I go.

I emailed a friend of the family who has been a non-profit CFO for many years to set up a meeting (any excuse to expense cocktails) to discuss starting the process of my non-profit now so that when I'm ready, the paperwork is all in place and I just have to start the grant writing. That will be good to have started.

I contacted the sister of a friend who just got back from teaching in Ecuador and we are going to have coffee in early April as she is very busy right now.

A potential opportunity has come up for making some serious cash in September and October before I go so I will continue to look into that as a possibility. I can certainly go on what cash I will have, but it wouldn't hurt to have some more.

So now it's down to lists and check marks. And I am ecstatic again. Just beside myself. I really had a few weeks where I was unsure of what I was doing or why I wanted to do it or whether I was really going to or not. I suspected that it was part of the phase, but I was starting to be nervous about it. Now, I feel unstoppable again. It's pretty amazing.

my uncle's a lawyer

doesn't everyone have an uncle who's a lawyer?

anyway, I decided that if I come to write about what I've done each day to knock stuff off my to-do list then I will have to actually get some stuff done, right?

I think it's important to have someone at home who has complete access to my finances so that if something goes wonky, I wont be stuck in some weird place with no way to get at my money. I decided that would be my friend Geoff, whom I trust completely. I thought that I would just have him put on my account and that would be easy. Then people have started telling me that I need to arrange to give him power of attorney and file papers and such things or it could go all wrong just when I need it to work the most. That also brought up questions of whether I have made my will in case something goes more wrong than having him wire me money can fix.

But my affairs are so simple. One bank account, no bills to pay, if I die and I happen to have any money, just give it to my brother. That seems simple to me. Then I realized that if I had a more sophisticated understanding of the way that world works, I would likely not have one simple bank account and still, at 35 being filling out the 1040EZ cause it's easy. like it says.

A friend of mine was concerned enough about it to offer to pay for one hour of legal fees for me to make sure everything was in order and I was about to take him up on it but suddenly today it dawned on me, my uncle is a lawyer! Sweet! He is even a retired lawyer who has spent the last ten years traveling the world. Even sweeter! He will know the answers to these types of questions. So I sent off an email to him today asking his advice about how to make sure that everything is in order in case something goes wrong. I'm glad to have someone "in my pocket" who knows these types of things and will give me the best advice. That is lucky.

Also, my mom is a nurse so I asked her about the possibility of getting vaccines at wholesale and having her administer them instead of having to pay for an office visit. Twice. She is checking into that for me. So, again, lucky to have people in my life in the right positions.

So that is what I got done today. Not too much, but at least it's something. And I am again profoundly grateful for and to the people in my life.

but what am I DOING?

It is just getting on time to start doing stuff! It's very exciting.

I have an appointment to get the first of my Hep A shots next week as you need to get them 6 months apart for total coverage and when we went to Costa Rica I was lazy and never got the second shot. Which was stupid because it would have been free. Now I have to pay again. Grrrr. So now I have to get the first one again and then the second. I'll get the other shots I need along with the second round of Hep A in six months.

I am in contact with the online TEFL certification course and will hopefully start that in April. I don't want to wait too long because then it will be summer and I wont want to do things that require me to be inside on the computer. They don't write me back as often as I would like them to and it is good yoga to remember that they live on a different time frame and one week here and a few days there isn't going to hurt me any. And to look forward to living in that time frame. I can't wait to live somewhere that is built around doing things when you get around to them. That works for me. It works so very well.

I ripped all my CDs into my computer over the last month or so and just realized that I inadvertently ripped them at the lowest quality so now I have to rip them all again. sigh. I will probably get my external hard drive first though because I don't think they will fit at the larger size. So I'm getting ready to write that check next week even though originally I was going to wait til I was closer to leaving.

I bought portable travel speakers on line and am waiting for them to get here to see how they will work out.

I will ask for some money toward the camera I want for my birthday and be able to purchase that soon.

I have been researching different places and towns in Mexico so that when it is time to decide where to go and teach after the internship in Guadalajara I will have a better idea of what I want. I am leaning toward interior colonial towns but am committed to staying open to the best option. The upside to deciding before I go would be to have a better idea of what to pack. The interior towns tend to be in the mountains and a little chillier than one would usually think of Mexico as being.

The to-do lists are so long and I am afraid that I will think I have plenty of time and then find that suddenly I don't have any more time and really really need to get a bunch of stuff done. Then I will want to kick my own butt for not doing more sooner. But here I am at sooner and looking at the list and thinking, I can't do any of that yet. Balance.

I love this. I love producing my own life. What great practice the last ten years have been.

VS

There seem to be a lot of vs. in my world right now.

Today it is planning vs. being prepared.

Reading, researching, budgeting, praying, cleaning house, selling items, buying items, packing and repacking in my head, all of this in preparation.

Doing my very very best to keep the planning to a minimum. Trust that I will find the next best thing as it comes to me and being conscious of losing not-yet-known opportunities by putting too many plans in place. Plenty of hopes, plenty of would-likes and visions. Just not too much that is solid.

So when people ask me what my plan is, they are rarely satisfied. With much love and with my best interest in heart, they share their fears that I have not researched this properly and are afraid that I am not well prepared. I try to thank them for the help and concern and smile to myself knowing that I am exactly on track. I am the only one who has to trust my ability to do this in my own way.

going vs. leaving

I can not wait to go. Buzz buzz buzz buzz, is it here yet? yet? yet? yet?

How will I ever screw up the courage to leave? How can I give up what i have? Most importantly, who I have? There are people that I miss so much it hurts my heart when I don't see them for a week. How will I leave? It might be easier to know that I was planning to be gone for a year. Or any predetermined amount of time. But I plan to be gone at least five years and maybe forever. What have I done? How can I hug these people for the last time for so long? I don't leave for seven months still and it already brings tears to my eyes some days.

I know I have to go, I just don't know how on earth I'm going to leave.

somebody has to start walking

You know when you are camping with a group of friends and you decide that you're going to go down to the river together and you all stand around for a while waiting to go. Waiting while someone just grabs a jacket which reminds someone that they need their smokes, but now someone needs a beer because we've been standing here so long, but hang on cause I might want my guitar, etc. until someone just starts walking. And then people look at each other and say "are we going?" and eventually people start to follow the one walking? I feel like the walker. I am ready to go and willing to go first. And eventually those who will follow me will catch up and we'll have our adventure. It's very fun. Even if no one else comes along, just for a minute they thought they would and sometimes that's enough.