Homeward Bound!!!

I'm writing this blog with great enthusiasm, for it represents a closing on this chapter of my life. My time at the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica is finally at an end! To celebrate this momentous occasion, I left the country with a gargantuan smile on my face! I guess it wasn't actually gargantuan, I just wanted to use that word. In reality, my face looked confused and extremely, extremely tired.

I don't think there's been much secret in my writing nor my stories that I was not overly impressed with Costa Rica. In fact, I wasn't impressed at all. Some would even say that I downright didn't like it (I would be one of those who made such a claim). I do feel some kind of obligation to disclaim that I arrived to Costa Rica already bitter. I was bitter about two major issues: spending one more year in another developing country, and being away from my friends and family for one more year. With that perspective, I openly admit that it would have been pretty hard for anyone to walk away from this experience saying, "Gee wiz, Costa Rica and UPeace are great!" This may explain my cynicism and negative outlook on a lot of my writings.

It wasn't all bad, though. I met some amazing people from everywhere in the world. I encountered moments of intense mental stimulation and new ideas, something for which graduate school is renowned. I saw some interesting things and places and had some very entertaining adventures. Probably the most significant thing was finally getting the chance to date my dream girl.I met Becca in a hostel in 2002 in Switzerland, and I had a crush on her immediately. She was the first girl with whom I had ever made a first move. She "tripped" as I tried to kiss her on a star-lit walk through a Swiss mountain village so I decided to try again. She tripped again, of course, before I realized she wasn't tripping... Oh well. Got her email in the morning and then left town. We stayed in e-contact for a while, during which time I found out she had had a boyfriend while we were in Switzerland.

In the summer of 2004 she sent me an email saying she was coming to Seattle for a job training and invited me to dinner with her (she thought I lived in Seattle). I said I lived in Portland, but I would be happy to make the drive (3 hours) to have dinner with her. Fully expecting that she still had a boyfriend, I didn't make a move. I also didn't make a move because I was shy as hell. We had such an amazing time together that at the end of the night, she invited me to stay. I told her I couldn't because I had to work in the morning. She asked if she could give me a kiss goodnight and I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world! Her version of this story was that I didn't kiss her back... But she was only the second girl I'd ever kissed; I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

After driving home for 30 minutes I realized how much of a dumbass I was, and called her to tell her I would ditch work the following day and come back up. It never happened, but she invited me to Arizona where she was to work for the season. I found out that she didn't have a boyfriend when we were in Seattle so I got my act together and met her in Phoenix just before Christmas, 2004. I went down there with such high expectations and it ended up being the most awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassing experience in the world. I flirted my brains out with her and she wasn't the least bit receptive. Turns out, she got back together with her boyfriend over Thanksgiving and forgot to inform me.

Bummed, I put her out of my head until fall of 2006. She sent me an email saying she was single and had just got a new job and wanted to come see me in Bulgaria during my Peace Corps service for Christmas and New Years. I was stoked out of my mind! I started building up expectations again and getting incredibly excited! A week before she was going to buy her ticket, she got fired and couldn't afford the trip. Denied!

Almost another year went by before I heard from her again. I had just finished my Peace Corps service and was zigzagging north through Eastern Europe to Moscow. In the fall of 2007, she said she needed a European vacation to sort some things out, and asked if she could meet me somewhere. I told her, "Sure, meet me in Lithuania." completely expecting to be blown off. To my surprise and delight, she sold her jeep and bought a ticket to Latvia. Close enough. Five years of sporadic emails, missed chances, and unfortunate circumstances had passed before I finally told her I'd had a crush on her since we first met. We traveled together for only three weeks, but our time together was super intense and we clicked hard!During our time together in Eastern Europe, she reciprocated my feelings and gave me grand hope for a future together, but as she had a boyfriend at this time, she ended up breaking my heart and going back to him.

I moved on, but somehow we ended up at the same university, even in the same program! It took quite a bit of effort on her part, but at long last she convinced me, and at the end of 2008 we began a relationship. We had some amazing times together - times that will forever put a smile on my face when I think of them. Tragically, our eternal curse of bad timing seems to have shown its ugly, yet consistent, face once again and our relationship ended along with our time in Costa Rica. Nevertheless, she's a super special gal, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to be with her while I was with her.The academic part of my year in Costa Rica peaked just as it was ending. My favorite scholarly moment occurred during my last class when we learned that the current-ish health craze to remove trans-fats (hydrogenated oils) from the market is, in fact, destroying the rain forest! Ha! I even laughed out loud in class at that one. Turns out, the foods we love so much that used to contain trans-fats require some kind of delicious alternative. That alternative is palm oil. All of a sudden there was a giant demand in the market for palm oil to which suppliers responded in force! Oil palm plantations are dominating land where rain forest once thrived. This is mostly so in Indonesia - but apparently it's happening to a lesser extent (though still significant) in Costa Rica as well.

Directly following my time in Costa Rica was a one week fellowship for which I had managed to qualify. The Sustainable Energy Fellowship taught a group of 40 university students the ins and outs of sustainable energy. We learned about wind and solar power, nuclear power, fuel cells, batteries, carbon emissions and their politics, and we had a great time learning about all of them! I finally shed my hippie views of nuclear power equaling the stupidest idea ever, and instead adopted the idea of energy resource diversity in terms of feasibility. I made some great contacts, and again met people from all over the country, studying a variety of different disciplines. This project started out being a free ticket home from Costa Rica, but I ended up benefiting much more from it than simply a free ticket. I hope to use this knowledge in some of my future endeavors.

While at the University of Michigan for this fellowship, I got a job offer back home! Hot damn! So in addition to coming home to friends and family, I also get to come home to a job! I'm accepting a position with Oregon Metro doing hazardous waste disposal. This is the same job I had before I left for the Peace Corps, four years ago, but I'll be at a different facility, a slower facility. This means there will be some extra time to implement some creative projects that I hope will utilize my overseas experiences to benefit my community and my new coworkers!

I'm in a good place, emotionally, physically, and mentally, to start my life over in the Pacific Northwest. Not that I necessarily need to "start over", but I've finally got a chance to plant some roots and bring a bit of stability to my life. I'm excited at the prospect of this new adventure called normalcy, and I can't wait for all the pieces to fall into place!

My picture site is ready if you want to have your mind blown with my mind-blowing photography skills. I think my subsequent posts will be on the order of my adjustment to living in the USA and reverse culture shock after being away for four years. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned!