I am going on an adventure!

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As you all probably know by now. I am going on an adventure. I am leaving the country on July 30th to teach at the Escuela Las Morochas in Ciudad Ojeda of Venezuela. Which prompted me to resurrect this tired old blog. I am hoping to keep a record of my journey here not only as a personal keepsake for the memories but also as a way to keep in touch with friends and family. Though if you know me, I tend to ramble so I am sure these posts will be chock full of random theories, weird quotes, daily musings, and the stuff that  makes people in conversations kind of tilt there head slightly look at you with a tiny bit of worry and just go "huh..." For now though I am still in the process of saying good bye to friends and gathering stuff together to bring down there. This contract is for a minimum of one school year but can be extended indefinitely as long as the country stands. 

I hope to talk about:

The experience of it all

How I ended up finding this job

Why james hasselman is the most underrated zombie suvivalist group member I know on the planet.

and so so much more

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But regardless of everything.

I had a weird experience the other day talking to a friend of mine. We just couldn't match up time schedules to see each other. Finally, he shrugged it off and said, "Well, whatever, next time." And we both kind of paused, the feelings sort of lingered, in that moment we both kind of realized a new thing that we took for granted. There might not be a next time. And I'm not trying to scare anyone, I fully intend on coming back to the U.S. specially for some holidays and over the summer but I am not sure how long this is experience to last. The way I see it, there is three options that I'm willing to entertain for the end of next year. 1) I love it, love the school, love the country, stay on for another year. 2) I like it, hate the school, love the country or culture, go find another school around the area or in another country and keep going around. or finally 3) I hate everything, I'm a spoiled pampered brat and I come home after one year and sulk, lick my wounds, and say that was a failed experiment. As long as I'm not bitten by a banana spider (more of those later), kidnapped, or I don't succumb to the heat, I really doubt scenario three will happen. I just want to use the time we have left, I leave one month from tomorrow. I value the friends I've made and wish that life could have us all work together, live together, be together always but sadly it's not the trend. I will miss all of you, but missing is for after the fact and enjoying is for now. So let's see each other. Mark your calendars for the goodbye celebration July 26/27th. Not sure where but we'll make it happen.

FINALLY, a thing many of you don't know is that in my spare time, I work on music with the very talented, very beautiful man Angel Ramos of The Elevated. And many of our friends (Kevin O'toole, Peter Goebel, Keith Wadsworth, Mike Taylor, Meghan Leigh). As a hobby and something that we love to do. I remember we got to a point in working where we asked the question: What is the point of music if people don't hear it? It's kind of a selfish thing. So with that in mind we have decided to release a collaboration mini-album of what we've been doing. Part spoken word, part soft rock. You can give it a listen, all songs are free to download because we want anyone who wants to enjoy them to be able to, there is also a donation link if anyone wants to monetarily support our ventures. Despite that I am going to Venezuela we plan to keep working together. If anyone has some feedback please e-mail me about it, I love making music so I am always looking for constructive criticism.  LINK to music and such.

So if you are interested you can subscribe if not you can drop in. I won't be blasting this on facebook because, quite frankly, I think I did that enough over the past 6 months with fund raising. So cheers, I hope to see people before I leave and I hope you come along virtually for the adventure.

oh yes I forgot

PS Adventure Juice studios may just be back in action.

(Nothing to do with CC contest though)

Things are going slowly

Hey all,

Recovery is going well, I get to use a cane to stabilize myself which gives me a very teacher-esque persona (oh and it makes me look awesomely cool). Which is a good thing becausssssse I am a substitute teacher. Speaking on the subject I have been given a couple of options for my future in terms of jobs in the past week I don't want to talk about them too much for fear of jinxing the possibilities but I will post on here when something... anything is confirmed. I have not officially started the diet yet but I have been checking calories and devising a suitable plan, I probably won't start that until I get back to running in 5-7 weeks. My goals are broad street in may and marathon next November and then I don't know.

Going to physical therapy, twice a week. It feels good to be back in a gym after so long.

I'm scared for the first day back when I put my running shoes on.

Catch you all later.

God I wish I had more time for Minecraft and Reach

Recovery

It's a lot quicker than you think.

sorry for tweet-esque post, started a long term sub job and things are moving.

And so it starts.

I feel I've used this title before or something similar but no matter. This is it, surgery in the morning. Fasting 'til then. The only thing that makes me uneasy is the fact I will be going under and while probability would state that I have little to worry about its just the idea that, there is where the potential is, since the operation and pretty common. I get to rock a cool cane afterwards though so be a smidge jealous. Gotta get to sleep though so one final thought.

I don't going under also because when you're coming out of it you are bound to act stupid and tell embarrassing stories and such I don't want to give examples, maybe if we talk in person. Okay internet?

Hello stranger.

Let me first address why I have been absent then let me address what I tried to make this blog after the contest ended.

I have been busy and lazy and non-commital lately and by lately I mean since I got my job(s) in the beginning of October. Ever since my loans started showing up in my bank account I've been very work focused seeing very little of friends ( :( send the wambulance) but it all seriousness its been a drag and I've been in a slump in regards to hobbies especially blog writing. Apologies as always it's not you it's me. (If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one)

I've always felt blogs were kind of impersonal, kind of just microphones for people on the internet. I wanted to let any and all readers get to know me and no where my thoughts and beliefs come from because much of the time I feel like friends or family don't understand the some of where my opinions come from. I believe it's an amalgamation (GRE WORD) of my experiences and ways I was brought up. I guess really since then it has been an effort to be understood better but after reading over what has been written I feel I missed my own point entirely and it quickly became a ME ME ME blog (I have no idea how to underline things.... i would soooo underline that) and I never wanted it to be like that.

So what do we do now you might ask ourselves, i mean this is kind of an awkward situation. Your hear reading this, I'm here writing this. I just admitted that its been pretty terrible up to this point... are we allowed to make eye contact or would it just make this whole interaction awkward...?

I am getting surgery on December 28th (merry freakin xmas) on my knee for a torn meniscus I'm hoping to atleast chronicle some of trials while I am getting back to marathon/triathlete shape, and losing weight. I've already calculated my resting metabolic rate now i just need to eat less than that caloric burn. Healthy, to the point, and based on will power. I am 5'11, 23 years old and a whopping 222 lbs it has slowly gone up because of the lack of running. I know I hide it well but theres no sense in hiding the fact that this is by far the biggest I've been in my life and farthest away from my target weight (185) as I've ever been.

So plan is as follows

Get surgery

Chronicle falling down a bunch

Get on diet

Chronicle missteps of terrible will power

...?

....?

profit!

Lose a ton of weight

Write a book that turns into a movie starring russell crowe

oh and ps after new years no booze, it's got to go.

EDIT: PPS I AM A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER NOW! thats the work...

Apologies for lack of posts a lot has been going on, friend getting married, started work, got addicted to minecraft. After this weekend there should be a good, long, insightful, hopefully interesting post here.