Search

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Drinking Milkshakes Cold and Long

Tomorrow, technically, I'll fly to Philadelphia, where I'll get shots and learn about the Peace Corps. I'll fly to New York, then Istanbul, then Bishkek, where I'll take shots and learn about the Peace Corps (and spend three months learning the language and the culture of Kyrgyzstan). I'll go to my post, and I'll teach kids of approximately high school age how to speak and write English. My family, maybe some of my friends, will visit me occasionally. I might even get to come home for a week or two. I'll probably make lifelong friends. Maybe I'll meet my wife. It'll suck sometimes; others, I'll have a lot of fun. I'll post to this blog. I'll do good things, and I'll feel good about them. After two years, I'll come home. I might move to California and go to law school while working as a Peace Corps Recruiter. I might not do that.

It's strange, knowing with relative certainty the way the next two years of my life will play out. Not the day-to-day things, of course, but the big picture. It's supposed to be very exciting, but it feels more like watching a movie I saw a few years ago and still remember the major plot points of. I almost want to have served in the Peace Corps rather than actually serve.

I'd been in a sort of holding pattern since January, when I got my assignment, waiting for the end of March to come. Now that it's here, every time I do something, I suppose it will be the last time for a long time, maybe ever. I want some Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, but I think I'd feel too much like McVeigh. This must be what going away to college feels like, too. I like Lafayette, and I liked growing up here. It will be hard to leave, but I realize that while home is a place, it is also a time and a group of people, and those latter two are almost all gone now.

Enough melancholy. This will be fun. I hope you'll enjoy reading about it.

2 comments:

  1. Replace "California" with Washington state, and I couldn't agree more (okay, that's a half truth). Perhaps we'll both meet smokin' hot wives-to-be. You get the gypsy; I get the socialist Jew (with glasses, of course).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't wait to read about it. Sounds like an adventure to me! Make the most of it.

    ReplyDelete