Keeping Thoroughly Busy At Home

Last week was a blur of mixed emotions, reunions, and adjusting to life back at home in Sharon, MA. I'm only here for a little under three weeks, and I like to think of it like a longer vacation, and soon enough I'll be heading back to South America. The only difference is that instead of returning to Cuenca, Ecuador, I'll now be starting over and moving to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This time without the support of an organization like WorldTeach behind me, and it will be up to me to secure a job and everything else that comes with that.

So my last blog post was a few days back, and it's time to catch up a little bit. On Wednesday I'd gone into Boston for a coffee with my old multimedia professor, Steve Fox. Steve was attending a journalism conference at the Sheraton in Copley Place, and he invited me to sit in on a panel discussion about internships, and pointed me out as an example of someone who has continued working in something related to my internship. I used to intern and blog for Gonomad. After that I went and bought myself a new MacBook Pro, knowing that my three year old Dell Inspiron E1505 was about to buy the farm.

For the next couple of days I had to relearn how to use a Mac and transfer all of my files from the old computer to the new one. I got really bogged down when I tried to transfer my music and accidentally transferred a whole bunch of music that I'd long ago deleted. I had to go through song by song and choose which music I actually wanted.

Besides dealing with computers, I continued with running. The first couple of run attempts were not very rewarding, and sharp cramps stopped me from running further. But I persisted, and have been able to run about 4 and a half miles each attempt for the last few days. My lungs feel great now that there's actually air to breath, and if it weren't for my legs getting tired, I'd be able to continue running. Unfortunately, high altitude training will only last for a couple of weeks upon returning to sea level. So in just a few days I'll be back to normal again. But it was good while it lasted, and I'm going to continue running.

I'd only seen a couple of friends throughout the week, and very sporadically. Most people I grew up with have moved away, either into or just outside Boston, or to other cities. And everyone has jobs, so it's hard to do anything during the week, especially during the day. But on Saturday I had a coming home/going away party, and some of my closest friends from back home and college came for the day. It was great to see everyone again, and things felt like they always had. We cooked food all day and drank into the night. One of the highlights of the day was seeing my grandma, who made the trip from Brooklyn, New York, which isn't an easy thing to do at her age. I've always wanted to be able to speak in Spanish with her, and we did just that. She laughed and marveled at how well I spoke, and since this was the first time we'd spoken in Spanish it was all new to her. I'm just glad I was finally able to do that.

I've been working on an article about coming home from Ecuador that I hope will be published soon, and will also be working to finish a video on my trip to Quilotoa, Ecuador. And just like that, there are only 10 days until I leave for Argentina. Soon I'll be on the road again, hopefully successful in finding employment in Buenos Aires. Keep checking in for more updates both from home and from the road.