Everything worked out fine. I'm fine.
IVHQ is a real organisation, and I had a ride. Just like their email said "Don't worry, you'll be fine".
Today, I stopped several moments and just to tell myself I was in Nepal in case I wasn't soaking it in.
I do have a crushing headache though, so until tomorrow
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Landed
I'm so tired even though I'm sleeping a lot. Note, I have not laid down flat since Sat night in the USA. I've been sleeping in various sitting postures.
We're on our descent and the clouds are unbelievably puffy and vertical. The one immediately outside the window looks just like Lotso Bear from Toy Story 3. It's getting dark and there is a thin red/pink line across the cloud backdrops which moves along the horizon becoming an orangeier yellow, the clouds are dark and the sky above the row of light is a night blue sky.
I see one star out there.
As we were first coming in mountain tops peaked over the clouds. It's too dark for any of that now, especially as we start sinking in the dark clouds. We still have breaks in the clouds, therefore breaks in the darkness. And now I'm thinking the darker is mountains, I'm almost sure of it. Lights below are becoming visible and the eerie clouds are now above. I'm almost wishing I arrived in daytime now, because I know so little of what to expect and an eerie night sky just makes me more nervous.
I'm going to have a lot to see when I wake up tomorrow.
We've landed, I made it here. Now for the interesting part, making sure I get picked up and taken to a place to stay with IVHQ, that my bag gets here and the police check I got for the volunteer work is sufficient enough.
Well, here goes... Welcome to Nepal
We're on our descent and the clouds are unbelievably puffy and vertical. The one immediately outside the window looks just like Lotso Bear from Toy Story 3. It's getting dark and there is a thin red/pink line across the cloud backdrops which moves along the horizon becoming an orangeier yellow, the clouds are dark and the sky above the row of light is a night blue sky.
I see one star out there.
As we were first coming in mountain tops peaked over the clouds. It's too dark for any of that now, especially as we start sinking in the dark clouds. We still have breaks in the clouds, therefore breaks in the darkness. And now I'm thinking the darker is mountains, I'm almost sure of it. Lights below are becoming visible and the eerie clouds are now above. I'm almost wishing I arrived in daytime now, because I know so little of what to expect and an eerie night sky just makes me more nervous.
I'm going to have a lot to see when I wake up tomorrow.
We've landed, I made it here. Now for the interesting part, making sure I get picked up and taken to a place to stay with IVHQ, that my bag gets here and the police check I got for the volunteer work is sufficient enough.
Well, here goes... Welcome to Nepal
Monday, June 28, 2010
The shortest day
I lost 8 hours in time change from Chicago to Abu Dhabi. Oh well.
i saw my first desert from the plane
The airport is very nice, I'm going to spend the night here.
I'm having the best latte I've had in a very long time.
i saw my first desert from the plane
The airport is very nice, I'm going to spend the night here.
I'm having the best latte I've had in a very long time.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The Prologue
On Wed June 2, 2010 my company laid me off, after a series of layoffs the previous week.
On Tue June 1, 2010 my friend Sharon asked "When will your number be called?" I answered that they might let me go if this sale of the company goes through in the months to come, but I'd likely be kept on even through that transition.
Funny how things like that happen.
I was just beginning to settle back into the job and it's accompanying security that I had so many times over the past 2 years tried to leave... but in the midst of my settlement, BAM! Almost exactly halfway through the year that New Year's resolution I made to leave my job, just fulfilled. Meanwhile, I had just let my credit card get a balance (not a mild one) again and I was coming back from a weekend where I watched my Best Friend get married.
Well hello there change.
I need to make this clear. Being laid off is failure to me. It is rejection to me. As much as this all plays out and no matter how good for me this turns out to be, this is still failure, and rejection. Unfortunately, these two faces are familiar to me, I've seen them before. I think most people have internally felt these for reasons all similar to mine. My story is not so unique than others, than yours maybe, except every thread of of everything is through me and experienced in my way.
We can look at the same sunset, but we do not see it the same exact way.
So, my past tells the story that I focus on what I see as my failure and rejection, and I let them eat away at me. Not this time. I pick what matters to me and I say losing this job will not ruin me.
So there I was in the beginning of June with the most freedom I have ever known. Now here I am in a plane to Chicago where I will get on another plane to Abu Dhabi, where I will get on another plane that will take me to Nepal.
Yesterday was a day of utter normalcy, a summer 7s rugby tournament with several of my everyday people. Today is a day of chaos. I'm beginning the furtherest and longest trip of my life.
I had a group of friends hanging out with me before I left, I'm so proud of them. We played a plethora of musical instruments and it made a horrible but loving noise.
I'm a lot to handle sometimes and i take more than I give, but I have some of the best damn friends, always have... Maybe that's why other people's thoughts and feelings have always weighed heavy on me, because so much of the greatness I know is from the people I know.
Well doesn't this just lead me down all kinds of thought paths, let's take this one. I tend to be a little more extreme then the average bear sometimes, and I hate lonely. So why am I traveling solo to somewhere I've never been? ? It's one of those funny things: like having a friend ask me the day before I lose my job when it's going to happen and I basically save never. Oh irony.
If I was writing an honest personal ad in the newspaper for myself, I'm pretty sure it would go something like this:
"Dependent Soul seeking to be Independent"
The "likes" would be such a juxtaposition too.
Likes: Excitement and Comfort.
Travel and Home.
Uncertainty and Security.
Love and Freedom.
(Is everyone like that???)
It's as though I'm dependent by nature and Independent through choice and experience. As I write that though, I realise that is part of growing. Baby to adult to who you actually are. Reminds me of a quote:
"We grow neither better nor worse as wet get old but more like ourselves".
Who I am is part of who I'll always be, like the trailer for "Where the Wild Things Are" inside all of us is hope, fear, adventure, a wild thing and everyone we've ever loved and everything we ever is all a part of you. Oh the masterpiece of self...
On Tue June 1, 2010 my friend Sharon asked "When will your number be called?" I answered that they might let me go if this sale of the company goes through in the months to come, but I'd likely be kept on even through that transition.
Funny how things like that happen.
I was just beginning to settle back into the job and it's accompanying security that I had so many times over the past 2 years tried to leave... but in the midst of my settlement, BAM! Almost exactly halfway through the year that New Year's resolution I made to leave my job, just fulfilled. Meanwhile, I had just let my credit card get a balance (not a mild one) again and I was coming back from a weekend where I watched my Best Friend get married.
Well hello there change.
I need to make this clear. Being laid off is failure to me. It is rejection to me. As much as this all plays out and no matter how good for me this turns out to be, this is still failure, and rejection. Unfortunately, these two faces are familiar to me, I've seen them before. I think most people have internally felt these for reasons all similar to mine. My story is not so unique than others, than yours maybe, except every thread of of everything is through me and experienced in my way.
We can look at the same sunset, but we do not see it the same exact way.
So, my past tells the story that I focus on what I see as my failure and rejection, and I let them eat away at me. Not this time. I pick what matters to me and I say losing this job will not ruin me.
So there I was in the beginning of June with the most freedom I have ever known. Now here I am in a plane to Chicago where I will get on another plane to Abu Dhabi, where I will get on another plane that will take me to Nepal.
Yesterday was a day of utter normalcy, a summer 7s rugby tournament with several of my everyday people. Today is a day of chaos. I'm beginning the furtherest and longest trip of my life.
I had a group of friends hanging out with me before I left, I'm so proud of them. We played a plethora of musical instruments and it made a horrible but loving noise.
I'm a lot to handle sometimes and i take more than I give, but I have some of the best damn friends, always have... Maybe that's why other people's thoughts and feelings have always weighed heavy on me, because so much of the greatness I know is from the people I know.
Well doesn't this just lead me down all kinds of thought paths, let's take this one. I tend to be a little more extreme then the average bear sometimes, and I hate lonely. So why am I traveling solo to somewhere I've never been? ? It's one of those funny things: like having a friend ask me the day before I lose my job when it's going to happen and I basically save never. Oh irony.
If I was writing an honest personal ad in the newspaper for myself, I'm pretty sure it would go something like this:
"Dependent Soul seeking to be Independent"
The "likes" would be such a juxtaposition too.
Likes: Excitement and Comfort.
Travel and Home.
Uncertainty and Security.
Love and Freedom.
(Is everyone like that???)
It's as though I'm dependent by nature and Independent through choice and experience. As I write that though, I realise that is part of growing. Baby to adult to who you actually are. Reminds me of a quote:
"We grow neither better nor worse as wet get old but more like ourselves".
Who I am is part of who I'll always be, like the trailer for "Where the Wild Things Are" inside all of us is hope, fear, adventure, a wild thing and everyone we've ever loved and everything we ever is all a part of you. Oh the masterpiece of self...
Saturday, June 26, 2010
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