Pure Luck?

Recently I’ve been talking a lot to people about how lucky I am. Little things keep happening in my life to make me realize all the wonderful people I have been lucky enough to meet along the way.

I received packages from home for my birthday showing everyone’s immense love and care for me. Yesterday I got to have a brief conversation with my friends from Albaina on Skype. Today I got a letter in the mail from my friend who is teaching in Washington. It was another reminder of all the amazing people I have crossed paths with. My mother just messaged me (literally as I’m writing this) to remind me to feel the hugs from Wisconsin and the love from all over the world. I’m the luckiest girl in the world!

How lucky am I that I was born into a family that taught me responsibilities and morals, and above all supported all the decisions I have made thus far….

How lucky am I that my high school boyfriend chose to go to the University of Minnesota and that by visiting there I fell in love and couldn’t imagine myself staying in Wisconsin.

How lucky was I to meet Becky randomly through some people from my welcome week group? And how lucky were we that her roommate happened to be moving out just as I needed a new one. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be friends with the majority of the hen house crew.

first night I met becky!

How lucky am I that Daryn’s roommate decided to move out the year I was so frustrated with looking for a place to live and he just happened to mention I could live there if I wanted to?

How lucky am I that in that house I spent my most difficult years? I had my best friend constantly there as a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, and a smile to laugh with. Nothing could ever compare.

go gophers!

How lucky am I that just when I thought I had made a decision about where I wanted my life to go, I got in a car crash and realized that I wanted none of it.

poor civic....

How lucky am I that my professor suggested Dave’s ESL café for teaching abroad jobs and that just a few months later I had acquired a job in Albania? There I met great friends who convinced me that my journey would not soon be over, and who shared in multitudes of unforgettable adventures.

last day in tirana

Angie and I talk constantly about how lucky we are to have been made roomies, and that we are so happy we didn’t end up with complete psycho-paths. You really never know who you are going to meet in these teaching abroad experiences.

island adventures

Matt and I keep mentioning how crazy it is that we just both happen to be living in Indonesia, and that he just happened to have no plans for one random weekend in November and decided to say yes to coming to an island he had never heard of, with a random friend. Not to mention how lucky we were everyone was exhausted and went to bed so we could hang out, talk about dreams, drink beer, and look at stars together.

:D 

I’m about to shatter into pieces everything I just wrote, because truth be told, I don’t believe in luck. I’m lucky to be where I am today, but it did not happen by pure luck. Life is composed of choices. Your choices and other’s choices. Every morning we wake up and we make a decision about how we are going to live that day. We decide what kind of mood to be in, what to eat, what tasks to complete, who to talk to. It is crazy that our decisions can affect ours and others “luck” so much.

Thanks for all the awesome decisions to all I’ve met along this path of life. Lets keep up the awesome work!

What compels me to go?

The chance that Minneapolis will never be my permanent home again has begun to sink into, and overwhelm my mind. Welcome third bought of homesickness. I want a Surly, an afternoon grilling in the backyard, a contemplative run at stone arch, and most importantly my best friends.

If you will remember back to my first blog about leaving America, and my last day in Minneapolis you recall the moment my mother posed this scary thought in my mind while walking around one of my favorite lakes with me. I nearly chundered (barfed) on the spot but managed to swallow my reaction back in my throat. It was my biggest fear and doubt about leaving: That I may never return.

Flash forward to March of the following year. I’m sitting in a tattoo parlor permanently engraving the lyrics “May you one day carry me home….” as a reminder of my past and what I assumed was what I wanted. Even then, I had a feeling I would never return home, home.

Though I desire Minneapolis with all my heart, there has always been a part of me that postulated I would never return. When people asked me where I wanted to land it was always my immediate answer. “The Midwest, preferably Minneapolis/St. Paul. I want to be near my family.” I sit here, the morning after my 24^th birthday, after 2 nights of not sleeping, wondering “What compels me to go.”

That is the ultimate question. Why do I leave a place I adore? Why do I leave the people I love? What is it that is pushing me to this future of unknown certainties of change. Exactly that. I hate change. The unknown is my biggest fear, and I love to face my biggest fears head-on.

Life moves forward. Dreams change. Especially when you are a traveller. You see things. You meet people. It changes you to the core. Sometimes to the point where you don't recognize yourself.

My sweet disposition may not one day carry me home, but it will carry me to a home. Chances are it will not be Minneapolis. It could be Japan, Australia, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, or god forbid, somewhere in Texas, but the truth of the matter is that I can always find and create a home for myself. There will always be startling sights and astonishing people to meet along the way.

Frustrations with Floods

There has been a bit of flooding in a few areas of Jakarta recently. Apparently these floods are nothing in comparison to last years, but there have still been deaths and many people have been put out of their homes. I feel awful to complain because really, in comparison to others I know my issues are minimal, but here are a few examples of how the floods have been frustrating me.

Work: For the last two weeks the 7:00 staff meeting have been sparse. We are lucky enough to live in the same building we teach in, so we are not late, but for our fellow co-workers the commutes have been rough. It took my partner teacher 7 hours to arrive at work the other day because she got stuck on a toll road. One of the chefs was in a traffic accident, and so we have to very quickly hire new staff. The classrooms are supposed to be opened at 6:30, but the man who holds the keys has been late to work everyday due to traffic. One day the doors still were not open at 8:00 when the children had already arrived. And so my flexibility has been tested.

I have also had a very difficult time getting out of bed in the morning. This could be because I just had 5 weeks, or because I'm just exhausted right now, and not getting much sleep, but I think the true blame can be made on the horrible weather. Everyday I wake up to gray and go to bed to gray. It makes me want to sit inside, eat soup, drink tea, and watch movies. 

My friend Morgan took this picture. The story goes: This woman was sitting for about 3 hours in the same spot and finally Morgan asked what was wrong. He was told that she was debating whether to go back to her house to get something valuable she left behind. Very sad. 

Trips: We were given a public holiday this past Friday for Chinese New Year. The original plan was to take a boat out to an island and spend our weekend lounging on the beach, hiking, and snorkeling. Unfortunately, we didn't want to do any of this in pouring rain, and there were flood warnings for the Thousand Islands. Our next plan was to head to Bandung to do an all inclusive tour, but on Wednesday we were informed that the road was bad and it would take us a lot of extra time to arrive there.

Morgan took this one too. No floods by me. I feel so fortunate. 

So we opted to stay in the city and Matt suggested we have a party at his house. I was keen to get out and use his oven again so I suggested we have a pizza party, which everyone else was also excited about.

It really did turn out to be an excellent weekend. I headed out to Karawaci on Thursday evening with Chelsea who is dating Matt's boss. She gave me all sorts of tips about the commute between the two cities, including information about busses, and the best times to leave. We had a very relaxing evening of ordering in Indian food and watching TV, and the following morning we headed to the mall to get ingredients for our pizza night. Matt suggested we stop for a coffee and he took me to Time Zone to show me some of the games he helped program. After 2 stops at 2 different stores we had everything we needed and came back to the house. My friends arrived and I baked a batch of cookies (we ate them all) and then after some Pictionary we got started on the pizzas. We had an excellent night of food, drinks, and games with friends.

The following evening we got to head to Kemang to enjoy a ridiculously large burger and to hear the Irish band play at Murpheys. We ended up meeting some other teachers from America, one who was from Wisconsin (Packer fan!) and one from Washington State (Seahawks fan!) We had an excellent night talking to them about their experiences abroad and then were quick to call it a night. The next day we went to car free to walk around and followed this up with coffee and grocery shopping. All in all, the weekend turned out to be excellent.

We ate the whole thing....

So the rainy season is absolutely putting a damper on my life right now, but lucky for me there are so many other good things going on that I have excellent distractions. And I'm told that it's coming to a close in a few short weeks :) Scuba diving classes, hikes into the middle of nowhere villages, and beach weekends to come!