Carpets and Katrina

Welcome to all of you who are interested in my life … that’s why you’re checking this new blog out, right? Whether you are long time followers (my family) or have recently joined the bandwagon of AJ-crazed fans across the world, you are definitely welcome.

Perhaps you have come to hear about my thoughts on life and America post-Chuuk. Maybe you want to travel along with me across the eastern seaboard – my new “home” for the next few months of uncharted territory. Or you are hoping that you have latched onto the newest blog craze that will soon rise to national stardom and you can claim that you were a true fan before hype (kind of like me and seeing Napoleon Dynamite in theaters before any college kid heard of it).

Lucky you, because you will certainly hear my thoughts on reverse culture shock, experience my travels as I experience them and you have permission to believe that this blog will become popular beyond my immediate family and obsessed friends (or those acquaintances who accidentally click on this blog link from Facebook).

Those dancers on treadmills can become famous using the internet. So can I.

Here is the basic background information you need:

I graduated from college in 2005 with no idea what I really want to do, but I was confident that it’d fall into place (don't ask me to clarify what "it" means...I still have no idea!).

I got accepted to the great program of the Jesuit Volunteer International and gave two years of service to the small state of Chuuk, part of the Federated States of Micronesia, a neglected yet strange and beautiful place surrounded by hundreds of miles of the Pacific ocean. I was extremely isolated for two years, living with a loving yet small community for those two years. My life was incredibly unbalanced with work, more work, and work on my weekdays and weekends. Advice for anyone: Do not reside in your workplace for every day of the year, especially with no ESPN or Mythbusters.

But I learned a lot. Learned about my self, teaching, the world, the inner workings of coconuts. I got used to the simple and challenging lifestyle that I was thrown into…

…and suddenly I’m back home. The US. Good Ol’ New England. Western society and the like. I missed it a lot. I missed my family, my friends and good lord I missed the food. (Mexican food has not found its way to the equitorial Pacific yet). And suddenly I was able to have it all back in one huge gulp. That, plus a climate that my body rejected, the infant-like fascination with wall-to-wall carpeting and a newfound yet extremely comical (frustrating to those who accompany me) fear of supermarkets. Big, scary, engless supermarkets.

Life is great. But it’s surreal at the same time. And you need to know I’m fine with that, because I appreciate all that I have. That and much more. That’s all there is to it.

I have a job where I get to visit college campuses and meet enthusiastic and passionate students who are curious about giving a year or two of their lives away for … something! Something bigger, something grander, something right. If they are like me when I was graduating, that’s how I also felt. Ah, college: so young and idealistic. That plus a bubble hockey machine, a slushi machine, and three illegal piranahs in my dorm room Junior year (best ... room...ever!).

Back to being idealistic. Yeah, before I graduated I didn't know what field I wanted to enter into. I knew two things: I wanted to help people and I wanted to travel. If all I had were my intentions, I would be successful in life. Right? Right? I thought so. I think that’s why I like the West Wing so much: the characters truly care about the bigger picture and want to do what is right, even though fighting for the right thing is not the "usual" thing to do. It’s not "business" in Washington. These characters, however, make fighting for the right thing business as usual. That’s why I am inspired by that show.

That and the dialogue is pretty impressive. Bartlett for president.

Be warned: if you read this blog, please expect random tangents like the one above.

Here is another random tangent:

There were three top stories in the news the other day: General Patreus coming to Washington giving his assessment on the situation in Iraq, the exiled Pakistani leader trying to return home, and … wait for it! Britney Spears. Top three stories in our news.

THAT’s why I 1) still don’t like television news media and 2) I would rather get my news from BBC.com, the Financial Times or the Economist. I’m a news snob. Good for me.

Back to seriousness…

Here is a hint of some deep insights that this blog claims to produce. Actually, a unique and interesting reflection will probably occur in my next essay (that sounds so academic: “essay”). I am going to New Orleans for my first tour of college visits for my recruiting job. In case you didn’t know, I was in Chuuk when Katrina happened. To me, Katrina was a one page story printed from the internet and posted on our teacher’s bulletin at Xavier High School, where I taught. We received the Time Magazines with the cover stories of the destruction MONTHS later. A very perceptive friend of mine told me, during one of our conversations while I was away on this small island, that during Katrina and the immediate aftermath, the feel of the country, or at least the nation’s media, was very similar to the days of and after 9/11.

I’ll be honest: not for me. I was more worried about not fumbling my words as I stood in front of 25 Micronesian students, most of them had English as their second or even third language. AND there were at least 6 native island languages existing at our unique school. I feel for New Orleans, but I think, since I was literally a world away, I felt bad the same way we feel bad when we hear of natural disasters in India or Peru; it’s awful, but you forget about it after 24 hours because it’s too far away for you to fathom. We have our lives to worry about here.

So we’ll see what happens. I need to recruit when I’m down there. I want to recruit for JVC. But I also want to learn. I get to meet all sorts of people – current volunteers, priests, juniors and seniors in college, campus ministers, professors – and share with them my experiences. That’s my job.

A great extra benefit of my job: I also get to hear about their experiences.

If you’re lucky - and if I’m not lazy to post blogs - maybe you’ll get to hear about both.