Rocking that *International* Paradise

I struggled a bit with whether to continue this blog, now that I’m living back in Wisconsin.  I’m no longer “rocking” a tropical paradise, nor an international one.  Now I’m just rocking my own paradise.  Because the truth is, paradise is what you make it.  And thankfully, while I no longer hear Spanish spoken on a daily basis, and my employer no longer pays for one summer flight home per year, and I no longer live in the land of “eternal spring,” I’m still in paradise. And that merits at the very least, one final blog post.   Cheesy, I know.   This is my third attempt at writing this blog post.  The first I wrote right after the first day of school.  I was pumped up and excited and the post was overly positive, and I thought to myself, “best wait and see if this excitement lasts.”  The second I wrote after a particularly draining couple of days at work, and the post was rather full of complaints and self pity, and I thought to my...

I was really excited to visit Cambodia for a few days and hit up Angkor Wat and the other temples in the area.  Cambodia felt like my kind of adventure--and I can’t even really say why.  But I was excited.  I was excited for our hotel there--a full-out boutique hotel (not a hostel), with AC, a swimming pool, breakfast included, and airport pick-up for free--which cost us a scant $20 per night.  And we’d read about a lot of great tours we could take with local guides.  Flying in and flying out, this leg of the trip would be a breeze, and hopefully everything would be as cheap as the hotel.   The Mango Rain Boutique Hotel Our flight to Cambodia was unlike any other I’ve ever been on.  There were only about 20 of us on the flight--which would not have been strange, except it was, because we were on a full-size plane that could have seated 200.  The 20 of us were mostly grouped together towards the back of the plane.  Second impressive t...

When we found out G-Money wouldn't be able to come with us to Taroko Gorge in Taiwan, I decided to follow up on a contact.  My friend Christy remembered a couch surfing host who takes people into the national park, and so I asked for his name and sent him a message to see if he would want to meet up with us.  He said yes, so at 9:30am, we stood waiting at the park entrance for a stranger to walk up and greet us with a huge smile.  Dylan had arrived. We got into Dylan's blissfully cool, air conditioned car, and he took us to our first stop: the Shakadang Trail.  For about an hour, we walked at a brisk pace along a smooth, flat path with a rock outcrop cut out above our heads from the rock.  It was our first excursion into the gorge, and it was magnificent.  The trail ended at the river, and while Dylan let us go ahead and explore, he was busy buying us a small gift. When we returned to the path, he presented each of us with a hand-woven aboriginal brac...

Two weeks ago, I moved home from Guatemala.  The actual leaving was tough; there was a lot of fear involved.  (And maybe that doesn’t make sense…fear?  When you’re moving home?  But yes, fear.  I could write a whole post about it, and maybe someday I will).  Thankfully though, when I arrived back in Wisconsin, my sister and I immediately threw ourselves into the work of planning a month long trip in Asia.  We’d booked our flights a couple months ago, but not much else.  Where would we stay?  How would we get from place to place?  What did we want to see and do in each city/country?  The planning, coupled with the typical summer gatherings with old friends, kept me busy and excited for the past two weeks—and being home hasn’t been a struggle so far at all!  The opposite, quite honestly.  And now, suddenly, it’s the night before we leave.  I look at the way I plan an overseas trip now versus the way I p...

Since moving to Guatemala and expressing my interest in running half marathons, all I’ve heard is that the race to run is the Coban 21K.  The past two years, the dates haven’t worked out; I’ve been in Tennessee for DI Global Finals the day of the race.  This year though, finally, I was able to run the race the day before leaving for Globals.  It, of course, turned into something of an adventure.  On Friday, Karina and I got coverage for our classes in order to leave school early (1:30pm) and avoid the Friday afternoon traffic as much as possible.  The strategy was pretty successful, but we encountered some road construction and slow trucks we were unable to pass, so the drive still took a while, and we were set to arrive after dark.  We probably never would have found our hostel if Annette and Joel hadn’t been braving the way ahead of us.  Our directions had us driving another 2 miles after the place we were actually supposed to turn.  ...

For the past 3 years, I have acted as a team manager for Destination Imagination at my school in Guatemala, and each year, my team has earned a trip to Global Finals in Knoxville, Tennessee.  This school year, I was blessed to manage the exact same team I had last year—the Aguaguates, the most wonderful group of kids any DI team manager could wish for.  This group, all 7 th graders this year, has everything needed to not only excel at DI, but also make a team manager’s job almost unnecessary.  They have amazing team chemistry, and they understand the importance of teamwork.  They’re crazy creative and hilarious and amazing actors when they get on stage.  They push themselves to improve their performances.  They know what they need to get done for DI, and they create their own practice schedules.  In short, they are a DI dream team, not to mention really, really great people .  This year though, I took one look at the school calendar and deci...

Apparently in April, my resolution to write once a week fell apart.  I am not sure why.  April wasn’t boring.  It certainly flew by, but it was not boring.  I ran a few races, went a few places, had a few job interviews, and reconnected with old friends.  Life has been good—great, even.  But all of a sudden it’s May.  I’m down to two more days with my kiddos at school, then it’s off to Tennessee for DI Global Finals, and then when I’m  back, 3 teacher work days, and then family arrives to tour the country and help me pack, and by the time they leave, my time will be pretty much over.  Time is flying.  Going way too fast.  But things are slowly and surely falling into place.  Last week, I took three personal days off from school (and from all of the stress associated with ending the year and moving) and traveled with Fuse, a drumline friend from college who was able to come and visit.  Fuse (whose given name is act...