Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Can I PLEASE just go back to Mexico? Just for a few months, that's all. Please....

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Graduated. People keep asking, "how does it feel?" Honestly, it feels, great, and rotten, and exciting, and boring, adventurous, and lonely. Just like the rest of life basically. "So, what are you going to do now that you've graduated?" If you'd asked me that a month ago, I'd have said I was going to go work in Puerto Rico or Mexico for about 6 months before I came back to Greensboro to "settle into" working. What I am actually doing is very much not what I wanted to to be doing, and every bit as much what, I daresay, I need to be doing. Let me explain.

The jobs in both Mexico and Puerto Rico did not pan out, much to my chagrin. Even the job I wanted in Greensboro fell through, despite being told at the interview by the manager that I was as good as hired. No, what I am actually doing is staying in Greensboro to work as an interpreter of ASL and Spanish. Here's the cool part, but it needs a bit of background to be fully appreciated. You see, for sometime now, I have been quite distant from God. Really I still am, but that is another several dozen blogs entirely. I had grand plans for my future, jobs, travel, all manner of excellent adventures. None of those was what God wanted for me, and I think I knew it a long time ago. I just wasn't too fond of the Old Chap so I had no care for what He may have for me here. Part of my distance from God has been about just that: I don't like His plans and the way they keep ruining mine and keeping from me the things that I want. Now that that has been cleared up, let me tell you a bit about what He seems to be planning for me and how cool it is.

I wanted to go to Puerto Rico or Mexico because I wanted to work with Hispanic people, to improve my Spanish, and since returning from Mexico have had precious little chance to do that. One agency I already work for offers Spanish interpreting in addition to ASL. They have decided I am competent enough and that I have sufficient facility with Spanish to do some basic Spanish interpreting work. That still leaves me with little opportunity to actually practice and improve my Spanish however. What I didn't plan on was being introduced to a woman today who just opened her own interpreting agency for Spanish interpreters. She is looking to expand into Sign Language interpreting as well. Yet, this leaves me in the same position. Or, it did until she mentioned an organization that operates locally partnering Hispanic people with Spanish speaking Christians for a sort of peer mentoring. The point is to give people who only speak Spanish fluently a place where they can talk through their problems. This is of particular interest to me since I want to do a graduate program in counseling. It will also help introduce me to a community of Spanish speaking people giving me the opportunity to use my gifts and talents and passions all in one place: Spanish, counseling, and a love of people.

My dream, should I be in the US long enough before becoming an overseas missionary, is to open a counseling practice for linguistic minorities. A practice that could offer discounted counseling services to people in their own native languages, removing the need for interpreters. The opportunities before me are so perfectly designed for me I can't see any way they could have come to me other than God's intervention. I hope that He doesn't take these from me as well, as I am not sure I have the faith to overcome another blow from on high.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

I am about to graduate. Whatever. I have applied for jobs in both Mexico and Puerto Rico. No big deal. None of that seems out of the ordinary to me for some reason. What does seem strange is that the only reason I have for not leaving that has almost convinced me to stay here is my roommate. I have the greatest roommate I have ever had right now, a great friend. I am afraid if I leave that when I come back our friendship will have been lost like so many others were when I studied in Mexico before. Even ones I expected to be solid. Also, if I leave, then I am leaving him here alone to tend to the inn with a curfew, and basically chained to this spot anytime he can't get people to cover for him (and trust me, it is a whole new kind of hell just to get so called friends to sleep in the inn for a night to help you out). That in itself has almost been enough to make me want to stay. I am not sure what to make of that. Maybe I really do care that much about his life. Maybe I am just being selfish and don't want to feel like a punk if I leave. Who knows...

Also, this is cool:
La soledad me tiene acorralado
Como un guardián me sigue a todos lados
Y es que las flechas de tu recuerdo
Siguen clavándose aquí en mi pecho.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Epic Stories

You know those stories that reach down into your soul and strike a chord of longing? The epic ones about things and places greater than ourselves? My roommate and I have watched the three Lord of the Rings movies over the past week or so, and I just finished watching the last one. After all that Frodo and Sam go through it just seems an injustice that they are separated; that Frodo leaves. The sort of things that they fought and overcame together make a kind of friendship that cannot be bought, forced or searched for, but simply happens out of a choice to love someone more than oneself. A friendship forged out of life itself. That is what we long for, that is the chord those stories strike in my soul. I yearn for a friendship of that magnitude, a brother that would follow me to the very gates of hell knowing I would never ask it, and knowing that I would do the same for him. I feel that what I so desire doesn't really exist. That has been the single greatest desire of my life. A wife and kids and that whole family thing that is supposed to be the ultimate goal of my life all seems like but a shadow of what is in my heart. I do not belittle or desire those things any less, but there is something beyond comforting about having that brother that will fight for me and along side me and love me as himself. I am so angered by our culture that tells us that the only relationships worth that kind of love are with the opposite sex. We can and need to love someone of our own gender that way too. Maybe that sounds selfish. I assure you it is not, because for that sort of friendship to exist it must be reciprocal. That is the hardest part of it all. My favorite story in all of the old testament is about David and Jonathan (as anyone who truly knows me will tell you) because it is a story about just that kind of friendship in reality rather than fantasy. The community I dream of seeing one day is a community where people aren't so caught up in having to be married and having to be coupled off with thier opposite sex partner, but one in which those beautiful marriage relationships exist alongside a greater community of brothers and sisters who care for each other like David and Jonathan did, Ruth and Naomi, Sam and Frodo. Imagine....

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Reminiscing

I have just finished reading all the emails I sent to my mailing list while I was in Mexico and I miss Mexico more than ever. I was prompted to do read them by two things. 1) I saw the blog of my friend from Mexico that he wrote while he studied in the US for a year, 2) I talked on Skype (in Spanish) to an American friend who is currently studying in Mexico. It is really cool to hear her story and get her perspective and see just how much our experiences were alike or very different.

As I am looking at leaving the US again in the Spring to teach English I am thinking more and more about my future as a missionary. I have begun to feel more lately like I should go back to Mexico rather than going to Taiwan. That saddens me. I very much want to go to Taiwan too but am feeling more and more that my time would be better spent improving my Spanish. Ideally I could go to Taiwan for 6 months then to Mexico for 6 months, but that, so far, is not an option. If I have to pick I think I will be picking Mexico. That still leaves me in a quandary. If I go to Mexico for 6 months to teach, I will still need to kill 3 months before I can get an interpreting license. Sooooo, I think that means a globe trotting summer next year. I still want to at least visit Taiwan, Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, Spain, France, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, and maybe a few other places.... but 3 months is nowhere near enough for all that....

I have this chronic problem see; I always dream these big dreams, have these awesome plans, but they nearly never work out. Money, time, work, and school always seem to mess them up. I am certainly blessed to have traveled as much as I have and seen what I have of the world so I really shouldn't complain that I can't see ALL of it. But I do think I will ask for just a bit more.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Viajero

No se porque continuo asistir a una iglesia en que no soy conocido. Sabes? No hay nadie en esa iglesia que me conoce. Casi nadie sabe ni mi nombre. Hize la misma cosa en Mexico, pero pense que lo hize en Mexico porque no habia una iglesia mejor. Pero ahora estoy en EEUU, el pais "cristiano," el pais de mil millones iglesias, y todavia no puedo encontrar un lugar en que no me siento como extranjero. Que hago? Busco esa lugar, busco mi casa, pero por el momento, me siento viajero.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Teaching English

I have arrived at a few really tough decisions. I am torn between these things:

-learning Chinese by teaching English for a year in Taiwan but having my Spanish and ASL suffer from lack of use
-improving my Spanish by teaching English in Mexico, but losing a great opportunity to learn Chinese and having my ASL suffer from lack of use
-not wanting to be gone for a whole year because of a couple very important relationships that I don't want to suffer from absence

I don't know exactly what I should do. Both teaching options hold merit. I know my Spanish isn't as good as I want it to be and part of me says it is foolish to move on to learning Chinese before I have really mastered Spanish. Another part of me recognizes the great opportunity I have to learn yet another language. I LOVE languages and cultures. I am gripped by a great desire to learn other languages so I can communicate with more people. You may know that I am quite the talker and the more people I can talk to, the better. Ideally, I would take a split between the first two options. A semester in Taiwan teaching, then a semester in Mexico (or another Latin American country) teaching.

I also have to recognize the fact that I do not want to be a teacher. I like teaching in theory, helping others learn something new, but there is a butt ton of work that goes into it that I do not want to do. I think I could swallow the negative aspects of teaching for an overseas, temporary teaching job. But that still leaves me stuck between Mexico and Taiwan... I hadn't even thought of teaching English in Mexico until two days ago. Life was blissfully less complicated before I did. I think, however, that finding a job that starts in the Spring in Mexico will be harder than finding one in Taiwan. Or what if I were to do both? What if I did a year in Taiwan, and a year in Mexico? That is not my first choice and presents entirely new problems.... ugh. Why must I yearn to learn so?! GAH!