Why I'm going
Going someplace new has dominated my thinking for the past nine years. It's why I chose to leave California to attend college in Boston. It's why I went from Boston to the eastern European country of Moldova to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer. It's why as soon as I came back from Moldova, I took my car visited 34 states around the U.S. in a three-month span. Travel has been vital to me, but all of my other trips were at important transitional times: entering or leaving college, or returning to my home country. Never before have I "had something," decided to temporarily leave it, and then come back to it. I had a job that I enjoyed, although it wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life; I had a livable apartment, shared with a good friend; and I've been dating a great girl for the past three months (for me, that's long). Why leave it?
When people ask me this, I tend to put on an aw-shucks face and give them answers that do little to convince them of my sanity. The first answer I give is simple: To learn Spanish. I've already learned Romanian through my work in the Peace Corps, and I know that there is no better way to learn a language than to go to a country where that language is spoken. I will learn more Spanish in my first two weeks of travel than I have in my semester of study at the local community college. Spanish is important in my life, because I plan on being a high school teacher, and I need to be able to speak with as many students' parents as possible. I have been a foreigner living in another country, and I know how much more comfortable a discussion can be when it's in your own language. Even though many immigrants in the U.S. work hard to learn English, a majority will never feel as comfortable talking about their children's education or behavior in English as they would in Spanish. To be a more effective teacher, I need Spanish.
The second reason I give people is, "I'm going because I haven't been there before." A little-hidden secret is that I had wanted to be in Latin America four years ago for Peace Corps, but the government told me I was going to Moldova instead. In hindsight, I'm incredibly happy to have lived in Moldova, but I'm also excited to finally get my crack at Latin America. I come to this trip wiser, more mature, more talented at languages, and more prepared for life than I would have as a 22-year-old recent graduate.
I'll be describing the framework of my trip in the next week, before I head south. But today, my focus is on getting all the proper vaccinations that I'll need. Should be fun.
When people ask me this, I tend to put on an aw-shucks face and give them answers that do little to convince them of my sanity. The first answer I give is simple: To learn Spanish. I've already learned Romanian through my work in the Peace Corps, and I know that there is no better way to learn a language than to go to a country where that language is spoken. I will learn more Spanish in my first two weeks of travel than I have in my semester of study at the local community college. Spanish is important in my life, because I plan on being a high school teacher, and I need to be able to speak with as many students' parents as possible. I have been a foreigner living in another country, and I know how much more comfortable a discussion can be when it's in your own language. Even though many immigrants in the U.S. work hard to learn English, a majority will never feel as comfortable talking about their children's education or behavior in English as they would in Spanish. To be a more effective teacher, I need Spanish.
The second reason I give people is, "I'm going because I haven't been there before." A little-hidden secret is that I had wanted to be in Latin America four years ago for Peace Corps, but the government told me I was going to Moldova instead. In hindsight, I'm incredibly happy to have lived in Moldova, but I'm also excited to finally get my crack at Latin America. I come to this trip wiser, more mature, more talented at languages, and more prepared for life than I would have as a 22-year-old recent graduate.
I'll be describing the framework of my trip in the next week, before I head south. But today, my focus is on getting all the proper vaccinations that I'll need. Should be fun.
posted by Peter Myers at
10:59 AM
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