Life on the "Road"

I'm about to get on a plane for another journey across three continents, two seas and one ocean - that is, once the ticked is finally confirmed. Inchallah, I will be boarding the plane in about 4 hours bound for some inspiring conversation with my counterparts in AIESEC US. Post AUS-retreat, I'll be hanging around in Vegas for a birthday celebration and pre-Valentine's extravaganza with my romantic counterpart - miss Amie Kuczkowski - for a surprisingly early oasis amidst what I was anticipating to be a much longer stay in the desert. Subsequent to our lovefest, I will be heading back to the Gulf, with a brief stop in Bahrain to be with our beloved AIESEC Oman members for their first international conference! Once I return to Oman on the 9th of February, I will be set back into action, getting the legalization for the AIESEC Oman LLC moving, selling some traineeships, and preparing for Oman's application to be an Official Extension of the AIESEC network at IPM 2008. On the 15th it's off to the Republic of Macedonia where Oman makes its big splash, announcing to the network that we're here and ready for action! Finally, before the close of the month, I'll be back in Oman to gear up for what is promising to be an incredibly busy spring - with lots in store for AIESEC Oman.

I'm taking a deep breath, calming the gag reflex, and buckling up for a wild ride.

Here's to life on the "Road." I'll be enjoying it while it lasts, and gittin' it while the gittin's good.

The Romance Continues

Small moments in time can change a lot. It's those moments, those conversations, those people, that come are able to push you to see more, challenge you to realize the importance of what you are doing and why - it's those moments that can change it all.

I'm back in the game

Reflecting on not Being Reflective Enough

I don't know what it is lately, and by lately I mean the last few months. For some reason, I have felt a bit uninspired, like I'm settling too far into a groove that just doesn't fit right. Progress is good in Oman, and in many respects is great, yet there have been too many times in my opinion where I just feel like I'm going through the motions. Perhaps its that time of year, students are out of school, businesses are slow, something like that. But more often now, I'm thinking that I've been out of school, and my business of personal dreaming and theorizing has been way too slow.

I have always been the kind of person that thrives on mind-churning. I had convinced myself that I could never slip into boredom because I could always rely on my mind-machine to continue to grind through the moments, musing on the wheres, whos, whats, whens and whys of the mundane to the fantastically complex. Now, I find myself in situations where I'm thinking, "When can I make the next step, what is going to be the right fit for me, who do I want to surround myself with, what part of the world do I want to live in... What do I want to do with my life and Why?" All of these things are good to think about, in fact they are great! But I am finding myself too often, thinking about them with an overly considerate worry - like there is something critical that I should be doing right now to make sure all of those other things turn out alright in the future. To be sharply honest, at times I have let myself lose my faith in my present choice of projects and pursuits in bringing me where I want to be. Happily though, I know that that particular fear is based on utter untruths.

There remains a possibility that I am not challenging myself in the right ways here. This experience in Oman has been similar in some ways to my experiences in France and Morocco - but completely different in so many others. It has been similar in the fact that it has brought me far away from the people I love and care about, and challenged my world view in a very fundamental way. Yet it has been so very different in the amount of forced cultural contrasts and confusions that enriched those experiences. And then I begin to realize that a lot of those experiences, those challenges - may be happening in different ways.

Abdulazziz and his cousin Zahar just walked in the door to our house unannounced - case in point.

A new vantage point

I am back in Oman again. I was in the United States for a brief two and a half weeks, a time I looked at as an eternity before I left, but a time that passed all to quickly once I was there. I must say that my attitude about the country, and what it means to be an American, has changed significantly over the past five months. I began to look not only at the great list of faults that America and its leadership has been racking up recently, but also at the enduring principles and qualities that help it retain its value. America has an overwhelming sense of acceptance of other peoples and cultures - at least that is, once you have been able to cross its boarders. Of course it is false to believe in any Utopian society, and I will never believe that I have found one, yet there can be perpetual attempts - and I am more akin than ever, to think that the United States is one.

Many people say that nowadays the sense of family, responsibility and duty in the United States is gone, or at least, isn't what it used to be - as if that were an entirely bad thing. First of all, how can we expect something so dynamic to remain the same forever, and secondly, whoever say that was all perfect in the first place. I am motivated to talk about these things because of my own singular experience in my family unit, pulling from the principles and values this experience has instilled in me. Perhaps after writing all of this I will begin to realize that I am trying to make a general statement about a massive unit based on quite particular examples - but I would like to believe nonetheless that some of what I am saying is representative of a greater trend.

I am not going to get into the inner workings of my family life at this moment. What I want to say is simpler than that, or at least more brief. What I have realized from the fast paced changes that my life has been going through in the recent past, and the prospect of even more changes in the near future, is that life doesn't stay the same anywhere - and each person, most of all, is going through their own unique changes. What I am beginning to realize about myself is that at some point, after all of these blazing changes have taken their course, I will be ready to anchor one part of my life in a certain place, or at least with certain people very close to me.

I am coming into a period of my life where a lot of big decisions will need to be made. And I have committed to a relationship that demands that these decisions be made with my counterpart in mind. I am so excited to start this process, and I am ready to start seeing what types of changes these decisions will be bringing.