I've decided to consolidate my web writing onto my blog page, so I've included some old notes that I thought tied in with the traveling theme of this weblog: This is from November 4, 2010, while I was traveling across America after traveling around Asia:
Hello,
I've been asked by a few friends to keep them updated on my 2 month journey across the states, so I figured I would write a quick note about what exactly it is I'm doing right now, and then later I will add one about the past three weeks since I left my parents' home in Cambridge, New York (near Albany).
Before I talk about the three weeks that brought me to Texas, I want to quickly explain myself to anyone who was reading my weblog about Asia or thought that I was still traveling the world and is now thinking, "What the hell are you doing in the southwest? And where do you get all of this time to travel? Or money?"
With respect to the Asia blog, I highly recommend my most recent effort about China, "Chung Fu and the Tiger Leaping Buddha". You can read it at http://bengobengo33.blogspot.com. After Asia I spent one week in Egypt, one week in Germany visiting my sister, and one week in Ireland checking out my Sullivan roots in Cork County. I returned home for my sister's perfect wedding at the beginning of July and then spent three and a half months in the Northeast. My base was my parents' home in Cambridge, NY, although I was fortunate enough to get out and about on side trips to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York City. I spent my time at home writing extensively about my travels, climbing nearby mountains with friends and catching up with other friends, and doing several projects around the farm for my parents in an unbalanced effort to repay them for all of their support over the years.
Some time around the end of the first month I realized that I probably needed a new plan, since I couldn't put off my student loans forever. And as much as I loved my home, I'd been off on my own on the other side of the world for too long to be residing there again for too long. I figured my best plan was to actually attempt to teach English abroad this time, hopefully in Japan. So I got certified in one of those minimal online courses so I at least know what I'm getting into, and it looks like a promising endeavor.
This brings me to America. I'd met so many foreign travelers during my last adventure who had explored much more of my country than I had. Ever since college I'd gotten it into my head to do a cross country road trip where I took in all the big national park sites like the Grand Canyon and Zion. On top of that, camping out in the Sahara Desert in Egypt gave me a real thirst for an environment I had yet to experience, but I knew existed in abundance in one corner of my country.
So I hatched my latest plot: two months crossing America before coming home for Christmas and applying for teaching jobs in Japan, their hiring season being January-March. I've pushed this lifestyle this far, I'm loving it (although a little physically tired from it), and I don't want to have any more wanderlust consuming my attention when I'm settled into a job again, no matter how adventurous or challenging teaching English in a foreign country will be. There will always be the inclination to travel and explore, but at least this way I take care of the places most prominent in my mind: New Orleans, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, southern Utah, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and the pyramids in Mexico.
So now I'm happily on the road again, a forty-pound backpack carrying all necessities: tent, sleeping bag, warm clothes for desert nights, and what I'm beginning to learn is a totally unnecessary item, the History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. I'm about to mail some extraneous supplies home. When you live like this, you begin to realize how few things you really need to get by. On the other hand, you also learn to be grateful for the things you take for granted, like a bed to sleep in, or food.
As far as time and money are concerned, here are my explanations for those: 1.) I already owe $20K+ for a college education, so what's a little more debt on top of that for two months of a much more valuable education? 2.) I want to do it, and I can do it, and I'm probably only going to exist within the vast universe once and have no idea how much time I have left, so I'm doing it. Lots of people want to do things and can't. I want to do this and can, so I am.
Peace
Hello,
I've been asked by a few friends to keep them updated on my 2 month journey across the states, so I figured I would write a quick note about what exactly it is I'm doing right now, and then later I will add one about the past three weeks since I left my parents' home in Cambridge, New York (near Albany).
Before I talk about the three weeks that brought me to Texas, I want to quickly explain myself to anyone who was reading my weblog about Asia or thought that I was still traveling the world and is now thinking, "What the hell are you doing in the southwest? And where do you get all of this time to travel? Or money?"
With respect to the Asia blog, I highly recommend my most recent effort about China, "Chung Fu and the Tiger Leaping Buddha". You can read it at http://bengobengo33.blogspot.com. After Asia I spent one week in Egypt, one week in Germany visiting my sister, and one week in Ireland checking out my Sullivan roots in Cork County. I returned home for my sister's perfect wedding at the beginning of July and then spent three and a half months in the Northeast. My base was my parents' home in Cambridge, NY, although I was fortunate enough to get out and about on side trips to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York City. I spent my time at home writing extensively about my travels, climbing nearby mountains with friends and catching up with other friends, and doing several projects around the farm for my parents in an unbalanced effort to repay them for all of their support over the years.
Some time around the end of the first month I realized that I probably needed a new plan, since I couldn't put off my student loans forever. And as much as I loved my home, I'd been off on my own on the other side of the world for too long to be residing there again for too long. I figured my best plan was to actually attempt to teach English abroad this time, hopefully in Japan. So I got certified in one of those minimal online courses so I at least know what I'm getting into, and it looks like a promising endeavor.
This brings me to America. I'd met so many foreign travelers during my last adventure who had explored much more of my country than I had. Ever since college I'd gotten it into my head to do a cross country road trip where I took in all the big national park sites like the Grand Canyon and Zion. On top of that, camping out in the Sahara Desert in Egypt gave me a real thirst for an environment I had yet to experience, but I knew existed in abundance in one corner of my country.
So I hatched my latest plot: two months crossing America before coming home for Christmas and applying for teaching jobs in Japan, their hiring season being January-March. I've pushed this lifestyle this far, I'm loving it (although a little physically tired from it), and I don't want to have any more wanderlust consuming my attention when I'm settled into a job again, no matter how adventurous or challenging teaching English in a foreign country will be. There will always be the inclination to travel and explore, but at least this way I take care of the places most prominent in my mind: New Orleans, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, southern Utah, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and the pyramids in Mexico.
So now I'm happily on the road again, a forty-pound backpack carrying all necessities: tent, sleeping bag, warm clothes for desert nights, and what I'm beginning to learn is a totally unnecessary item, the History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. I'm about to mail some extraneous supplies home. When you live like this, you begin to realize how few things you really need to get by. On the other hand, you also learn to be grateful for the things you take for granted, like a bed to sleep in, or food.
As far as time and money are concerned, here are my explanations for those: 1.) I already owe $20K+ for a college education, so what's a little more debt on top of that for two months of a much more valuable education? 2.) I want to do it, and I can do it, and I'm probably only going to exist within the vast universe once and have no idea how much time I have left, so I'm doing it. Lots of people want to do things and can't. I want to do this and can, so I am.
Peace
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