The Best Laid Plans

A LOT of people have been asking about my post Peace Corps plans. It stresses me out and I want it to stop. Haha! But it's completely understandable. The end is drawing near and it's time to make some decisions. 

My short-term plans are as such: I'll be "COS'ing" (Close of Service) one month early on March 5th and probably spend a weekend with my Ecua family before heading out. Then I plan to check out Colombia by bus, hopefully meeting Carolina's family at some point and maybe try to get to Yasuni before leaving Ecuador if I have time. Then I'll be flying down to Brazil to WWOOF. If you haven't heard of WWOOF'ing, it's basically a volunteer program for working on organic farms. I've heard back from 2 farms out of the 15 or so that I've contacted- one in Sao Paolo and one in Rio de Janeiro. They both cover all accommodation and meals. This is exactly what I wanted. It's getting real. I got my visa squared away last week and I've been studying Portuguese everyday. So you can't reeeallyy call me a procrastinator.

I'll be playing in the dirt for March and April and then I'll be at Tomorrowland in a small town outside of Sao Paolo in early May. If you haven't heard of Tomorrowland, it's a giant electronic music festival that's usually held in Belgium, but due to rising popularity, has recently started in Brazil and the US as well. I'll be camping at the festival and pretty much just getting one final South American party out of my system before heading back to the US to be a grown up. I should be back in the US by about May 8th-ish. I'm making sure to get to SD in time to celebrate Carly's 30th birthday! Exciting!

My long-term plans: I don't know. I'm strongly considering avoiding real life and leaving again, as I've been known to do in the past... After I graduated college, I moved up to San Francisco for 6 months in an attempt to put off adulthood and it ended up being one of the best times of my life. It was hard but if I had the choice to go back and do it again, I would. Although, when I got back to San Diego, reality meant toiling away in food service again, which was NOT the best time of my life. I was also volunteering which helped me to eventually get my big girl job at the Red Cross, which I loved, but I had to put in the hard time in cafes/restaurants/bars first to get by. I definitely believe in starting at the bottom, it helped me to appreciate working my way up, but I don't necessarily want to go back there. 

So I suppose maybe the smart decision would be to just woman up and try to find a stable, worthwhile job in the US. Get an apartment, buy a car, pay bills. But I just don't think I'm ready for that, or maybe not even meant to do that... ever. I'm 28 and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I know I want to see the world and I know I want my job to be something that makes others' lives easier. I couldn't have a more vague future.

I'm thinking about going to Southeast Asia, Thailand or Cambodia, or maybe Africa to volunteer, although for a shorter term this time around. Maybe 6 to 9 months. My host mom says this is a terrible idea because there's no way I'm going to find a husband in those countries hahaha as if that were my plan. The thing is, the experience I've gained during these two years has been invaluable, but in a professional sense, I've gained a lot of experience teaching English, which is not what I want to do with my life. So I'd like to go abroad again and work in a field I'd maybe like to pursue. Anti-trafficking, humanitarian relief, refugee assistance, I don't know! Any time I start to feel overwhelmed and stressed about all the possibilities, I have to force myself to take a step back and think, "look at all the possibilities!" and I am bathed in gratitude.

The glass is completely full. It has half water, half air. And my cup runneth over. Or something like that.