Code Monkey Happy Ninja Banana Surprise!

Unless something goes dreadfully wrong, I am, indeed, moving to Tlacolula de Matamoros, Oaxaca, Mexico!!

It’s been interesting telling different people about my “trip”. It’s not a trip. It’s a move. It’s a shift. It’s towards a place that I feel I can be who I am, and used in line with how I want to be useful.

Many people have been excited for me, knowing full well my capabilities and ease with children. Others have been shocked, not knowing my history prior to Chicago. And yet others have been afraid for me, and telling me how I shouldn’t be going to such a place.

To those in the latter I really have no real way to feel what they’re feeling. Yeah I’m moving to someplace I haven’t been before. Yes, I’ll have to speak a language I haven’t spoken conversationally in over 10 years. Nope, there won’t be a Starbucks on every corner. Nor will there be a lot of things – things that people take for granted, or for some awful reason, feel they can’t live without.

Here’s what I absolutely can’t live without: food, water, oxygen, sun, people, and a place to sleep. Though that last one is debatable seeing as how I’ve slept pretty much everywhere that didn’t involve an actual bed! (various backs of buses on luggage, floors of buses, cars, trucks, tents, non-tents, my balcony, etc)

But seriously? I live each day, more and more, with the mantra that I picked up in my college days from stickers that came with the skates I bought: No Fear. What is there to fear? Fear of failing merely freezes one into a complacent existence. Fear of the unknown disables the ability to discover and learn from new people, places and things.

I chose “No Fear”. I chose the “road less traveled”. And, as always, I’m pretty damn sure what I’ll find on the other side will exceed any expectations, and surprise me in ways unplanned.

:: happiness ::

Hopefully, sooner than later, any writing I do will be from a completely different place, geographically.

Some of you had noticed that I hadn’t been posting consistently since pre-holidays. A couple of reasons for that: first, it was the holidays! Mwaaaaaa… time to take a break, chill with fam, etc. Secondly, since then I’ve started teaching a lot more – four out of the five nights during the week. Prepping for those around a standard work-week schedule of an essentially full-time job and well, Saturdays is for laundry/chores/chill time and Sundays (was) for seriously doing nothing. Not too much time to write consistently, or continue to put together materials for the *very* short-lived tutorial set.

So – all that to say – there may be an end coming soon to this particular blog-phase of my life. And, what may not be clear by the first sentence of this post, is that there may be soon a nice shift in the “rest” of my life. As in, out of the country. To Mexico. w000000h000000!

The photo is looking south over Cristo Por Su Mundo, a mission for orphans and the surrounding community that’s south of Oaxaca, Mexico a bit. [ Google Map ] I seriously hope to be down there soon, once again in an environment that will allow me to interact and work with kids.

The application is in, forms filled out, a couple other little things to tie up and then I basically wait for the ok to go down! :: crosses fingers ::

Now you know.