Packing

I am a notorious over packer. I like to have everything I might need and most things I might want. But I don't hold a candle to my dad. Somehow, for this three week trip, we are carrying more than I packed for two years in Peace Corps and WAY more than I took when I travelled after PC. Most of it is the nature of the trip. The main point of the trip and what my dad has been talking about for the past three years is to do some climbing. Everything else is centered on this one fact. Unfortunately, to be safe, climbing has a lot of equipment and we had no confidence that any of it could be rented or purchased there for any reasonable price. So we are bringing our own and that means about 30 pounds of ropes, harnesses, helmets, and metal fittings. We are also planning on camping, so that means more stuff, like a tent, sleeping bags, cooking stuff etc.  right now this whole thing feels a little bit like an expedition to Everest or something, only we don't have any Sherpas. I don't think all the stuff would be as big of a deal if we also weren't taking a long way to get to Albania. Things would be really easy if we were just flying direct and then renting a car. No problem! But that's not what we are doing. We are flying to Rome, taking a train across Italy and then a boat across the Adriatic Sea. Somehow, I have faith that it will all work out . . . Maybe we can rent a donkey to help us with the gear . . . 

A return trip . . .

In a few weeks, I will be returning to Albania for the first time since I left almost three years ago.  Somehow, these past three years have seemed to have gone by very fast and slow at the same time.  It seems almost like a blink of an eye since I left and somehow also seems like a lot has happened in the past three years.  There have been some big changes in my life since I got home- I have gone back to school and finished a program to be a licensed teacher.  In other ways, things have not changed at all- being home, I have gone back to many of the routines I had before Peace Corps.  Anyway, I am excited and nervous to go back.

Unlike my parents, who didn't return to the Philippines for almost 30 years from the time they left, I am making my first return trip only a few years after leaving.  I honestly didn't expect that I would be going to Albania so soon.  So why now?  It was actually my dad's idea.  When he came to visit me at the end of my service three years ago, we had some adventures, but there were a few stones unturned.  For one, my dad is a climber.  He likes to climb things.  When he came to visit me before, we did some hiking, but no climbing.  This was my fault- he wanted to bring a rope and harness and various other things that would have made it possible for us to climb things, but the timing was not good.  He came at the end of my service and I was leaving to travel around the world, so I needed him to take a suitcase (or two?) home with him when he went back.  This was by far the cheapest way to get stuff home (since he was planning on coming anyway and he was flying on my mom's passes).  So he didn't bring ropes or a tent or anything else we might need to have a backpacking/climbing trip.  We therefore had another kind of trip, which was great.  But . . . there are some beautiful rocks in Albania that are just crying out to be climbed.  Some people don't understand rock climbing.  What is the point of climbing that rock? Basically, it's just fun.  It's a challenge.  It's a puzzle.  And for the last three years, my dad has been thinking about the rocks that we saw in Albania and wanting to go back and climb them.  So we are.

This is the (very tentative) schedule for our trip.  It is flexible based on the fact that we are flying on passes and may not actually fly on the day we plan.  It is also flexible based on the fact that we may just decide to change plans.  Anyway, it looks like a good trip!

Sunday, April 21- Fly to Rome
Monday, April 22-Rome

Tuesday, April 23- train to Bari, ferry
Weds, April 24- Arrive Durres
Thurs, April 25- Tirana
Fri, April 26- furgon to Peshkopi
Sat, April 27- Peshkopi

Sun, April 28- Peshkopi 

Mon, April 29- Peshkopi
Tues, April 30- to Korab (camp)
Weds, May 1- Korab (camp)
Thurs, May 2- Korab (camp)

Fri, May 3- hiking? Lura? (camp)
Sat, May 4- hiking? Lura? (camp)
Sun, May 5- hiking? Lura? (camp)
Mon, May 6- to to Tirana- stop in Kruja?
Tues, May 7- Tirana to Durres- ferry
Weds, May 8- Bari to Naples
Thurs, May 9- Naples to Rome
Fri, May 10- to airport- fly home

Following Trevista – The Challenges That Lie Ahead

This is the school that I spent the last three months of school at last year.  It was a hard situation, probably the most difficult job I've ever done.  I don't know the answer to the question of what to do about schools like this or this school in particular, so I guess it is as she says in the story . . .  we shall see what happens over the next year. . . 

Following Trevista – The Challenges That Lie Ahead: Trevista public school in Denver is embarking upon a major shake-up to boost academic scores, part of a federal program to save failing schools. [Photo: CPR]

Student-Teacher-Student

Seven years ago I had just graduated college and now had (count em!) TWO fancy pieces of paper and absolutely no idea what to do next.  I knew I wanted to do the Peace Corps, but I wasn't in a financial situation to do that yet.  I was working in a restaurant and having a general directionless feeling, like so many people do when they leave college.  One day I went to visit some teachers at my old high school and got to talking to one Ms. (Dr.) Heidi Hursh.  Somehow, she convinced me that I should be teaching- and then proceeded to get me a job.

At 23, I was barely older than the students I was teaching and got mistaken for a student on a pretty regular basis.  Also, I had no idea what I was doing.  Technically, I had the credentials to teach the class, a college level Introduction to International Studies, since to be able to teach lower level college classes you just need a Master's degree in the subject you are teaching and I happened to have a brand new one of those.  But I really had no idea what I was doing.

The transition from student to teacher was strange.  First, I was young.  Second, I was teaching at my own high school, right next to my old teachers.  I remember one day when a few teachers invited me out for a FAC (Friday Afternoon Club-Happy Hour).  I sat in the middle of a long table sipping my beer- in between my old physics teacher and my stage teacher.  I don't remember talking much, I think that mostly I just sat there with wide eyes and tried not to freak out at the fact that I was there.  The teachers gossiped about the news at the school (the principal had just announced that she would be leaving the school) and of course, talked about students and (amazing!) other things as well.  Over the next few months, I got more comfortable in this informal space, but even now, years later it is a bit amazing to me that I got to go out and drink with teachers.

Over the past few years, while I have been in Denver, I have taken on several different roles from teaching to subbing to running after school programs.  I am more comfortable now when students call me Ms. Lipman and most of the teachers I work with now have never known me as a student.  But I am a student still, or again.

I just finished my first semester of "Student-teaching" on my way to become certified to teach high school.  One of my friends asked me today if I was done with school yet.  I thought about it and laughed a bit- there are so many answers to that question- yes, I am done with school for this semester; no, I am not done since I have one more semester of classes in the fall; no, I'm never done with school- once I finish this program then I will just keep going, teaching and learning- I will never be "done" with school.  I thought when I started teaching seven years ago that there was this magic time when you became a "teacher."  I have realized a more nuanced view of this process- I am a teacher, but I am still a student.  Even when I finish my license and am teaching full time (fingers crossed that I get a job!) I will still be a student.  Part of teaching is the fact that you never stop learning. 

Festivus . . . for the rest of us

I'm an atheist. And I love Christmas.

Really, though, I love holidays. I love parties and celebrations and feasts and days off and getting together with family and traditions. So I love Christmas, but I also love Hanukkah, Solstice, Passover, Thanksgiving, New Years and the Fourth of July. I love singing Christmas carols, I really love some of the good old ones like Silent Night and Good King Wenceslas and Here we go a-wasailing (I also love wasail, yum) and Carol of the Bells, but I also sometimes just love singing Jingle Bells really loud. I love the Singing Christmas Tree. I love Christmas lights. I love seeing Denver all covered in snow and sparkling. I love the City and County building getting lit up and I love the Parade of Lights. When I was a kid, I loved getting up at 5am on Christmas morning and going downstairs to empty my stocking and watch cartoons and parades. I loved finding an orange at the bottom of my stocking. I love going swimming on Christmas.

I think that traditions are important and I appreciate the religious background to Christmas, I just don't happen to believe in Jesus as savior and son of God and all that. I like Jesus, I think he was a great guy and that we can learn a lot from him, so I don't mind celebrating his birthday. I also like to celebrate the birthdays of Martin Luther King Jr. and George Washington, cause they were pretty great guys too.

I don't get offended when people wish me a "Merry Christmas" as long as you don't get offended if I wish you a "Happy Holidays" because Christmas isn't the only holiday this time of year. Christmas is included in my "Happy Holidays," but since I don't celebrate Christmas for the religious aspect of it, it is equal in my mind with Hanukkah, Winter Solstice and New Years, which my family also celebrate with fun and tradition (I love lighting Hanukkah candles, and especially cleaning the wax off of the menorah, I don't know why, I just love playing with the wax).

This year for Christmas, my sister and her family cooked a holiday feast for us at their house- they invited their good friends and my aunt came down from Greeley. My mom (the only Christian among us) had to work until mid afternoon, but when she arrived we all sat down to a lovely meal of turkey and stuffing, with latkes from my aunt and pumpkin pie.

Happy birthday Jesus.

Time . . . to get back to writing

I have been home now for just over a year. That fact seems so strange to me. I have been home now for half of the time I was in Peace Corps and for twice as long as I traveled afterwards. It is funny sometimes how time can seem so different. How lengths of time are so different depending what you are doing. It is like how the last five minutes that you are waiting in class before a vacation starts can seem like they take years . . . and how hours doing something you love can seem to just fly by. The two years I was in PC and traveling are such BIG times. There were lifetimes worth of experiences squeezed into a little less than three years. Of course every moment wasn't exciting (January in Peshkopi seemed to TAKE FOREVER!). The year that I have been back in Denver does not seem to have taken very long and in many ways I am still adjusting to being home. I have maybe gotten over my NEED to tell everyone about PC, but I still bring up Albania and my time in PC often. I still refer to myself as having "recently returned" and I'm not sure when I will have to drop the "recently." A year ago, my parents picked me up from the airport and took me to a RPCV holiday party. A few weeks ago, I walked to that same holiday party. A lot has changed in my life in the past year, and when I walked into the party, some part of me still feels as though I just stepped off the plane from China.

You may have noticed that this is my first update in a long time. I have been keeping a journal in some form or another for most of my life and blogging seemed like a convenient way for my friends and family to keep track of me while I was gone, but I have pretty much stopped since I've been home. I have started to write in my journals again (something that I did only sporadically when I was gone), but I think that I have missed this outlet. There are some things that are private and belong only in the paper and pen version that sits on my bedside table and there are some things that I don't mind sharing with the world. I have never really known or cared if I had much of an audience (except my parents, hi Mom!) and I don't think that is much of a consideration for me right now. I think that I want to write for myself- to work out things that are going on and to update and remind myself. I doubt that I will come back to blogging as much as I was during my trip, but I think I will try to come back and update every once in a while . . . .

Readjustment

I've been home for a few months now. I have started to write about 5 different posts, but I keep getting stuck in the middle or distracted. I heard a lot from people (and remembered myself from my previous abroad experiences) that reintegration was harder than the original culture shock of leaving and entering a new country. Knowing that doesn't really prepare you for it though.

Coming home is hard. When you leave, you expect things to be hard- you are entering a new culture, you are going away from everything and everyone that you have ever known. But when you come home, it is not like that. You would think that it would be easier to come home. You know these people, you know these things, you have lived this life. But things at home are never quite what you expect them to be. By the time I went back to China (after seeing my parents in the Philippines) I was really homesick. A big part of me wanted to just go home with my parents When I was homesick, I had this particular idea of "home" that is obviously idealized and not totally correct. So when you come home, the first thing is that it is not exactly what you were missing for all those months. I was missing something, maybe the idea of "home," but real home is this crazy real place that is always changing and is not always how I remembered it when I was missing it.

Second, when I was gone, things changed. I am at that age when a lot of my friends are getting married and having babies. So all of a sudden, I come home and there are all these couples and babies and people with completely different lives from when I left. I went away and they kept on living. They kept on living without me and now they are used to living without me, so it is sometimes hard to come back into their lives. They have been used to not calling me and me not being around. I have been used to not seeing them and not being around.

Third, I have changed. I'm not used to the fast paced American life anymore and I'm not sure I want to get used to it again. Even though it was really hard for me to get used to, I did eventually learn how to slow down and enjoy life a bit more while I was traveling. I kind of grew to love snuggling up to my fire and my laptop and watching a movie and then going to bed at 9:00. I got used to getting a full 8 hours (or more) of sleep. I am not the same person that left three years ago (yes, I just past my three year anniversary of leaving for Albania, crazy!). I have literally been around the world. I want to talk about all the places I've been and people I've met and things I've done, but I also don't want to talk about it too much. I feel a bit like this guy. My life is now defined by the past three years and I don't want to be boring talking about it all the time, but it is a frame of reference that I now will experience things by. My life is now "Before Peace Corps" and "After Peace Corps" and I now have a lot of stories that start out with "when I was on the train in Russia . . . " or "compared to Albania . . . " I don't know if people really want to hear about it or not. I know that I have heard all of my parent's stories about a gazillion times- I love their stories (and I love them even more now that I have taken the trip) but I don't know if everyone loves them. It is sometimes hard to know when to talk about it and when to just be quiet.

All of this is not even to mention the general weirdness of America. The cereal isle in the grocery store. Driving on the highway. Having a regular job. Don't even get me started on Sam's Club . . . This is the stuff that I thought people were talking about when they said that coming home is harder. And maybe I'll never really get used to grocery stores again, but probably eventually it will feel normal again . . . someday . . .