A year ago today

A little comic hangs next to our desk in Durham. It shows a car in mid-lane indecision on a snowy highway approaching an exit ramp that, rather than heading off to another road, scoops up to what looks suspiciously like a ski ramp, steep enough to tempt only a James Bond-esque car chase or those guys from Myth-busters. A sign with a downward arrow towards the main lane of traffic reads, "Through traffic." The other points off to the exit saying, "Ski resort, exit only."

This square sheet of paper was torn off a daily desk calendar by my office manager exactly a year ago today, December 20, 2006, my last day of work in New York before taking off for Winter Park and beyond. Amazing what adventures a year's time will bring!

If you're new to our site or been around but wouldn't mind checking out some highlights or refreshing your memory about SE Asian signs, Cambodian driving habits or snotty-nosed ski school kids, check out the new link over on the sidebar below our names.

New York City

Sometimes I miss New York as if it were a person. It's as if the city has its own character and disposition and certain things (scenes/actions/encounters/events) remind me of this. It feels very unlike how I miss "home" home (Michigan). It is neither nostalgic nor wistful nor vague but a distinct sadness that I forget until I am reminded of it.

Check out the new...

...statistics in our sidebar (to the right).

By the way, we will be out of internet contact for the next week or so as we travel West (before traveling back East to travel even further West). We'll try to update, but who knows!

Tunnels and Transition

There is something bizarre about the end of an era, the moment where you see the end of the current phase of life and the beginning of the next. These moment are often odd times because you are(or at least I am) having to deal with present realities meanwhile looking ahead to what lies next.
Read the rest...

In the past, these moments have often been overwhelming-as the phases of life were large and all encompassing, i.e. college. But in shorter periods, or at least this present shorter period, the break feels quite manageable and almost comforting. College and Grad. school were such monolithic events that trying to figure out what to do after them was nearly incomprehensible (maybe that's why so many graduates spend the first several months in an utter state of limbo upon graduation. Or at least that's what it felt like to me...). Often these moments are so intense and encompassing that upon completing them and entering the space on the other side, there is a momentary pause as one(we, you, or I)tries to (re)evaluate the last several years of their life. On a personal level at least I remember the time right before the end, knowing that these moments wouldn't last, and seeing the light and the end of the tunnel and not being able to think anything other than "What do I do next?" But I think alot of that was due to the size of the era and a few months feel much different than a few years.

However after two months of work out in Colorado and the end of the season in sight I find the end of this phase a welcome event. And unlike previous moments, I find solace in the impermanence of this present phase (every phase of life is rather impermanent after all isn't it?). I think I am able to enjoy this phase because for one of the first times in my life I have a job that won't affect my future. I'm not going to do this again. I don't' need to impress the people here and at the end of the day the only person that really needs to be satisfied with my work is myself. (This is a rather new concept, for while I have always worked to the best of MY ability striving to do MY best there were always consequences, positive and negative, to my performance.)This job lets me work and find enjoyment in what I do because I know what I will (and will not) get out of it. It also lets me look to the future and find comfort in knowing that I will end well and enjoy the end. Its just relieving to finally have an end of something and to enjoy that end. It will be good to be done with this, its been good to be here and good to work for a season but I think I'm ready for a change... especially when that change is a five month trip to Asia followed by studying in the UK for a year. I don't know if any of this constitutes growing up or if its a wise move in the long run but it makes sense now and that's really all I have.

Why we are doing this (according to Josh)

Journal Excerpt 2-2-07, Written in "Coffee and Tea", an aptly named coffee/tea bar at Winter Park.

So it was a cold and rainy December night (can you get more cliche than that?), and I'm standing in the back of a big yellow moving truck with only two thoughts running through my head: 1) How in the world did I get so much stuff? I live in less than 300 square feet for Pete's sake... and 2) Why am I doing this again?
Read the rest...

On December 23rd we moved; we packed all of our worldly possessions (at least those worthy to sit in storage for several years) into a truck and left our home of the last several years. We weren't moving for new jobs or new exciting prospects. We weren't moving to further our ambitions or careers. We were moving to take a break from everything and to spend the next nine months traveling, seeing the world and trying to meet some interesting people along the way. We left everything we knew, everything that was comfortable, to go look for something else, but why?

To start we've been talking about doing a big trip of some kind since we've been married, if not before. We have both traveled a decent amount on our own. We traveled while we were dating, and we traveled while we were engaged, and so the idea of a penultimate excursion seemed perfectly natural and fitting for who we are. This dream isn't something that we pined over during exams, reviews, and papers (though it did provide some relief from the work at hand) but was something we had begun passively planning at least since I started grad school. We actually kept a bulletin board in our kitchen with a map of the US on it. It had push pins in the places we would someday go and news clippings to inspire us for our mythical voyage. And while this trip was a dream of ours, that ultimately selfish motive wasn't enough of a reason to go. I guess if we were going to take some time "off", there needed to be something more substantial than "I want to go."

I think another factor in our decision to leave was an attempt to find each other after New York. We got married while Meg was in grad school and immediately before the start of mine, so our marriage (at least in the beginning) was built around the rhythms and routines of school. Staying up till 4:00 AM, having absolutely no money and little patience for each other were par for the course. On top of staying busy at school, we were doing it in one of the busiest cities in the world. We lived stressed lives at school, busy lives in the city, and then came home to such great amenities as our less than 300 square foot apt (for which we paid an amount equal to other people's mortgage on their houses). It's not that we didn't like the city, but just that living there and living the lives we did took its toll. We grew tired, annoyed, and mildly frustrated at things that sometimes seem trivial (reflecting the nature of New York stereotypes) and while we still were ourselves... we just were ourselves a little stressed most of the time. So one of the original reasons for this voyage was to spend time with each other and rediscover ourselves- not the worn-out phrase used by burned-out college students (I have my doubts about finding oneself in a far off land), but in a sense of finally being able to spend some quality time with one another and experience new things with one another. But this wasn't (I think) the most distinct reason why we left because there are other ways to enjoy each other's company that are much easier than taking 9 months and leaving.

Perhaps the most persuasive reason we left was because we wanted to stand for something other than the traditional myths and tales that make up the American social landscape. We live lives marked by 10 days off a year, a continual rat race to get further up the corporate ladder of success, and often we seem to cast our ambitions to the wind in search of comfort, stability, and material goods. Now, I'm not saying that those things are bad or that the American way of life isn't a good thing, but I do get frustrated that it is often viewed as the only thing, at least within broader American culture. Consequently, our choice to leave and to explore is a statement, to ourselves if no one else, that life is what we make of it and that we can do what we want if we choose to do so (realizing, of course, that this is a luxury/privilege that we do not deserve). When we told people we were leaving to go work at a ski resort and then travel, we would often get comments of "I wish I could do that." To which our response was (and is), "You can." We need to choose our lives and choose what is important (sometimes that's a stable job, sometimes that's leaving a stable job) and find joy and contentment in that. So we quit to remind ourselves that life is what we make of it. And so I think that's why we are doing this... at least in my head.

And now to go teach crying Suzie how to ski.

At Long Last

Ta-Da! As we enter Week 4 of The Adventure, we are finally getting to this blog! First, we didn't have the Internet at our place of residence and then we were just too lazy to start typing (that and the fact that the computer lives on the floor of a cold, empty room-photo forth-coming-didn't help). We decided to keep a blog over the next few months for a couple of reasons:

1. We want to be able to update friends and family as to where exactly we are without having to send out mass emails due to Internet cafe time pressures.
2. We would like to record our activities and our thoughts on those experiences.
3. We had many, many requests since we have so many, many friends...

Now, as for the adventure itself... In brief, Josh and I quit our stable and decent-paying jobs in New York, NY at the end of 2006 to finally do what we had been talking and dreaming about since we got married. Our original excuse for "taking time off" was to get reacquainted with each other after living as two poor grad students in one of the most stressful cities in the world, but it's since grown into a whole lot of other reasons. From January to April, we are working as kids ski instructors in Colorado, using our days off to explore other ski resorts and to recover from days filled with I-want-my-mommy-syndrome and I-can't-get-up-disease. In April, we will be heading to Michigan and Texas for two weddings before flying off to SE Asia and India for about 5 months. Crazy? Yes. Terrifying? You bet. Exciting? Absolutely!