Recently

The academic year has come to a very sudden end.  I didn't see it approaching but finals week is nearly over by now, marking the end of my second full academic year in Miami, the end of the first full academic year of teaching.  One year ago marked the last time I was a student.  Since kindergarten, the longest streak I've ever had of not being a student was my year abroad (the reason for starting this blog) and in a few months when this summer is over I will have tied that streak though this time it is evident that I'm going to continue the streak.

In the news (of my life)...

I have moved out of my parent's house completely.  All of my remaining belongings are in a pile ready to be picked up by a moving truck and will be here in less than a month.  It's certainly a weird feeling and I do feel significantly grown up.

Christina has started her internship at Biscayne National Park.  It's a year-long internship that's located about 45 minutes to an hour and a half away (depending on traffic).  I'm excited that she's going to be within driving distance for the next 12 months.  I don't know if I mentioned it before but I was concerned that she would end up in an internship that was outside of southern Florida and we would rarely see each other but realistically we'll share each other's company on a fairly regular basis especially since she's living within a mile of me for the entire summer.

For someone who makes a living out of diving, I don't dive all that often these days.  This is why this week is looking so exciting.  Monday: help on a checkout dive.  Tuesday: 2 nitrox dives for our students from this past semester.  Wednesday: dive with.... actually, I forget now.  Thursday: practice dive for the reef surveys I'll be doing over the summer for a few weeks in and beyond the FL Keys.

If you don't count orchestra which was 3 hours a week, I'm playing about as much viola these days as I did back at Denison.  Okay, so maybe that's even still an exaggeration but I play an average of 30 minutes a day, so frequently in fact that I haven't even put my viola in its case for the past 2 weeks.

Swarming Season

For anyone (such as yours truly) unfamiliar with March and April with respect to termites, let the records show that those two months are termite swarming months.  Although I didn't kill any today, I've found and killed about 50 over the past 3 days.  I've found a significant amount of ants outside the house but very few inside yet.  I have come across 2 dead cockroaches, one in the laundry room and one in my bedroom although that one wasn't entirely dead as it turned out.  I have a trivial leak in the Florida room ceiling and fairly serious but inconsequential leaking into the screened-in patio.  They are first world problems, yes.  However, they're still things that demand my attention as well as a long list of other things.  This has been a mentally demanding process, this buying a house thing.

Next weekend I'm flying up to Ohio to flag any furniture of mine in the basement which will be sent down to Miami for the new place.  It is going to be a lot of work sitting around in the basement sifting through two full storage shelves of things ranging from 1st grade writing assignments up through furniture.  At least I'll be able to see my family.

UPDATE: Since posting, the termite count seems to have dropped considerably.  I have only found one in nearly a week.  I know that they're not gone just because I haven't seen them in a while but it is a sign that swarming season is coming or has come to an end.

Southern Migration

For much of my life, I've had a mediocre to grim outlook on the state of Ohio. As a child, it represented the wedge that separated me from my beloved hometown and friends of Charleston. As an adult, it represents the geographic void between the east coast and the great plains marked by rolling hills, corn, a river that once caught fire, and the one and only gem that is Cedar Point. All said, I know that I am a bit hard on the buckeye state. I have more loyalty to WV and love it dearly but to be fair, Ohio really is a wonderful place to raise a family and go to school. It's not a state in which I will ever reside again for as long as I live, but it has a lot going for it and it is home to a lot of good people.

Mom and Dad sending me off

I am putting Ohio in the spotlight because it is where I spent a large portion of my winter break. After returning on the 23^rd of December (a 4-month absence), I managed to meet up with a good portion of high school and college friends as well as a number of family members from my father's side of the family. I wish that I could have spent more time with all of them but due to an upcoming interview on the 13^th, my departure was moved earlier. An interesting side note is that this break marked the longest amount of consecutive time at home since the summer of 2008.

My southern migration started with lunch in Columbus and dinner in Dayton with high school friends. I made it to Oxford by night, spent the next day there, and left the following morning for Charlotte, via Cincinnati. Due to a serious snow/ice storm in the southern states, I was forced to reluctantly alter my course. Instead of driving through Kentucky for the first time in my life, I re-routed myself through Charleston and onward down I-77. The logic here was that if in fact I became stranded and could go no farther, I could fall back on any of a number of contacts that I have along 77. Due to serious pressure from family members, I decided to change my plans such that I would spend the night in Charleston regardless of the weather conditions. At the moment of writing, I am currently in Charleston, freshly showered, significantly tired, and prepared go to Charlotte by morning.

What a Sensation

I'm too charged to sleep.  I close my eyes lying in my bed, awake.  What a sensation.  My bed.  At home.  In Ohio.  With my family.  Safe.

I sift through memory after memory as they pop up in my head just like the balls that decide the winning lottery numbers.  They come in short snippets, sometimes just images, other times full experiences.  Some come just as feelings while others are series of events.  Memories.  I have been gone for a year and now I’m home.  I’ve been to the ends of the Earth alone and have made it back safe and sound.  At home.  With my family.

My body is relaxed but my mind ticks through memories of the year.  Sitting on the porch in Hawai’i, the view of Arthur’s Pass in New Zealand, the Hindu ceremony in Singapore, finishing and passing the scuba instructor exam, the dogs I passed on my way to work in St Maarten, cleaning the rail on the sun deck of the yacht, and biking through the coconut farms on my way to work in Indonesia.  Memory after memory comes to mind then is replaced by another one just like leafing through a textbook and looking at the pictures, stopping occasionally to read a caption.  But now I’m in my bed.  In Ohio.

I still can’t sleep but I’m enjoying the feeling too much to move.  Everything at home is just as I left it, almost untouched.  The memories keep coming to me, almost as if my mind doesn’t want me to forget.  Everything is as I left it so my mind is afraid that I’m going to pick right up where I left off as if nothing ever happened.  It does already feel like it was a different life, like it was a different me.  As the memories float past, I remind myself that they are my memories.  It wasn’t someone else, it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a parallel universe, and I didn’t imagine it.  I went to the other side of the world and now I’m back.  In my bed.  Safe.

As I lie awake with all of these thoughts swimming in my head, I can’t help but think of the future.  I’m excited to see friends, go to church, drive through town, and even in the more distant future like working in Egypt and going back to school.  It’s all going to be an adventure.  I’m ready for it but I don’t want to rush it one bit because I am enjoying too much the feeling of being safely at home, in Ohio, with my family, in my bed. What a sensation.