I went to visit Chris and Zach this weekend and spent a healthy night on the town. We caught up over a few beers, cheese sandwiches (meat for them) and dancing. We heard a lot of American music everywhere we went, and most everyone else seemed to appreciate it as much as we did, which is to say, half-heartedly.
I've been thinking about the next step lately, meaning what I'll do when I get back. With as much distance as I have between now and then, I can still be idealistic: writing a book, hiking the Appalachian Trail, going to grad school for acting, buying a computer and an apartment and see how far my money goes on consulting work, finding something completely new to do and selling myself to whomever will take me...but as much as this journal is about my day-to-day activities including my thoughts, I don't think this is all that interesting or something I should dwell on. So I'm moving on.
Really, I've been thinking about all sorts of different things, which isn't that bizarre or unexpected - meaning that I've adjusted pretty completely life here. As comforting as that thought is at first, it's actually quite disappointing. It's probably why I've started thinking about the next adventure. My threshold for adventure has been raised to an unattainable daily level - how I'm doing what I came to do, which is work and help people. Once again, I need to look closer at every single thing I'm doing and find the smaller challenges and the smaller adventures.
On some level, I've already started doing that - I just need to keep my mind from straying too far from what I'm trying to accomplish.
One of these things being HIV/AIDS education...we had a meeting Saturday with the provincial office about this subject. All of the teachers in my city (about 2-300 probably), were there. Unfortunately, the session was a little long and the people running it were a little long-winded, but 4 hours after it started, I had a better idea of what ideas here are on HIV/AIDS education. And it's not that different from what I had thought. Plus, the guy running it came up to me afterwards and mentioned he's been meaning to talk to me because of what I'm trying to organize within the school. In all, a good sign. But the presentation of the idea could be worked on.
Peace
John
