Alive

by AJ

Whatever the state of my various students, I find that I still have plenty of energy and passion.... and have decided its time to channel them to the pursuits that always inspire me: learning & travel.

Recently, I started learning Spanish again. I havent done much.. maybe 20 minutes a day. I got to thinking about that... about why I found it hard to do more. I realized that language, per se, provided little inspiration. What fires my passion is learning about different cultures, tasting different food, meeting different people. While many have noted I could "use Spanish" in San Francisco (and theyre right)... that just isnt the same as going to a new country to use it.

And so I got on expedia.com today and started pricing tickets to Mexico City!! Only 422 dollars for a rountrip flight from San Francisco!

Ive travelled many times to Asia, but never to Mexico.. never to Latin America. Yet its so easy to do. Hell, I could hitch-hike there, or take a bus, should I decide to quit my job.

We have a limited amount of time. Why spend our lives in dour boredom? Why walk around depressed all the time? Why shuffle along, doing whats expected... never confronting the wild joys, the terror, the awe, the wonder... never embarking on the great journeys?

Some people, and you know the type, walk into a room and immediately the energy level drops. They are like psychic vampires... agents of doom. I have no time for such people.

Give me the passionate ones, the odd ones. I love the ones with fire in their eyes and belly...... The mad ones (as Kerouac once wrote).

And so I dream of the road and sky.

And linger over maps of the world.

Remembering that I am human first..... that teaching is a job.

Life is calling..........




San Francisco, CA