A small photo retrospective

Since I spent my last post lecturing whoever is reading this thing, I thought I'd repay you by posting some sweet photo love.

I left you last time with some shots of Tallinn and I'm opening here with a few more. The second two are obviously from my trip to Paris. Enjoy!

Stepping Stones

Dear void,

It will now be only 10 days until I fly out of Canada and into my new job in England. A move like this tends to create some familial angst. Every time I go anywhere or do anything out of the ordinary, this kind of friction tends to appear. The angst I'm referring to has thus prompted a lot of questions; Why are you moving when you have student debt? Why do you insist on digging yourself into a deeper and deeper financial hole? How do you see this affecting your future? What is your motivation for this seemingly needless move? Why do you insist on making things so difficult?

This is not a post about angst. This is not a post justifying why it is exactly I wanted to make a decision like this. This a post about decisions and making lots of them- big ones- about your life. To be fair, most of the questions listed here (and I have, indeed, heard each of them), have been posed by people who have never been on an adventure, and who have likely never taken a substantial risk. I am going to answer some of these questions here in case anyone out in the void is considering a move like this and are hesitating because they are mired in the self-doubt and anxiety that these kinds of endless questions generate. First, take a deep breath and repeat to yourself, "I am just walking toward the first stepping stone of a much longer journey."

I am a firm believer in stepping stones. Every time we make a choice or a decision, we take another step toward something. Sometimes we head straight towards a goal, sometimes we veer and end up somewhere totally unexpected. That's okay, either way, we are constantly adding a step to a collection of previously taken steps that will eventually fill our life. I wanted to go to Europe because I am a Europhile. Pure and simple, this was my ultimate motivation. I have a Master's degree in European politics, I have lived there twice before, and this move is another "stepping stone" that will enable me to not just move there but also, to stay. I have goals. I want to pay off my debt while working and having a look around my new country. I'd like to have a little fun. I want to start a PhD program at the University of Glasgow next year and don't want to worry about moving there especially for that. I want to find a job in my field, to work really hard and travel all over. I can't do that from home. Here, I'm stuck. There, I'm a free bird.

Everybody makes mistakes and I don't expect this abstract 5-year plan to go uninterrupted. I might muck it up and need to re-think some of my key strategies. The point, though, is this: Some people meet someone, find a job, get married, settle down, and save for their retirement. I will do some of those things, too. But not now. Everything in it's time and place, as they say. I'm looking forward to the adventure. For me, this is what building a life is all about. It's not crazy, it's just what I want.

I'm getting more excited as these last 10 days move by and in my opinion, everyone else should, too. And if you can't get excited about your life, change it. The only way to shift anything is to take that first step- or- stepping stone if you will.

10 days.

The Cosmic Void

It's been several years since I've even looked at this blog. I'm sitting at my desk in Baddeck, Nova Scotia (neat place- you should look it up) and I'm reflecting on my last travel adventure and on the next one to come. You see, I leave for a very long time on a very permanent excursion to the UK. Leaving in two weeks, in fact. Basically, after a few degrees in political science here in Canada, I've somehow come up with the wild idea to get me a PhD. There's an amazing program at the University of Glasgow that I've been accepted into. This experience has come up after a lot of time spent traveling through my Master's degree, after all of the growing pains associated with that time, and after a lot of successes and a lot of failures. I've learned so much but the urge to keep going and to keep discovering hasn't faded. Not one iota.

In the last three years, I've spent six months living in Vilnius, Lithuania, traveled to Paris, Rome, Chicago, Washington DC, to some really big mountains and Burlington in Vermont, and I have been all over Canada. After taking that first massive leap and getting on that fateful plane to Stockholm over 3 years ago I literally have not stopped. It's occurred to me after watching my friends find permanent jobs, get married and buy houses that I might be running from adulthood. But I've found recently that there are many versions of "adulthood" and that mine happens to look out over the clouds from the seat of an airplane. I'm not behind, broken, or otherwise deficient in any way. I am rather, a nomad, a gypsy, part migratory bird, part sentimental soul who just wants to feel everything from every part of everywhere. In the movie of my adult life I am deeply moved and affected by the world and that, my friends, is just fine with me.

I think that in comemmoration of this next big move, I might retroactively post some photos and thoughts from the travels I failed to document here. You know, the memories that are still rattling around in my brain, yet to find their place on virtual paper. In that vein, I will send this post out into the void of the internet and if you read this, maybe you'll write me. Maybe you'll shirk the idea of a nuclear adult life as well. And maybe we can be friends.

Good bye for now, dear void. It's good to be back.