I have returned from my travels to Costa Rica. Thus ends the traveling phase in my life for a while, I would imagine. Unless of course someone decides to donate large amounts of money to me!
Costa Rica was fabulous. I think that I enjoyed Turkey more, but it is a wonderful place. The weather was unbeatable. I love seasons, but I could seriously get used to Costa Rican weather year round. The wedding was nice, Ken is now officially married, twice. The food was great. And the views were incredible. The only qualm I have about the trip is that I felt like a major tourist the whole time. First of all we stayed in what I like to call the Rich White Person Compound. Second of all we did a tour. In general I try to avoid tours when I travel, but I must admit that this one was quite nice and we saw a lot of good things for the price that was paid. In general it was hard to blend in when walking around downtown San Jose with a group of about 16 gringos. I did rather enjoy practicing my Spanish, and I look forward to many more trips in the future...maybe even one in a year with the staff...but I guess I'll see what happens.
Hmmm, that last paragraph seems awfully disjointed....but what can you do, sometimes?
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
This Cannot Go On
I am currently finding myself in an annoying but necessary phase of life. The phase of life where I suddenly realize that everything I am doing is wrong. I've been sensing it for a while now, particularly in the way I've been relating to God, but up until about a week ago I felt no need for real change, I guess I supposed that sooner or later everything would work out again. But then it hit me; I am the problem, I need to change.
Like I said, I've been feeling it for a while, but have somehow avoided doing anything about it. Then I went to Turkey, had a great two weeks, and came home a very confused person. I had my life all planned out, or at least the next five years, and suddenly I was left with nothing, no plans, no clue. Then I had a discussion with some people and the result was me realizing that, like I said before, I am doing everything wrong. Things have to change.
So what is "everything," one may ask. Well where do I start. First of all there is my relationship with God. I've suddenly realized that I have been trying to boil a relationship down to a formula. If I do this and this and pray and read my Bible I will be fine. I don't know what I was thinking. I would never try to keep a relationship with anyone else going by talking to them for a few minutes everyday about myself and then reading about things that they have done. That's completely ridiculous. I also feel like I don't really know how to live anymore. My priorities are screwed up. I'm living to validate myself, I'm living for other people, for their praise and acceptance. This is simply no way to live. There are many other aspects of my life that need to change, I don't really feel like going into all of them. There are some habits that need to be broken and some patterns of thought that need to stop.
So what am I doing about all of this? Well the first step was/is depression, a feeling of being totally overwhelmed, and despair. I think I'm pretty much over this phase, at least I hope so. I was helped out by a good discussion with someone who has gone through a similar phase recently and is, in some ways, still dealing with it, and also by the realization that all is not lost. I am not back at square one in my relationship with God. Sure, I may have gotten off track, but there is still a foundation there, still core beliefs and convictions that are not going away. This gives me hope. So as for the rest of my plan: well, I know it will be a long road. One does not change one's way of thinking and living over night. I realize that I will not wake up in the morning a completely changed person. Everything will not fix itself. So I guess that I will pray a lot, and I will read a lot of books that a friend recommended, and I will try to change some thought patterns, who knows what else. All I know is that God is good and that I'm starting a long journey which will end in a better place.
Like I said, I've been feeling it for a while, but have somehow avoided doing anything about it. Then I went to Turkey, had a great two weeks, and came home a very confused person. I had my life all planned out, or at least the next five years, and suddenly I was left with nothing, no plans, no clue. Then I had a discussion with some people and the result was me realizing that, like I said before, I am doing everything wrong. Things have to change.
So what is "everything," one may ask. Well where do I start. First of all there is my relationship with God. I've suddenly realized that I have been trying to boil a relationship down to a formula. If I do this and this and pray and read my Bible I will be fine. I don't know what I was thinking. I would never try to keep a relationship with anyone else going by talking to them for a few minutes everyday about myself and then reading about things that they have done. That's completely ridiculous. I also feel like I don't really know how to live anymore. My priorities are screwed up. I'm living to validate myself, I'm living for other people, for their praise and acceptance. This is simply no way to live. There are many other aspects of my life that need to change, I don't really feel like going into all of them. There are some habits that need to be broken and some patterns of thought that need to stop.
So what am I doing about all of this? Well the first step was/is depression, a feeling of being totally overwhelmed, and despair. I think I'm pretty much over this phase, at least I hope so. I was helped out by a good discussion with someone who has gone through a similar phase recently and is, in some ways, still dealing with it, and also by the realization that all is not lost. I am not back at square one in my relationship with God. Sure, I may have gotten off track, but there is still a foundation there, still core beliefs and convictions that are not going away. This gives me hope. So as for the rest of my plan: well, I know it will be a long road. One does not change one's way of thinking and living over night. I realize that I will not wake up in the morning a completely changed person. Everything will not fix itself. So I guess that I will pray a lot, and I will read a lot of books that a friend recommended, and I will try to change some thought patterns, who knows what else. All I know is that God is good and that I'm starting a long journey which will end in a better place.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Home again, home again
Ang and I arrived back in the States on Monday evening and I've been attempting to get caught up on life in the past few days. VLI on Tuesday evening was a bit daunting, but in general it was pretty interesting...except when 9:30 hit and I suddenly became very tired and struggled to keep my eyes open for the last hour of class. I've also gone over to The Home a few times since being home where we have done minimal work and had much fun with the wheelchairs. Let's just say that I should have very strong arms by the time I'm done with this place.
To wrap up my time in Turkey...well, it was pretty much two of the best weeks of my life. Much wonderful food was consumed, many sights were seen, many good times were had, a little bit of Turkish was learned, much money was spent, and more glasses of cay were consumed than I can even count. As much as I loved my time there I came home more confused about my future in Turkey than when I left. I loved the country and would love to spend some years of my life there, but all of the logistics are really confusing me. When would I go? Where would I go? How would I go? These are the questions that have my head spinning. I know that God has a plan and all I have to do is trust Him, but it would be so much easier if He would let me in on it so I can do a little preparing.
Oh, and about pictures of my trip, the chances of me putting pictures on here are slim, due to my extreme laziness; however, if you are interested in viewing more pictures than you can possibly care about feel free to check out my picasa site. I only have pictures from Istanbul on there currently, but I'm working on getting the ones from Gaziantep, Urfa, Haran, Mardin, and Adana on there. Enjoy!
To wrap up my time in Turkey...well, it was pretty much two of the best weeks of my life. Much wonderful food was consumed, many sights were seen, many good times were had, a little bit of Turkish was learned, much money was spent, and more glasses of cay were consumed than I can even count. As much as I loved my time there I came home more confused about my future in Turkey than when I left. I loved the country and would love to spend some years of my life there, but all of the logistics are really confusing me. When would I go? Where would I go? How would I go? These are the questions that have my head spinning. I know that God has a plan and all I have to do is trust Him, but it would be so much easier if He would let me in on it so I can do a little preparing.
Oh, and about pictures of my trip, the chances of me putting pictures on here are slim, due to my extreme laziness; however, if you are interested in viewing more pictures than you can possibly care about feel free to check out my picasa site. I only have pictures from Istanbul on there currently, but I'm working on getting the ones from Gaziantep, Urfa, Haran, Mardin, and Adana on there. Enjoy!
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Merhaba
Well, so far Turkey has been pretty much fantastic. Our trip started out pretty shakily with many problems in airports and such. A short summary of our travels goes like this: our flight from Columbus to Detroit was delayed 2 hours so we were rerouted to Memphis and didn't end up leaving Columbus until 2 ish hours after we were supposed to. Then our flight to Memphis was delayed even more and we landed in Memphis 15 minutes before our flight to Amsterdam was to leave...then we taxied for 10 minutes while Ang and I became very nervous. When we got off the plane a lady was waiting to tell us where to go and when we said Amsterdam she responded with ''Oh Lord, run...gate 47.'' I looked up to see gate 3 and stared running like crazy. We arrived at our gate with one minute to spare and got on the plane very out of breath. We had an unexpected 10 hour layover in Amsterdam, so we ventured on into the city for a while. We finally arrived in Istanbul at 1:30 am on the 2nd, 12 hours after we were originally supposed to arrive. All in all a very exciting trip to say the least.
So far our time in Istanbul has been amazing. Joanna is fantastic and pretty much a master of the Turkish language...pretty much everyone here loves her because she's so good at Turkish and she gets us good prices on things! We have done exciting things like see the Ayasofya, Topkapı Palace, the Grand Bazaar and other touristy things. We met some friends of Joanna from the university, we ate wonderful Turkish food and have drunk rakı and efes, and we have enjoyed the wonders of the nargile. We only have 2 more days in the city before we head for the southeast and we are trying to cram as much fun in as possible. So, until later.
So far our time in Istanbul has been amazing. Joanna is fantastic and pretty much a master of the Turkish language...pretty much everyone here loves her because she's so good at Turkish and she gets us good prices on things! We have done exciting things like see the Ayasofya, Topkapı Palace, the Grand Bazaar and other touristy things. We met some friends of Joanna from the university, we ate wonderful Turkish food and have drunk rakı and efes, and we have enjoyed the wonders of the nargile. We only have 2 more days in the city before we head for the southeast and we are trying to cram as much fun in as possible. So, until later.
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