Some of my students called it "the best five days of their lives." That kind of statement carries a good load coming from kids who visited the Galápagos, the Amazon rainforest, and the Bavarian Alps this year alone. At the end of the academic year, my students were given the great opportunity by the school to live out their own Amazing Race through Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Austria.
I went along for the ride.
Lindsay, Irene, and Andy in Prague acting silly
Freshly relieved of my Creative Art teaching responsibilities and greatly assisted with social media management, I not only had time to create videos, edit photography, and write blogs on the ground; after a 10-hour day, I regularly had hours to myself in the evening to produce work of my own volition and be in the incredible city of Berlin.
The last three months of living in Berlin have been culture-filled indeed. One of our guest speakers this term expressed his belief that if Paris, London, NYC, and other global cities had their heydays in past decades, Berlin is having hers right now. While it's harder to find a contributor to culture living in New York City than it is a financier or business person, in Berlin the culture contributors are the vast majority and the makers of the dough. If you're going to study art today, this is certainly a place to witness a present movement gaining definition.
It could also be because this is the first foreign country in a while where I can feel a deeper sense of belonging. In China, Ecuador, and Thailand, I felt like a visitor and often an unwelcome one, regardless of my language acquisition or the warm hospitality received. Though I still get some awful stares for breaking j-walking and cycling unspoken norms, I don't have the sense of being an intruder in Germany.
I've been talking to a co-worker a lot lately about her balance of consuming and creating, and it reminded me of my old balance between absorbing what the industry is putting out and telling the industry what I'm adding to the mix. After almost two years, here's the latest Consume & Update!
This Vimeo staff pick, directed by Peter Simonite & Annie Gunn, is a stunning result of great cameras handled by great cameramen. It is also a great example of a singular soundtrack lending to the arc of a story in a short film.
I've begun teaching a new media lab at THINK Global School, which encourages students to share and reflect their world experiences using new media. An upcoming lesson will be on the use of soundtracks to carve out, structure, or heighten the message of a video. I'm on the hunt for great examples of this, and I'm also asking filmmakers to explain their choices to the students.
Christian Andersen makes the second video in his series on the street aesthetic of a city, this one "capturing the culture and everyday life of native Berliners. In this short film, I also tried to capture the special urban vibe Berlin has and visualize the aesthetic of Berlin's street corners, parks, buildings and structure." I think the coloration and rack focusing fit really well to the soundtrack by Aphex Twin.
This video by Sergej Hein does what we all wandering East Berlin want to do with our telekinetic powers:
The idea is based on a kind of parody of the former Socialist building style. They used to build whole cities where each house was designed identically to create cheap housing for workers. These ‘blocks’ were so similar that in Soviet times, you could easily wake up at a friends place in another city and still feel like you are in your flat. Even the furniture was the same.
The Love Competition: A range of people are interviewed about love and then receive MRIs to measure their brains as they ponder love. The arc of the story is compelling, and the music is powerfully linked to the sentiment of the short film. Berlin Dynamic: A timelapse video of Berlin's many vistas and defining aspects, including the TV tower skyline, bright yellow subway, and famous buildings Little Big Berlin: A tilt-shift timelapse of Berlin set to Franz Liszt, if you're looking for a calming sensation.
For the last month, I've been feeling incredibly confident in my role as media specialist for this world-touring school, TGS. I can't tell if it's the homey accommodation we have, the energy of Berlin, the enthusiasm of the students, or something else. I've created a rhythm of working and playing that feels solid and sustainable, which is harder than it seems to create structure in a fluid, ever-changing environment. It's been so successful that I've been able to document for myself.
This weekend marked our first school trip out of Berlin. We hit up Bavaria for a look at Munich, a nearby concentration camp, the Alps, and the Champions League final game between Bayern München and Chelsea. Details to follow.
Here's that work from the last month in Berlin:
Guten tag and lederhosen and whatnot: bound for Berlin: I let ya'll know I'm going to Berlin...and planning on real-time blogging er'thang.
Photoblog: details of the hipster haven that is Berlin: I wondered around Mitte (the city center) with my camera, finding and having moments.
Finding the fulcrum below me in Berlin: A prose poem on the flight to, initial settling experience in, and eventual comfort found in Berlin, Germany while working for TGS.
What our experiences in Berlin look like thus far: A run-through of three Berlin-based and Berlin-focused films I've made so far for TGS.
The opinions stated in this post are mine and do not reflect the positions, strategies, or opinions of THINK Global School.
Though I'm not processing my own experiences in video form as of lately (due to lack of time), I'm really please with what I've been able to crank out in Berlin. There are moments when what I've documented for work has impacted me, mostly at Wannsee Haus where the Final Solution was created. In this great city of culture and history, cinematic moments abound. Here are the ones I've caught thus far.
April 11, Berlin, Germany weather
The immigration line stretched to meet me at row 35 on the 767-200. A strong arm could toss a tennis ball beyond the width of TXL's international wing. Elbowing through the Red Rover chain that was a Canadian tour group, bags launched to my shoulders and bolted for fresh air.
Ten days ago, I descended into a brisk, foggy day at TXL, equipped with a new currency, my crusty old travel backpack, and a vague awareness of my new home's coordinates. In the time since my arrival, I've gotten familiar with the suburb of Kleinmachnow and explored my neighborhood on foot. Yesterday was my first wander around downtown Berlin, camera in hand. I've started my three-month exploration of the city at a popular hub, roughly the Williamsburg of Berlin: Rosenthaler Platz. Here are just a few moments.
Today, I fly to Berlin, Germany. I'm not ready, but my bags will be in a couple hours time. And by tomorrow morning, I will have landed in my new home for the next three months. Take away this woman's sweet safari hat, nicely-pressed dress, and hat box, replace it with yoga pants, a sweaty brow, and a cheap tote filled with laptops and this is me today. Man, she's classy.
Just as in Ecuador, this is what I stared at every day of the Thailand term: my portable media HQ of two MacBook Pros, an iPad, an iPhone, and about 13 TB worth of storage power. I see pixels in my dreams. However, what wasn't just like Ecuador was my workload. With the addition of a co-teacher in Creative Arts, I earned days onto my work week. That meant videos were made on the ground, and (gasp!) I was able to shave off hours here and there to do things for myself.
I keep mentioning to our students that this phenomenon occurs constantly, with no warning, regarding foods, flavors, experiences, and beyond. All of a sudden, we're okay with what we formerly weren't (and of course, the opposite is always possible). I'm inclined to believe these mini-epiphanies are more perceptible on the road where they can be constantly questioned.
Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel
My reading comprehension is atrocious, my tracking snail-like. The only thing I remember from high school reading is Holden Caulfield's half-gray hair and his famous line with middle fingers extended toward his despised boarding school. I love to read, and I always have; I'm just not very good at it. And just as I would rather visit a new country than repeat an old one, I try not to re-read books I've tackled in the past. Though plots and anecdotes don't stick in my memory, my impression of the book always does. That's why I remember how much I loved Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel, so much so that I want it to be a part of Creative Arts class next term (did you know I've been teaching?). It's unique focus on literature and art history woven into personal travel anecdotes is seemingly undone by anyone else in this field. Alain verifies this in his book description:
Few things are as exciting as the idea of travelling somewhere else. But the reality of travel seldom matches our daydreams. The tragi-comic disappointments are well-known: the disorientation, the mid-afternoon despair, the lethargy before ancient ruins. And yet the reasons behind such disappointments are rarely explored.
We are inundated with advice on where to travel to; we hear little of why we should go and how we could be more fulfilled doing so. The Art of Travel is a philosophical look at the ubiquitous but peculiar activity of travelling ‘for pleasure’, with thoughts on airports, landscapes, museums, holiday romances, photographs, exotic carpets and the contents of hotel mini-bars. The book mixes personal thought with insights drawn from some of the great figures of the past. Unlike existing guidebooks on travel, it dares to ask what the point of travel might be - and modestly suggests how we could learn to be less silently and guiltily miserable on our journeys.
I welcomed its digestible 249 pages on this trip to Thailand, and now that I've finished my latest Bill Bryson adventure, I am diving back into The Art of Travel for both personal fulfillment and professional inspiration. I think this book may be the most accurate study of my constant state of mind. As I re-read this text, I will post favorite excerpts from each chapter, in hopes that this teaser turns more of you toward Alain and his brilliant musings. We don't need more people writing about logistics and tips; we need to start asking, "To what effect?"
If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside of the constraints of work and of the struggle for survival. Yet rarely are they considered to present philosophical problems - that is, issues requiring thought beyond the practical. We are inundated with advice on where to travel to, but we hear little of why and how we should go, even though the art of travel seems naturally to sustain a number of questions neither so simple nor so trivial, and whose study might in modest ways contribute to an understanding of what the Greek philosophers beautifully termed eudaimonia, or 'human flourishing'. p9
Samesa with a cow head in Nakavika, Fiji
I evolve and mature faster through travel than I ever could while geographically isolated in Hoosier land. I attribute this to the extremes I routinely face on the road that level my demeanor: witnessing exorcisms, jumping out of planes, slow and inhumane cow and pig deaths, frantic scams involving highways, police, and 20 rickshaw drivers, walking through the slums of India, Haiti, and South Africa, and so on.
I often think about this writing genre and travel industry with confusion. How did we get to the point where top ten lists and logistics get us hot and bothered? I understand the value of SEO, but if a flash-packer is focused on targeting their audience with ad words while the world spins and gyrates around them, why do we not get slapped with that irony? Are we not on the hot pursuit of happiness, with documentation only dribbling out as the byproduct of micro-enlightenment? Doesn't it seem inevitable that industry-wide introspection will redirect us all to focus on the philosophical issues of travel? That is, after all, what consists of the vast majority of my conversations with travelers.
'I must have been suffering from some mental aberration to have rejected the visions of my obedient imagination and to have believed like any old ninny that it was necessary, interesting and useful to travel abroad.' p11
Alain quotes a fictional character, Duc des Esseintes from J.K. Huysmans's novel A Rebours, and uses this decadent literature to comment on the similarities in our current mental editing. Those details of experience left on the cutting room floor are those that indicate universal and location-independent realities: unattractive factories, litter, banal businesses, stray dogs, boring fields, people heading to office jobs. Duc didn't like seeing the moments that romantic painters omitted - didn't like seeing the truth that the Dutch countryside wasn't littered with milkmaids, windmills, and nothing else.
Hiking a hill in Ecuador, Barabon
Today, we either use descriptive language to depict idyllic settings or complain that a location didn't meet our inflated expectations. Do we consider ourselves tour guides as travel bloggers with the power to recreate an experience for the sedentary? Do we think we share the abilities of the romantic painters? Or are we hoping to whet the palettes of potential travelers and facilitate their easy access to those points of philosophical inquiry? Are we just saying whatever will bring in a few ad dollars to sustain our own access to life-rocking experience?
If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination. p13
Boy in Dali, China
When I read this quote, I immediately thought of my students at THINK Global School. I push for the arts to offer a language with which they can sort out their impressions, but they experience so much that it's difficult for them to focus on a main idea - or even one detail. They are overwhelmed with the prospect of editing and often leave out the most interesting facet. How does a teenager take a step back from an intense world travel education to find the most pivotal lesson in all of it?
These students have a unique opportunity to see the world, and because of this, they carry great responsibility as ambassadors. They are expected to share their experiences and constantly evolving world views. I wonder how deeply they think about the stories they tell, the illustrations of these experiences they create, and what sense of conflict or responsibility, if any, they feel regarding the simplification of these. The easy answer is probably not a lot, but with the proper leading questions, I think this would be an interesting discussion with a group unmatched in the whole world.
The anticipatory and artistic imaginations omit and compress; they cut away the periods of boredom and direct our attention to critical moments, and thus, without either lying or embellishing, they lend to life a vividness and a coherence that it may lack in the distracting woolliness of the present. p14
Lindsay photographing elephants
I have yet to encounter an observation more reflective of my career than this one. I spend the majority of my work time editing: cropping images, directing focus with lighting, cutting videos to impart one major lesson, and highlighting the most vivid and unique aspects of something to overshadow any pedestrian details akin to regular travels or lives. Especially with today's fleeting attention spans, I have to compress these moments into even smaller boxes. I take life and pick out the bits of meat and flavor, leaving the pixelated carcass to the hard drive birds.
The nature of this task forces constant inquiries like, "Why am I omitting this? Do I have a responsibility to portray this angle, and does it lend to a complete vision or story?" Yes, I produce marketing material, but I don't see it as such, most of the time.
Stories from the road have always been my way to reveal the familiar from unfamiliar locations. What gets me motivated today is making something that could provide exponential value in a way that expands minds. Though my actual audience could be miniscule, I take it as a responsibility to provide a realistic window and evoke a feeling or energy for the purpose of whittling down a bubble. How successful am I at accurately and powerfully portraying a moment? I need some focus group action to figure that out.
I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island. p19
If given the sentence starter, "I spend most of my time thinking about..." I follow it with, "...how I think too much." I could be in a beautiful location, far from my familiar cornfields and water towers, but I have a somewhat useful - though mostly unfortunate - ability to detach and let whatever category of emotions wreck and ravage my mood. And though I can fake it quite well - "Wow, can you believe how beautiful this is? I can't believe I'm here." - it takes a peak of extreme emotions to rattle me into the present, to allow my current thoughts and feelings to suffer complete abandonment, to let me see and appreciate a place detached from my human self.
After months of frustration and one last fight in Nakavika, Fiji, I collapsed on the steps of the school house around dusk. Garrett and I sat together silently, quite aware that this moment signaled the end of our efforts, and I felt all feeling drain from my mind and body. In that vulnerable breath post-sobbing, all words uttered and hyperventilation overcame, I noticed the golden setting sun was illuminating a monstrous moon in between the midnight-blue gap in green crags. Mist and wispy clouds thick with warm color connected the two extremes of our vision. It was the most beautiful moment we had ever witnessed, and it took a pinnacle of human emotion to reach that appreciation, to abandon the mental barriers that make us focus on the 'us' in every situation.
Nakavika Fiji as seen from the school block, mountains, mist
It seems we may be best able to inhabit a place when we are not faced with the additional challenge of having to be there. p23
If so, then I have a big job to do.
If I carry one book with me abroad, it is this one. Each chapter requires in-depth study and results in a brain steadily gaining awareness and understanding for travel and human nature. I'm eager to read your feedback below and help you through the rest of this book in the subsequent posts to come.
There are affiliate links in this post. I purchased this book.
Dear Internet, I’ve been horrible, saying I’m going to write and then rarely following through. And it’s not for lack of noteworthy developments; this was an unbelievably unpredictable and diverse 2011, with certain promise of continuation in 2012.
Upon returning to Indiana this holiday season, to a world so different from my working one, I managed to find only one word that adequately describes my baffled reflection on the year’s events: weird. How did I experience the myriad twists, obstacles, and accomplishments that plopped me into the role I'm in now? Did that all really just happen? And I didn't even really get to tell you about it...
2011 was a weird year, and I don’t consider that word to be derogatory – for the most part. Here, Internet, let me fill you in on the tidbits worth noting.
Throughout childhood, New Year’s Eve was always an event I celebrated with gusto. Though I acknowledge it’s overrated nature today, it still feels like a beautiful night where the mind receives a flushing and a chance to redirect its thoughts at something more meaningful. Landmarks in time are meant to be celebrated, for they represent the act of highlighting the realities of our present.
New Year's Eve 2011 in New York City, Lindsay
Balls dropping, confetti clotting up my local sewage system, fireworks speckling the famous skyline - regardless of my surrounding atmosphere, I celebrated this widely observed holiday by sitting in my first apartment in my first real residence post-graduation, writing the previous observation and feeling pretty content to be warm, well-fed, and with a clean bathroom nearby. I braced for a big year in a conservative manner, apparently feeling the necessity for taking it easy when I could. It was on track to escalate quickly.
For months, I read books, studied Creole flashcards, and followed the news to develop an informed awareness of Haiti, my February destination for documentary work for The Haiti Project. Prior, the country seemed an inaccessible shell of a nation in my mind's eye, an unfair judgement based on insufficient exposure. It also seemed a destination only frequented by journalists, politicians, and celebrities seeking humanitarian glory.
After landing in Port-au-Prince, my silver dollar eyes focused behind a camera lens at both the headline-worthy and unexpectedly average. First conversations with this traveling crew - an investment banker, a doctor, and a politician - made my research immediately relevant. Smells, rocky rides, colors, and penetrating glances brought me back to Africa. The downtown area was the front page of the New York Times, the residential acres overlooking the city representing a side of Haiti I hadn't at all conceptualized - the affluent one. The stark contrast of my documentary subjects and nightly accommodations made for a racing brain, one that saw the nation as a whole - its past and present, the potential for its future.
Haiti is small, mountainous, and in possession of more culture than many countries exponentially larger. In pursuit of stories from Project Medishare, Hollywood Unites for Haiti, Edeyo, and the Cine Institute, we traversed the capital, the central plateau, and the coastal region of the south, also managing to witness a long-awaited Kanaval, fueled by pent-up emotion and necessary release from the earthquake thirteen months prior. Intensity, aggression, jubilation, and passion were on display from a hopeful and resilient crowd. Deep layers of humanity exposed put me in awe.
With the flavors of fried platanos and unmatched rice and beans still making my own cooking taste vastly inadequate, I stewed in New York City, contemplating Haiti and all that occurred on the whirlwind trip, including the unplanned encounter with then-candidate and current president of Haiti, Michel Martelly. As if that experience wasn't shocking enough, the dude started following me on Twitter a few days later. Still follows today. Is he messing with me?
Alexis Reller visits New York
Yes, that was odd to have a then-presidential candidate following my tweets about flying with cats and traveler's diarrhea, but what really defined the month was an impromptu visit by my favorite trail-blazing lumberjack, Alexis Reller. Together, we took advantage of Astoria's open spaces and Greek delicacies, free yoga and unseasonably warm St. Patrick's Day afternoons at beer gardens.
Qatar Airways plopped me at the Bangkok airport for production in Thailand, a project I witnessed from its conception. I found myself a girl in possession of $5 pants staying at the Shangri-La Hotel (or similar accommodations), where laundry services are clearly in proportion to my wardrobe value. The mission: to distill a country down to its identifying culture for use as academic resources in global education worldwide. My additional mission: to engage in a place I've pined to have an extended visit, absorbing all things food, massage, language, and culture-related.
Swirling a camera around a Muay Thai fighter, photographing behind the scenes of a Nang Yai shadow puppet performance, devouring multi-course tasting menus - I was fortunate to enter and exit Thailand with enough absorbed information as to get the country's cultural and historical significance on the world's stage. Getting cracked in half with Thai massages, mowing $1 pad thai from popular street vendors, meeting local restauranteurs down the beach from our hotel, hearing the story of a tsunami wrecking her family - I let myself be melted and molded by surrounding experiences in a more personal fashion.
Flowers of Luang Prabang, Laos
Though Thailand is close to the counterpoint of Indiana, I found myself in close proximity of a fellow Wabashian also in the country for production. Cassie was in Phuket while I was in Bangkok, in Chiang Mai while I sat on a beach near Phuket, flying elsewhere while I was coincidentally getting trucked around by her former driver in Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, I couldn't meet up with her to chat on our polar opposing experiences in production (mine being a team of five, hers well over 100 for a hit ABC show) or reminisce about our childhood home. I'm happy we grew aware of the others coordinates and subsequently recognized the shared tendency to combine travel and film.
Post-Thailand was a much-needed personal trip to Vietnam and Laos. Joined by co-worker and friend Vijaya, we floated in the mist of Ha Long Bay, found an incredibly authentic bun thit nuong in a no-sign establishment, drank the blackest and most flavorful coffee from a makeshift street diner, and were surprised by the serenity of a Laotian night market. The trip was gritty. It was active. There were terrifying moments punctuated by relief and laughter. It was a trip that reminded me of RTW joy, though that desire for long-term travel has somewhat left my being, making space for the unexplainable urge to nest.
I returned to a mild New York City and emerged in the marketplace as a freelancer of all things content. I did things I never thought I'd get the opportunity to do. I unknowingly pitched an art magazine, exhibiting my photographic portfolio and leaving with affirmation that had me bouncing through Chelsea. I began writing features for Matador, for the first time really sensing journalistic accomplishment. I also did the unthinkable and flew my cat from Indianapolis to New York City. She hyperventilated to the point of drooling a fu manchu.
And things just kept happening. It was unsolicited confirmation that without direction to do work, I still do work - feverishly - so much so that I neglect my own writing and fulfillment projects. Within two weeks of this mad hustle, I obtained a job interview with a concept previously unfathomable to me: a traveling high school. It felt like travel, education, media, and youth combined to create my ideal activity. I had a long interview and a short lapse of time between the subsequent offer to visit the school in China.
And the cherry on top, my nephew was born.
Family at hospital for Max's birth
I flew to China, met this traveling high school, and my mind was blown. Previously conceived notions of education were combined in a bag, shaken not stirred, and tossed like Yahtzee! dice onto my table of consciousness.
The offer came on the table to be the media specialist for THINK Global School - a full-time content creator, manager, and occasional instructor. In the meantime, before I began this first foray into salaried employment, I wrote like a fiend, took my portrait photography to new depths, celebrated a friend's marriage as a bridesmaid, and took advantage of my location by traveling to Boston.
And within months of the big relocation, I was organizing my departure, sad to leave the city but following a job worth the sacrifice. The feline went back in flight, and a subletter was en route. I accepted my return to the nomadic lifestyle with hesitance but eventual enthusiasm.
Bags packed in NYC for the nomadic life once more
Just as I had done in May of 2008, I filled bags with my worthwhile earthly belongings and began living out of a bag. I had a bed thanks to cat-sitting in Brooklyn and started performing my new job tasks from every Asian restaurant in its vicinity - trying to consume every food I would miss in Ecuador. In preparation for my work as a one-woman production house, I investigated the art of the film title and reflected on my trajectory sans film school experience.
With a flight to the southern hemisphere looming a week away, I frantically tackled the goal of seeing New England - one of the reasons I moved to New York initially. Inspired by my trip to Boston the month prior, I rented a car to explore the coastline. Driving directions sat in my passenger seat but were never really utilized. It was usually dark outside before I knew where I was stopping or staying, but even with this seat-of-my-pants itinerary, it was refreshing, calm, and perfectly timed to see friends en route. Van Morrison serenaded me through five states, and my camera operated for no one but myself. For the first real time in maybe years, I was documenting my own adventures just for me.
Hurricane Irene did cut my road trip a bit short, but because of this highly-publicized natural disaster, I ended up driving around Brooklyn and Queens (an experience I always considered to scary to attempt) and meeting a long-time internet friend, Sierra Anderson; thankfully before her TLC reality show aired and she became an unattainable, high-rollin' television star.
Leaving NYC, under Brooklyn Bridge, for Ecuador
This is me leaving New York City to Ecuador. Coincidentally, every taxi I took from the moment I signed my contract was operated by a chatty Ecuadorian. From the moment I hailed this cab until December 7th, my life never paused. After shooting back to Indiana for yet another great wedding of a great friend, September eased me into my future hectic schedule surrounded by international teens and ever-stacking responsibilities, which included:
Visiting the Amazon rainforest as the first high school group at Tiputini Biodiversity Station
Standing on an emergent atop the canopy, watching spider monkeys and killer ants
Floating down a piraña/anaconda/caiman/electric eel/vampire fish-invested river in nothing but a life vest for two hours
Spending my 26th birthday flying past three active volcanoes and taking six different types of transportation through the rainforest
Straddling the Equator, both the tourist line and the GPS-specific line, watching water swirl in opposite ways on both sides of the line
Taking over the creative arts teaching position for 26 students from 15 countries
Did you notice that last bullet point? Teaching. Not occasional instruction of the digital arts but all-out educating a classroom on the entire field of creative arts. Though had I gone for my Masters in Studio Art I would have taught more complex classes than this, I had to juggle my already-intensive job with learning how to manage a classroom of 26 international and inquisitive kids. I thought I was cognizant of the difficulty in a teacher's job, but it became screamingly clear of why it's full-time and worthy of at least four years of intensive study.
Maybe six days after returning from the Amazon rainforest, I marked off a Bucket List item and flew to the Galapagos islands. My class field trips were to the zoo an hour away, but here I was filming and photography 26 kids who got to cash in on a lucky life experience at age 15.
For one week, we lived on San Cristobál island, housing classes in a local university directly opposite a white and blue beach. It was here that I stood in front of two grade levels, wrote my first non-hypothetical lesson plan, and used advanced technology to engage students on some artistic concepts. I had what the profession calls a 'teaching moment' within first three days.
Following what some would already consider an immersive and whole experience in the Galapagos, we got on a boat and went island hopping. I photographed from the top of a truck up an unpaved road, hiked the rim of the second largest crater in the world, and saw tortoises bigger than a mini fridge. By the end of this entirely satisfying journey, I was wiped out and in need of a break after 37 days on the job straight.
I began teaching a medium I never even studied in school but only self-taught and learned through experience. But, of all the courses I've taken in my life, this area is surprisingly the one I feel most confident and qualified speaking about. For three weeks, I taught cinematic storytelling and film production, a unit which concluded with a film festival of original work by the students. It was a reminder of much we can construct for ourselves instead of waiting for a structure to provide life experiences.
What seemed previously like an infinity pool of time to utilize soon became a countdown clock drawing all of us away from Ecuador. I had to squeeze in another unit on social commentary, grade an intimidating stack of written critiques, continue to film, photograph, and edit the content reflecting our experiences, and simultaneously have my 'human being' time where I enjoyed the temporary coordinates of my employment.
With time quickly unraveling, we hopped in an SUV with our eyes set on summiting a magnificent hill: Barabon. It was one of the few moments we stopped to travel and enjoy each other's company in an environment of our own choosing. It was a refreshing morning.
Ecuador, hills outside Cuenca
Hiking a hill in Ecuador, Barabon
Two terabytes of footage were beginning to burn a hole in my desk, impatiently awaiting their eventual coagulation into films for viewing. And so I grasped my week, squeezed it like a tube of paste for any excess time, and made an iMovie teaser for a trimester unseen.
Starting from our 3-month home of Cuenca, Ecuador, we took a bus and an SUV through the foothills of the Andes en route to Chimborazo province. The kids hammered into concrete, dug the foundation for a school, and shivered happily in a highland community for three days on a volunteer trip. This was our final Ecuadorian experience, other than a farewell party that had many of us in tears by morning's end. I was a mess, saying goodbye to a woman that shares many of my oddities and knowledge of northern Indiana 'culture': María del Mar, our host city specialist and Notre Dame graduate.
I've traveled alone for school, work, or play and returned home to the threat of reverse culture shock over ten times, and this one was (relatively) an absolute piece of cake. My longest duration in one place abroad; it didn't affect me adversely. I had some domestic hiccups, and at times I was inexplicably anxious to do anything. In the first 24 hours, I snuggled with my niece and nephew, drank cold ones with my brother, and got used to English interactions with strangers and driving everywhere. It wasn't until I visited my hometown that I realized the ride 2011 took me on.
Are you still working for that one company? Or is it now that other company? Where in the world are you these days? What do you do...I can't even keep up!
I attended a family wedding with hundreds of people I grew up with and answered my work question differently every time. I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to explain myself as I continue this organically-paved career path, and the further I move away from a 'travel phase' to a lifestyle choice, the harder it is for me not to brush it off as a weird and fleeting situation, for the sake of being relatable.
This all is weird. These opportunities all happen before I'm ready, and they defy the limits of this supposedly impossible job market. I've been learning how to swim by getting tossed in the deep end, and thankfully (so far), I've managed to adapt my strokes to stay afloat and keep swimming upstream. The only way 2011 could have accomplished a more elevated status of weird - edging into surreal - would have been if National Geographic called to fulfill the quintessential travel documentarian's dream. At least that would be a relatable job description that wouldn't leave me hungering for the right words for my self-definition.
I rang in the new year with my lumberjack, mixing drinks behind the bar and enjoying our limited but valuable time together. Shortly after that stroke of 2012, I flew to Thailand, roughly my hometown's counterpoint. This year is already bound to be off course from the expected and normal. I've got my floaties on in preparation.
The opinions stated in this post are mine and do not reflect the positions, strategies, or opinions of THINK Global School.
MacBook Pros, iPads, iPhones, and intense production tech
There was rarely a time when I didn't feel the necessity to document something; it all carried the weight of potentially useful in the eyes of a one-person production crew. My schedule seemed the product of an ADHD-ridden ninja. And on those rarest of occasions, I was able to venture around the corner of my hotel home to see angles of Cuenca myself.
But for me, nothing proves more fruitful than re-engaging in this multi-faceted industry. I like travel, media, the digital realm, education, art, and a unique combination of all. While my involuntary immersion practices don't allow for fully connected 'field' time with my peers, it's in those months between travels that I reemerge a human with new ideas and the ability to answer e-mails. And on this particular instance, I truly realized how few degrees are in between me and something I would love - the same goes for you, too, I'm sure.