Where the Hell have you been?
A few years ago, I was talking with a five year old girl. Just the normal chit-chat you would have with a child, but when I asked her how old she was, she told me she was five and a half. Five and a half, indeed. When you're five years old, a half a year is a long time. In fact, it's almost 10% of your entire life. 10% of my life at my age covers a long time, and a lot has happened in the last 10% of my life.
To the best of my memory, I think that when I was a child I thought that people just grew up to a particular age (say 30 years old or so) and then stayed mostly the same. They mostly did the same things every day. They went to work, came home, ate meals, watched television, maybe went for a short trip now and then, but mostly their lives were the same until the day they died. Sure, things change as you age. You put on a few extra pounds, you get bunions, hemorrhoids, arthritis, maybe Alzheimer's disease, maybe (God forbid) you get cancer, and some day you eventually die. But mostly, things stay the same.
My life hasn't stayed the same. My life seems to have kept the same break-neck pace that it had when I was a child, and high school was just a few years away, and then it was college, and then something else after that. Always something else, just around the corner. (Hi, Kayleigh!)
When you get old enough, you start running into people that you haven't seen in a few years, and they inevitably ask me "Where the Hell have you been?". I'm sorry, I'm not a very good correspondent. So, if you've been wondering, here's where the Hell I've been:
I've been to Germany. And I've been to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama, and countless other countries in Central America. And I've been to England and France and Greece. I've been to Scotland where I drove around Loch Ness and explored castles that are hundreds of years old. I've seen Tabletop Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, and then traveled on to Durban, South Africa to visit with Zulu tribesmen.
I've been hiking in the spice fields of Tanzania, where I helped a little old lady from Houston walk back to the bus. I remember thinking that I wanted to see the world while I was still young enough and healthy enough to walk or hike to the interesting places. And I went.
I've been on safari in Tsavo National Park in Kenya. I watched a black panther grab raw meat hanging from a 30 foot pole. I've slept under mosquito netting. I've hiked to the lost city of Petra in Jordan, and rode a camel back out of the canyon. I've been to Egypt. I've seen the great Sphinx in person, and I've walked inside the great pyramids. I've eaten with my fingers at a Moroccan feast and had a 12 foot snake wrapped around my neck.
I've been swimming in the Dead Sea, and I've climbed the Masada in Israel. I've explored ancient castles in Turkey, and I've eaten food that I still can't identify. I've bartered furiously over a tie, only to discover (after checking the currency rates) that we were close to physical violence over 13 cents. Incidentally, I paid $8 for the tie. On the flight home, it was for sale in the duty free catalog for $200.
I've been to Canada and Mexico. I've been to almost all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. I've been mountain biking around a glacier, and finished the ride at a brewery. I've been to both ends of U.S. Route 1, and my dog has been swimming in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes. I've been to the Statue of Liberty (thanks KN!), the Golden Gate Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, Carlsbad Caverns, Roswell, New Mexico, the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, the Space Needle, the Sun Sphere, Times Square, Grand Central Station, the Great Smoky Mountains, Niagara Falls, the Smithsonian, and countless monuments in Washington, D.C. I've climbed mountains, and been swimming in rivers, oceans, and seas. I've been lots of places and done lots of things. And I've been to Japan.
The first time I came to Japan, I fell in love with it. The people, the country, the culture, all of it. It's one of the best kept secrets in the world. I've been all over Japan. I've been to Tokyo, I've been to Osaka, I've been to Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe. I've been to Hiroshima, and I've seen the Atomic Bomb Dome and visited the Peace Memorial Museum. I've been to Miyajima and Nikko. And, believe it or not, I've been a Buddhist pilgrim and hiked around Shikoku Island with my backpack to visit the 88 temples of Ohenrosan. I've been a religious figure in Japan. ;)
In January of 2008, I resigned my position as a Research Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and took a job with Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. It's a new facility, just getting started, and there are many significant challenges. Many days, I just want to pack my things and go home. But every day, when I wake up, even if I'm still angry or frustrated from the day before, I stop. And I think, "I'm living in Japan" and I'm happy. This is a beautiful country with beautiful people, and every day I'm happy to be a part of this culture.
So, that's where the Hell I've been. Where will I be next year? It's hard to say, but I'm sure I'll have some interesting stories to tell about it. ;)