Soaking up the Sun

School has been out for four days now, and I have to say it feels amazing.  Over the course of the year I forgot how wonderful a fresh coffee and the latest Economist felt in my hands.  It gives me the slight sensation of being back in college and reconnects me with the world and its many historical shifts.

Thus far my summer has been relatively uneventful yet extremely relaxing.  Much time has been spent by the pool and engaged in a variety of books.  I did attend an in-service where I learned about the new math curriculum we will be using next year.  It looks pretty legitimate and will decrease my work load significantly.  This makes me happy.

Although school has only been out for a short time, I can already tell that if I do not occupy my time with something productive I will become restless.  I am looking to get reinvolved with the international community from a development standpoint.  This may be the direction I choose to take my life next if I end up leaving the classroom.  Cultures, languages, and concepts of justice have always been an area of strong interest.  I have begun to look into the International Rescue Committee which works with refugees.  If anyone has any recommendations please send them my way.

By mid June I should be back in Texas.  I am looking forward to seeing family and old friends.  Dallas, Waco, and Austin are definitely going to be stops, but if you want to bring me elsewhere I am more than willing.  I would write more but the sun is calling my name.  Hope all is well with everyone wherever you are.  Take care and be in touch.

Abraham’s Land

So I have a new song for you all.  Unfortunately, since I am out of country, most of you who are kind enough to support and encourage me in my musical hobby wont be able to hear it for quite some time.  So, I thought instead that I would post the lyrics to you can engage it in that respect.  Enjoy!

Abraham’s Land

 

We sang of peace

As we gazed over the lights of Kigali

We said, never again

Would we turn our eyes from the ghosts

That roamed these streets

Only fourteen years ago.

 

But today we’re resurrecting

A violent past, that hellish dream

In Abraham’s Land ghosts are harvesting

Fruits of their wicked seeds, wicked seeds

 

As a young boy,

They put a gun in his hand and said

This is your hope.

This is all you’ll ever be.

So shoot all that moves.

Take life from all that breathes

Until you kill the soul

Living deep within yourself.

 

Well Abraham ran into the future

But those ghosts, they tracked him down.

They sprayed his down with bullets

And they burned his house to the ground.

Right to the ground

 

But I believe Abraham’s land

Will become a promised land

 

Oh, those fires burn him up inside

And anger gleams within his eyes.

But he knows their greatest victory

Would be to spread those fires of hate and greed.

Well some serve justice down the barrel of a gun

Oh but Abraham says justice is love, love, love

He says there’s so much worth dying for

But nothing worth killing for

There’s no even score

Not when bodies line the floors.

 

There’s so much worth dying for

But nothing worth killing for

And so I believe that Abraham’s land

Will become a promised land.

Finding Your Niche

Recently I’ve noticed that my current position in life overwhelms me with a feeling similar to that which I experience in a bookstore.  It’s not so much a feeling of being lost amongst the shelves as it is the sense of being engulfed by a flood of titles, all of which I am interested in engaging and exploring.  The pages of a new book, like each day in my journey of life, permeate my senses with the fresh smell of opportunity and possibility.  As a result, I am often left frozen and unmoving, not due to a lack of direction, but as a result of uncertainty in which direction to take.

Finding one’s niche in life is not an easy process.  It is daunting in fact.  Looking back at my recent life’s experience, I feel blessed to have contentment with where I have been and who I am becoming.  I attribute most of this direction and discovery to the academic freedom attributed to me by a more liberal education.  And when I say education, as many of you have guessed, I am not referring to May’s Business School.  All joking aside, it should also be noted that I am not simply referring to conventional classroom activities but what we refer to at A&M as the “other education,” which includes but is not encompassed by organizational involvement.  Yes, International Studies has provided me the space to explore life’s more philosophical questions such as the essence of “value” (when different cultures define it differently) and our purpose on this earth as a community of human beings, but the organizations I have involved myself with have given legs to these theoretical musings and provided them a realm, connected with reality, in which they can run free.

More than this, however, my studies and my involvement have surrounded me with a group of (semi) like-minded individuals who often challenge me, but to whom I feel a deep connection.  This has developed within me a transparency, a vulnerability, and an openness, all of which were only recently was birthed within me, but continue to mature with time.  I am an integral part of a community of individuals who give my life meaning and purpose and who stretch me everyday to limits I thought unattainable.

For this reason, I question whether a niche is something that can be created more than it is something to be discovered.  After all, looking forward from freshman year, I would have never predicted nor imagined the place in life where I presently reside.  And yet, standing in the present and gazing back upon my experiences and decisions, I can honestly say I would not change a thing.  Now it seems as though I have reached another crossroad – a point where life is beckoning me into its flowing river with all its ebbs and currents, but I am refusing to jump until I can calculate exactly where it is I will land.  Unfortunately, life requires more faith than this and if I refuse to dive in, I will never be able to derive the satisfaction of arriving at any destination.  Nor will I experience the joy of the journey on life’s great river, which I am sure is filled with tubes, friends, and coolers of ice-cold, imported brews.

Teaching?, development work?, graduate school?, living domestically?, living abroad?…[whatever] – will sort itself out as opportunities arise and fall.  My responsibility is to stay true to my principles and my ambitions, to keep my mind open to adventure, and most of all, to enjoy the ride.