Pushing my hand toward a different direction, Alex led me square off the mountain face, straight down the slope. One footstep would push wheelbarrows full of little volcanic rocks down, obscuring the switchbacks like a toothpick through latte foam. In seconds, I was meters lower without much effort at all. I was skiing! No... I was screeing!
Climbing Kilimanjaro in a body not built for these heights, part 2
With these white lies, it became clear to me that climbing Kilimanjaro is completely mental. My leg muscles didn’t burn the way I thought they would. Other than my head and belly, my body felt strong and fine. But an able body was not the most important need for continuing up that huge, dark, daunting incline. I turned off my mind to simply put one foot in front of the other and to encourage others to do the same.
Climbing Kilimanjaro in a body not built for these heights, part 1
The ascent presented quite a few debilitating challenges–sun exposure, wind exposure, high altitude, blisters, dehydration–but their effects were hardly visible in these teens. I witnessed incredible grit in those fifteen [former] students, none of whom were weathered mountain climbers nor even teenagers who'd had adequate sleep for the two months prior. They looked out for each other and pushed through the monotony to savor the specialness of the opportunity.
A patchwork quilt of my days in Japan
For the last two years, I've used these little collages as a way to quickly chronicle a chapter of my work life. While this says "Hiro" (a.k.a Hiroshima) and some of the images are from elsewhere in Japan, this represents some of my favorite moments this term, the ones I continue to savor even months later.
My first step into the world of feature-length documentaries
Photography by Joann McPike © THINK Global School, 2013
In January 2013, I traveled to Bhutan with 30 international students, only to come home with mass amounts of footage that couldn't be condensed into a little web video. Fifteen months later, I screened a feature-length film from that trip to the students who lived it. (I was even able to share it with the Prime Minister of Bhutan and receive feedback!)
Northeast Japan still hurts from the 3/11 disaster...and you knowing that actually helps
The more wonderful people and places I encounter, the more difficult choosing causes becomes for me, and I can understand that you might as well find difficulty in extending much of yourself to this cause with so many other things begging for your support. That's why I hope it feels entirely doable to you to simply follow them on Facebook and begin your engagement there. A message, a photo, or a "like" could be just the encouragement they needed for the next step.
An earthquake challenges my understanding of reality
From a state of unconsciousness to complete lucidity in three seconds, I sped to the realization that an earthquake challenges what I know to be true about my reality. A building trembling and swaying, a bathroom vibrating bottles off the counter, a need to brace myself between two beds …and none of this occurring on a ship, as I’ve experienced before. I was not at sea; I was very much on land.
Exploring the haiku with Kyoto and Kerouac
Kerouac considered the beauty of the form to be in the process of painting a single moment as simply as possible in three lines of text. He often wrote in "Western haiku" form, which didn't follow a strict 5-7-5 syllable equation. Since I'm not a fan of a creative process that includes the frequent counting on my fingers, I embraced this style and experimented yet again with the haiku, this time during a TGS club session called "Word."
Kyoto through the lens
I wasn't a part of the planning process for Kyoto, so every day presented new information and surprising activities I gulped up. The highlights included walking through a bamboo forest, watching chunky snowflakes coat the city, and our tea ceremony with a maiko, a geiko (or geisha) in training. I rolled my own sushi for the first time, which was a bucket list item, and I finally visited the orange gates captured in Memoirs of a Geisha.
Sparked by a word and leaving it to the end
It's something I've trained for, feel born with an attitude and aptitude for, have developed strong passions for and a personality around. In its absence, I feel loss and incompleteness and greater pains than the ones it causes. It shapes the way I think about everything remotely related to it–turns me into a philosopher, a guru in a cave...in my own mind.
Assume the world wants you to take risks, keep learning, and do what you love
Arriving at the bus terminal, I turned right back around and got on the Portliner train to try and get as close to the ship as possible. Having not traveled with my passport, and knowing the insanely tight restrictions on boarding, I knew there was no chance of talking my way on as a nostalgic alumna. As I rolled closer, I snapped pic after pic of increasingly higher quality until I found myself face-to-bow with my former nautical home. There are many reasons why SASers develop a lifelong love of the program and the vessel. For me, Semester at Sea changed the whole course of my life. I don’t know who I would have become without my round-the-world voyage in 2007. I certainly wouldn’t have met Garrett and Alexis, wouldn’t have felt strong enough to take my Big Journey, wouldn’t have aspired for the STA internship, and wouldn’t have landed in Japan today with my job at THINK Global School.
Hours in transit are mental junk food
This post is a writing exercise, prompted by a quote from The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton. This was done in unison with my students at THINK Global School during a travel writing workshop.
A patchwork quilt of my Indian days
My third exploration of these Instagram collages is providing some great perspective on our time in India. Instagram images feel like highlights of daily joys, and usually a sum-up post of images from a place is a showcase of your best and most influential moments. Making a little visual quilt of the daily joys seems to weave the kind of fabric that makes sense to my mind and likely memorializes a place akin to how I will mentally.
The time I took ten students to the war-torn region of Kashmir and they loved it
Have you ever been on a trip that you knew was so special: every detail seemed divinely delivered, every moment one to journal about, every vision worthy of an Instagram? This was the sentiment possessed by all involved in our trip. Lazy nights spent huddled around the fire were coupled with songs or thoughtful talks about travel. Even in moments where the students were out of their element, up before dawn, freezing, or pushed to their physical limits on hikes, they were still so engaged. The usual shyness of students in need of filtering questions through their teachers to the guides dissolved after a half hour on the ground. The students loved Ashika.
A journey back to north India, a mind running in place
Though my steam was running low by the end, the students and I agreed that the trip was a bit of a mental recharge to engage with where we were living. I spent many hours chatting with the students about their upcoming first graduation ceremony, gender inequality in India, and traveling solo as a female around the world. I pretended to be a guru in a cave on the train, accepting students into my lair (joining me in my double seat) for questions about life and happiness. My answers were usually, "Write about it!"
With pocket money and a rickshaw, some kids discover Hyderabad
Open blocks to explore hundreds more, we feel strongmoving into a space we somewhat know, a city we sheepishly call our home, from our hostel for the homeless. Bulk home goods to crispy street food, we were happy. Dirty lake walks to all-star city specialities, we were happy. We were happy by choice, equipped with freedom and company that subscribed to the daily magazine of discovery.
I want to teach under a bodhi tree.
Regardless of the reasons why it didn't happen, I know what I want: engaged students every step of the way. That investment in time must provide me immediate return, onto which I can bank that long term effects are plausible. I am building daily on a blueprint created many years ago, when a long trip provided me a clear life goal. Of course, I also must find ways to steady my mood and know I cannot control all the variables that allow a student to be an engaged one.
What is evidence of good travel?
We burn fuel, and sometimes we observe where that takes us,hypothetically hoping it's toward patch-covered nirvana, an open mind Regardless of the "where to" but focusing on the "so what" What is travel, and what is a traveler?
After three weeks in India, I finally feel like I'm traveling.
Flickers of lightning are faint but always to the left of my aim toward the horizon. They provide an additional layer of drama to my nighttime ride home from the city of Hyderabad. I booked a taxi with the help of a Hindi-speaking friend, someone whom I quickly and liberally offered my trust purely on the grounds of intuition. Hair still wrapped from a previous motorbike ride, I hope it helps me evade any potential disturbance I've been warned about, regardless of how secure I feel with being in a taxi at 8pm in the countryside. My iPhone low in my lap, I text my new friend to say that my limited Hindi and our common ground of "right, left, and straight" have brought me back to where I'm living for the next four months.