La început din nou... (At the beginning once again...)

Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park, Colorado, October 2008

One year ago, almost to the day, I was planting trees and laying new paving stones in a small town park in western Romania. Not long after that, I wrote what would prove to be my last blog post for almost a year -- before seemingly dropping off the face of the earth. There are myriad reasons for this, or so I tell myself. Most don't hold much water, I admit. After all, there has been no shortage of things going on in my life in the past 9 months or so. But in summation, I'm back in cyberspace, and my postings will (theoretically) resume. And for those who haven't been updated recently, here's a brief, crib-notes version of my life since Romania. My apologies for the brevity. As you read, I encourage you to browse the PHOTOS as well:

My Peace Corps service officially ended at the end of last July, and after signing some final documents and annoying everyone in the head office one last time, I boarded my first flight in over 2 years and headed to Vienna. There I spent a few days with my Romanian host-mom's brother and his wife, who have lived and worked there for years. Then it was off into the rolling Bohemian countryside for a short tour of various famous Czech beer-brewing towns (Plzen, home of Pilsener Urquell; Cesky Budejovice, home of Budvar, the "original Budweiser"). After preparing my system with wonderful Bohemian suds, I took the train west to Munich, where I met up with my old friends Eric and Will from grad school. The three of us would ultimately visit 6 countries together and taste much beer, European street-food, wine, and otherwise: South to Genoa (with a sleepless night in Milan's train-station), then to Paris, Brugge, Amsterdam and finally London, where we spent a few last days together before they flew out. I stayed on a few more days in the UK, revisiting Oxford for the first time since my junior year abroad, and then spending one last, wonderful weekend with some Scottish friends in Edinburgh right in the middle of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. What a terrific way to say goodbye to Europe!

At the very end of August I flew back to the US, and my father and I then took another flight down to Florida to visit my grandfather -- wherein I was greeted with the first of many surprises over the following months: my grandfather, in a wild bit of downsizing, gave me his Chrysler convertible. I think his (very sound) reasoning was that having a car would help me in my upcoming job-search. My reasoning was a little different...and a lot less sound: My return to the US + beautiful Fall weather + convertible = ROADTRIP!!! I wasted no time getting going. From late September to the November presidential election, I covered something like 9,500 miles, visited 30 states, and reconnected with at least as many friends (I won't even tell you how many gallons of gas and dollars of gas-money I burned through).: Virginia, DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticutt, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia. Whew! Gorgeous weather. The top down. Open road. Old friends. I can't think of a better way to reacquaint myself with my country.

Well, voting for the next president. That's another way. In early November, I found myself back in Virginia and deep into a job-search in the worst economy in several generations. After returning from Romania, my focus had shifted to architecture firms doing work in community development, low-cost housing, disaster relief, mixed-development, etc., and my geographical focus was firmly on places like the upper Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic and the Gulf Coast. As I would continue to find out over the next several months, the industry (like every other) was contracting, hiring was slowing down, and I was forced to deal -- essentially for the first time in my life -- with the physical and emotional challenges of being without a full-time job, which are manifold. Anxiety, self-doubt, depression, aimlessness, loss of motivation -- It's difficult to appreciate how immediate, and how overwhelming, the effects of unemployment generally are until one is right smack in the middle of it. Even after two years of struggle, improvisation and confidence-building in the Peace Corps, I found myself battling what was, in some ways, an even more difficult situation at home. There is always more that we can learn about ourselves, I suppose, and the world we inhabit. I have learned much in the past few months. And it certainly hasn't been all negatives either. For instance, during my search I've been working part-time at a coffee-shop in Charlottesville with some terrific people, learning how to make quad-shot mochas, extra-dry cappuccinos and chai lattes. Valuable skills, all. And I've continued to interview with a variety of interesting and exciting architecture firms: I was passed-over by several, I was offered a job by one, and several have asked for follow-up interviews over the coming weeks. All of which leads me to the next predictably risky decision...

The crowning event to all this is the news that I will be heading to the Philippines in mid-June for a 6-month assignment with Peace Corps Response (the shorter-term, technical wing of the Peace Corps, typically for returned volunteers). The word so far is that I'll be among a small group helping a local non-profit to design low-cost housing for residents of Manila's vast slums. And though it means another few months of relative poverty, I couldn't be more excited! Going against all better judgment, I am turning down job offers here in the States (in a bad economy) to pursue this opportunity, so only time will tell whether my decision was a good one. I've learned to trust my instincts, and I'm feeling pretty good about this one.

Well, in a nutshell, that's my life over the past 10 months. I have no overarching words of wisdom, no lessons to be gleaned -- other than the constant reality that life is unpredictable. I would love to hear from anyone I haven't talked to in a while, and I promise to keep everyone abreast of life and work in the Philippines (and after). I feel like my writing skills aren't where they should be -- perhaps I'm out of practice. I'll get over it, as I hope you will.

Keep putting one foot in front of the other...