Life as a Robot

October 6^th, 2011

            I would like to take the time to address a vicious rumor that has been circulating around over the last few years. I will not state the name(s) of the person who started this rumor, *cough* my friends *cough*, because I believe it is mostly a joke. However, I have been accused of being a robot. Now the reason for that I believe is my lack of showing multiple emotions such as never being mad and always being more or less content. So I am going to take the time to address this now. I am not really a person who really likes to talk about things that are bothering me, partially because most things do not bother me. I think that is a large part of it, I can always realize that in the grand scheme of things most happenings simply are not as important as we make them out to be. I can always realize that things can be worse and for this, things never really seem to bother me. However, there is also a part of me that, I am beginning to realize, does not want to show any sort of weakness. I am not sure why I have developed this over time but I think it may stem from a bit of perfectionism. I find this odd because usually a perfectionist wants everything to go right and is nowhere near as easy going as I am. Whatever the reason is, it is something that I am trying to improve upon.

            For this reason, I would like to tell you all about a struggle of mine over the past week or so and what I have learned from it. For the past week or so I have been struggling with the fact that I will be here for 2 years. I have always known that 2 years was a long time but I do not think it really hit me until this week and for some reason it hit me fairly hard. With this realization came a wave of homesickness and I missed just about everyone and everything from home. The funny thing was I missed really simple things such as sitting at a family party and talking with everyone or going on a bike ride with my family. It was something that kept coming up in my mind every day during all of the extra time that I have here.

This brings me to one of the lessons that I have learned about myself and it is simple. I like to have a plan (again weird since I am laid back) but when I looked ahead at the next two years and realized that there was literally endless possibilities and zero plans (except of course, so I have heard, that my sister is getting married next April and I guess I have to go to that…). The thing about the Peace Corps is they give you counterparts to work with but they are not going to hand you a list of things they would like you to do. Basically you have the responsibility, and freedom, to do whatever you please during these two years; it is both a gift and a curse. I have been struggling a little bit with my counterparts to organize a meeting to set a schedule but I think once that is done and I have more or less a plan the homesickness will go on the backburner (I don’t think it will ever go away thanks in part to having the best family and friends ever).

Another thing that I have also realized is how much I enjoy writing this blog and how much it is helping me to process this entire experience. I think it has forced me to spend some time thinking about a lot of things and also made me more introspective. I know that I have learned so much already and I hope that you also have learned something as well. I also hope that you have enjoyed reading the blog as well. Hopefully these next two years will be full of some good insights, lots of pictures (I am lacking with this right now… Sorry), and who knows maybe even a good story or two.

Editor’s Note: Jim is by no means depressed or thinking about going home, just a little homesick, which is good because it shows that he is alive and not a robot…