My first tattoo: a Sak Yant!

While I was planning my trip to Southeast Asia, I stumbled upon some information on Sak Yant (which means sacred tattoo, tattooed and then blessed by monks). Now I’ve contemplated getting a tattoo for the longest time, but I am very indecisive and I didn’t know what would mean so much to me that I would be fine looking at it on my wrinkled body in 50 years. With Sak Yant tattoos, traditionally the monk who is doing it picks it for you, and places it where he chooses based on your aura or something like that, so you have no say in design or placement. After going out the previous night and getting to bed at 2am, which should probably be frowned upon, we awoke at 4:30am to leave for the temple (after some research, we decided on Wat Bang Phra, since it was a couple of hours away from where we were staying in Bangkok).

Samantha knew she wanted one for sure, so we arrived and we’re taken by a man to buy 70 baht’s worth of incense, cigarettes, and I think it was candles, as an offering. Anxiously waiting, I contemplated further on getting it, and during the 2 hours we waited, I still wasn’t sure. We had to give an additional 25 baht offering each in a tray, and both of us presented it to the monk. Luckily, a man was there who was getting another Sak Yant as well translated for us, and said that traditionally, the first Sak Yant to get would be the Gao Yord on the base of the neck, which gives the bearer protection against accidents, bad people, and bad luck in general (although there are many different interpretations, the basic meaning is protection).

I held Samantha’s shirt down and stretched her skin while the English-speaking Thai local did the same, so as to make the tattoo more precise and help the monk avoid touching a woman’s bare skin (which is prohibited). Now Samantha has several tattoos in various places, but she said that this one was pretty painful compared to the rest, especially due to the fact that it is done by hand with a very long, very thick metal pole-looking thing. It had to continuously be dipped in ink, which is said to be made of a mixture of Chinese writing ink, palm oil, and snake venom. All this while, the Thai local explained to me the significance of this Sak Yant, while also discussing the protests in Bangkok with the monk (which Samantha and I were witness to and even walked through during our time in Bangkok). Samantha was a champion and did not cry while she was getting inked, and after the 15 minutes it took to get her tattoo, it was my turn.

By this time, I still had not decided whether I was going to receive a Sak Yant with black ink, or the invisible palm oil. As I sat down, the Thai local asked me which I wanted, and I asked him meekly, “what do you think, ink?” I think what I meant to ask was whether the tattoo would hold the same significance in palm oil, but I was so nervous sounding that the Thai local nodded and said “ink” in agreement, and before I knew what was happening, I felt the painful jabs of the metal tool into my spine. Now don’t misunderstand me, I knew I wanted a Sak Yant, I just wasn’t sure if I wanted it in obvious dark ink in all of its lifelong permanence when I could have palm oil. It was pretty painful, especially at the base of my neck, but I have a high tolerance for pain and have never cried from it (knock on wood!), and after 3 broken arms, a motorcycle accident, and surgery, this tattoo wasn’t so terrible.

The Gao Yord Sak Yant

After the monk finished with each of our tattoos, he spent a moment praying over them, which is supposed to seal the magic inside of it. We bowed our thanks to the monk and thanked both him and the Thai local generously in Thai, and left with burning and stinging necks. We checked out each other’s tattoos, praising the lines and each others’ heroic receiving of the jabs. We had trouble getting back to Bangkok, since I cannot plan for anything and wifi was nowhere in sight, but luckily a wonderful Thai woman who didn’t speak a lick of English let Samantha and I hop into the back of her pick-up and gave us a ride to the bus stop. I want to reiterate to everyone how absolutely lovely and friendly people are in Southeast Asia, more often the people not located in big cities. It gives me hope for humanity.

Once we arrived back at the hostel, I was able to check out my tattoo for the first time in a mirror and with the help of a camera. At first, I was appalled that the first few spires are visible if my shirt is low enough (because I would rather not have any tattoos that show in everyday clothes, for career purposes), but it will definitely not be visible in a uniform shirt either way. The more I looked at it, and even now, almost a full month after receiving it, I keep falling more and more in love with it. I had realized that I may not prefer the design, or even the placement of it, from the beginning; I had gotten it more for the meaning, as a memento, and because I am extremely interested in studying Buddhism, so the design didn’t really faze me since that wasn’t the purpose of it. But now I love it and am extremely happy that I decided to go ahead with receiving a Sak Yant!

I make a terrible blogger.

I have been traveling for almost 2 months and this is my 2nd blog post…I must say, I fail at blogging.  I had a netbook when I came here, but after Samantha arrived and we were on a ferry in Koh Phangan, we were caught in a torrential downpour of rain, and my little laptop never came back to life. Since then, I have purchased a tablet, first a fake one that worked terribly, then a real one which I’m typing on now. It’s hard for me to type long messages (with hard being a substitute for the word lazy), but I will try harder in the future!

So many things have happened since the last post! Samantha came, and we journeyed to Koh Phangan on a sleeper train and arrived just in time for the Full Moon Party. If you’re curious as to what it was like, the images that will pop up when you Google it are pretty self-explanatory; it was crazy! Everyone had glowing shirts or body paint or buckets in their hand, and on the tuk-tuk ride there, Samantha and I met 2 guys who we ended up hanging out with most of the night. I would advise all females to NOT GO ALONE. I was separated for a little while when I was dancing in the rain, and so many people were asking if I came alone, a group of guys pulled me and started kissing my cheeks, and a random guy who was dancing with all of us followed me into the ocean and got extremely handsy, in which case I ran away.

But it was so much fun, I’m contemplating going again in January! It was pretty rainy the rest of our stay, we climbed up to the top of a peak and up a waterfall, motorbiked around and got some sun. Then we headed north to Chiang Mai, saw some movies in the cinema on our lazy day, soaked our feet in a hot spring and bathed in a mineral pool, pet tigers, and rode and bathed elephants bareback. I loved interacting with the elephants the most, and since I am planning on going to Thailand again in a month or 2, I may try out volunteering at an elephant camp for a week or 2 weeks, just so I can have more time with them (while also getting the opportunity to clean up their poop, which are almost the size of my head).

On the bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, I became so terribly sick, I don’t know how or why, but I ended up vomiting on the bus 2 or 3 times. It was an overnight VIP bus, so I’m thankful I got sick on the most comfortable one, but I’m sure the people around me minded as I retched uncontrollably into a trash bag and made the whole downstairs of the bus smell like a pile of sick. Even after I got off the bus in Bangkok, I fell to my knees and vomited again into a small plastic bag, sweating and struggling to catch my breath in front of the entire bus terminal…I’m sure I did America proud.

When we went back to Bangkok, we researched what temples around us would do a Sak Yant (sacred tattoo done by a monk) for us, and found out about Wat Bang Phra in a town a couple of hours away. It was such an experience to get one, especially since it was my first tattoo, so I will post a separate blog describing it, but I did get one and I love it and have no regrets!

Once Samantha left, I went to Siem Reap in Cambodia after overstaying my Thai visa for 2 days, resulting in some confusion with my Vietnam visa. After a cramped minibus ride where we were stopped by Thai police and and our driver was fined for something expired, avoiding a border scam at a restaurant, and a 1000 baht fine for overstaying my visa, I arrived in Cambodia! I spent 2 days exploring Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm Kell, and other smaller temples, I was templed out, and spent the rest of my stay in Siem Reap meeting people and drinking. A girl I had met in the hostel, Petra, and I went to Battambang together, where we saw millions of bats fly out of a cave at dusk, kayaked and swam in the river while local children gawked, witnessed the Killing Fields, visited a crocodile farm, and rode the Bamboo Train, among other things.

We traveled to Phnom Penh together and separated when she went to Sihanoukville and I stayed to explore the S21 (Tuol Sleng prison) that was once a high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison. It was indescribable and heartbreaking and incomprehensible to understand why this recent time period in Cambodia occurred, and why the US never even taught us about it in schools. I only spent a night in Phnom Penh, then went off to Otres Beach, where I met an awesome group of people, and spent my whole stay there pigging out, bumming on the beach, and drinking at night. I had to leave because my Vietnam visa arrival date had already arrived, and Vietnam’s visa cost way more than Cambodia’s, so I plan on returning to Cambodia to explore the islands more after my 2nd round in Thailand.

After the most terrifying sleeper bus ride ever, I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and had to stay at a dodgy guesthouse, since the hostel I forgot to book was full. I met up with a friend I met in Bangkok, Kris, and we decided to be travel buddies through Vietnam. Our first reunion day, we drank way too much in a 12 hour time span, and I almost had to sleep outside of my guesthouse because the metal gate was down and no one was answering. I ended up failing at trying to sleep, so I pulled up the heavy gate and snuck underneath it, tiptoed behind the desk to grab my room key, and crept past the 2 sleeping bodies in the lobby. I have never been more proud of myself. Kris and I explored the city and took a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were amazingly well thought out and created. We even got to go through 200 meters of cramped tunnels, which at one point, became so narrow and stifling that I had to crawl on my hands and knees to fit through. There were escapes throughout the tunnel, but I ended up being 1 of 5, out of the 45 people who attempted it in my group, to make it to the end!

We went to Mui Ne after Saigon, and got a cheap deal on a wonderful hotel, but we did not do much except sled down the red sand dunes and get sick, me from drinking and Kris from a soup he had. We took the bumpiest, most uncomfortable bus ride to Da Lat, which is a beautiful hilly city with incredibly beautiful architecture and gorgeous mountain scenery, that went down to almost freezing temperatures (for me) at night, since it sits 2000 meters above sea level. We went to the Crazy House there, took a cable car in the mountains, explored the waterfalls there, rode a toboggan down a mountain, and tried our hand at archery (not doing terribly bad either)! I managed to lose both of my debit cards, one in Ho Chi Minh and the other in an ATM in Da Lat (which I was able to recover the next day), but I will have to rely on poste restante in Hanoi to get my original debit card back…I am such a terrible traveler.

What appalled me was witnessing 2 employees of the waterfall and roller coaster place trying to catch a duck. We walked up on an asshole in a cream suit throwing rocks the size of my fist at the duck, only stopping after I yelled “stop” continuously and after his friend told him to. I followed them after that, because I knew they only stopped for our sakes, but the friend of asshole caught the obviously injured duck and carried it up the mountain. We followed him,  and after the many ugly faces I threw in his direction, he followed us further up the mountain and motioned for me to follow him and watch as he let the duck go in a gaggle of fellow ducks by a pond. I stopped being angry at him, because now I’m pretty sure he was just trying to rescue the duck from the waterfall, and his asshole friend was just being a dick, which is basically what the duck rescuer was miming to me since he didn’t speak English. I hope the duck is okay and that that indeed is the real story, but at least the duck did not get its head smashed in )= It took a lot for me not to punch either of them in the face.

But now we are on a bus to Nha Trang, where we will celebrate Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day (which I gather is an English holiday from my English travel buddy, Kris), where we will hopefully meet some people to go out and party with, while also hunting for a traditional Christmas dinner. I promise I will write more frequently, more for my sake than anything else! Have a Happy Christmas/holidays to everyone!

P.S. It is way too complicated and frustrating to crop and resize and place photos on this tablet, so I will post them in separate posts.  First world problems!

Welcome to Bangkok!

I have been in Thailand for almost 2 weeks, and I did not anticipate not having any time to post on here!  So much has happened, it started out with my flight being delayed, which forced me to have a 5 hour layover in Beijing and then another 8 hours or so in Bangkok before I could check into my hostel.  I couldn’t sleep at all, so I suffered through the 40 something hours of traveling and when I finally arrived at my hostel at 1pm, I slept in bed (which was so hard it was like sleeping on the floor) until 11pm, woke up to another traveler in my room, and him and I ended up talking until 3am.  I couldn’t get used to the time difference quickly enough, so I spent the next 2 days just walking around the area by my hostel and searching for street food, and meeting random people in the hostel.  I finally met Ondra, who introduced me to my first Chang beer, then we met Fabian and Jon, which led to Saman and Lewis and Elisa and Rachel and 2 German girls whose names I don’t recall.

Fabian, Saman, and I explored Bangkok for 3 days, seeing Wat Pho, Wat Arun, Chinatown, the Flower Market, rode in a tuk-tuk for the first time, either just the 3 of us or with other travelers.  Jon ate a scorpion while we were drinking on Khao San road, we all went to a patpong show (google it, I HAD to!), drank on the rooftop of our hostel, and tried a bunch of different foods and places to eat.  I ended up going to Ayutthaya with Fabian, on a 3rd class train, where we were attacked by swarms of mosquitos because we traveled at 7pm or so.  Once we arrived in Ayutthaya, we took a ferry to cross the river, and in the middle of the river, the ferry broke down!  The driver kept on trying to start it up, but then he just started stripping down to his boxers.  Once all his clothes were off, he looked at us and said “be back in 5 minutes” and jumped in the water!  We nervously giggled and waited, while he pulled the boat to another boat that we unloaded off of.

Then we got lost on the way to the hostel…I was too proud to take a tuk-tuk because I KNEW we were close, and they all wanted 50 baht to take us there, which was a rip-off.  So we wandered with our huge bags all hot and sweaty and exhausted for maybe about 45 min.  We asked locals for directions, and they tried to help us, but we were not getting anywhere.  Finally, we got to a cafe and asked another local Thai where it was, and after trying to explain it to us, him and his friend just hopped on their scooters and gave us a ride there!  In Bangkok, everyone was trying to scam us and we were so used to that, that it was strange to have everyone be so helpful and not try to sell you anything all of a sudden.  We rented bikes and rode the streets of Ayutthaya, looking for wats, and everyone was smiling and waving and yelling “hello!” and it was then that I saw why everyone said Thais are one of the most friendly people.  We had schoolchildren ask to practice their English on us, and they helped give us directions to the next wat.

Fabian and I stayed another night, explored more the next day, and by the time we got back, we were so sweaty and disgusting.  The owner of the hostel offered us a shower in an outside toilet (I should mention that all the hostel bathrooms I’ve seen so far have the toilet and open shower in the same room), and I had to practically sit on the toilet to get into the shower spray, and I had to eye a HUGE spider on the wall the whole time.  The spider almost made me refuse the shower, but I was that desperate, and it was probably the best shower I’ve ever taken in my life.  We got on the overnight bus to Sukhothai after eating SO MUCH street food at the night market (SO cheap), and I ended up realizing I had left my passport in the hostel at Ayutthaya and my kindle on the bus from Ayutthaya to Sukhothai.  So my trip to Sukhothai is cut short because I had to hop on another bus back to Ayutthaya (which is where I’m typing from now) to get my passport, and one of the hostel employees got my kindle back for me.  I cannot describe how important my kindle is, even more important than my laptop, and I almost cried when he came to me holding it in his hand.  Again, Thais are the nicest people I have ever met.

So I had to leave Fabian and leave Sukhothai earlier than planned…  I will hopefully meet up with him in Vietnam, traveling with him was so wonderful; he was the best travel guide and had so much of Lonely Planet memorized, and he loved street food and beer possibly more than I did.  I had to take a later bus than planned from Sukhothai to Ayutthaya because I thought that my Ayutthaya hostel would send my passport back by bus, which would have saved me a lot of money with transportation, but oh well, it was my fault anyways!  The only problem is, I will be arriving hopefully around 5 or 6pm, which will give me about 1 to 2 hours to get a tuk-tuk back to the hostel, get my passport, walk to the ferry, cross the river, and buy a train ticket for Bangkok.

Once I get through this though, Samantha will be here in 2 days and off we go to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party!  Almost every traveler I have met so far has either been there or is going to the one on 17 Nov, so I am super stoked to go and I hope that she won’t be too jet lagged to enjoy it!  It seems every hostel there is more expensive and has a 4 or 5 day minimum stay, so we are staying there for 4 nights, which is fine by me because I’d love to relax by the beach.  It’s crazy how expensive the hostels there and in Bangkok are, and then how we found $4 and $7 hostels in Sukhothai and Ayutthaya.  I also lost my overseas debit card (I know, I know) in an ATM last week in Bangkok, so I await for Samanatha with my replacement debit card.  So yes, these past 2 weeks have been hectic and fraught with mishaps, but I also had unplanned fun trips to the old cities of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya, the best food ever, met awesome people and saw some beautiful things, so I wouldn’t change a thing.  I can’t wait to see what the rest of my trip holds…

After Koh Phangan, Samantha and I will either stay in the islands for a little or we will go to Chiang Mai and Pai, and just figure it out from there until she leaves on the 1 Dec.  After that I have to get out of Thailand because my visa will expire or do a visa run, and I am debating between spending a week or 2 in Cambodia or trying to see if All Hands in the Philippines will take me as a volunteer to help clean up the mess that Typhoon Haiyan left behind.  I’ve always wanted to help out places that have been hit by natural disasters, but I’ve always been working or in school or not in the area…why not do it now?  I have to apply and see if they even want me, but I think I will do that when I get back to Bangkok and see where things will lead me!  I will try to update this more often, and hopefully I won’t miss the train tonight and be stuck in Ayutthaya for another day!  Until then…wish me luck!

7 hours away…gulp.

So I had all these plans to take pictures of everything that’s in my pack, look up all these places that I could visit while I stay in Bangkok for 2 weeks waiting for Samantha, print out these little things that I won’t be able to access over there…and none of it happened.  I feel like my backpack weighs a ton, and I was trying to keep it under 20 lbs, and I’ve taken away everything that can be taken away.  I haven’t looked up anything, I guess I will just explore Bangkok on my own.  Unfortunately, I waited too long to book a hostel, and the cheap one that I was looking so forward to had no availability!  So I chose another one, and they didn’t have availability for the night I’m flying in, so I will be napping it out in Suvarnabhumi until I can check in.  These past few days I’ve been helping my mom out with homework, helping Samantha pack her bag, moving my stuff out of her house, buying last minute things and printing and collecting last bits of information, and visiting the people I want to say bye to…and it has been crazy!

Oh, and let me tell you about my night.  Samantha and I drove to my mom’s to drop off my car and my stuff, ate with her and her husband, just catching up.  We planned on going out with a large group of friends who were all dressed up for Halloween and saying my final good-bye with a bang.  First, my friend Chami who was picking us up came pretty late, so we were rushing to get back home.  Secondly, her car swayed and bumped SO MUCH, I was freaking out about driving it for a whole hour on the interstate.  After much arguments and worried, held-back thoughts, we started crossing the Skyway Bridge; oh you know, the big high one that everyone kills themselves off of.  Well Chami’s tire decides to rip apart as we near the top and we all scream while the car slides around.  Chami had good control of the wheel though, and we pulled over to the side, but if you know how thin the lanes are on the Skyway, you would know that a portion of her car was still in the lane.

Everyone is freaking out (especially Samantha because she is terrified of heights), so I pull her out of the car and sit her in the middle of the top of the Skyway while I call AAA and run across the lane to remove a large portion of Chami’s tire from the road.  A few minutes later, FHP comes speeding with full lights and sirens, and skids to a stop next to me.  I’m walking back and forth on the top, trying to get signal, and he yells at me if I am in distress.  I didn’t understand for a moment, so I told him our vehicle broke down and I’m calling AAA.  It turns out either someone called us in or the cameras thought that we stopped in the middle of the bridge to commit suicide, so that was why he seemed so frantic!  But we explained the situation and he helped us take Cham’s car all the way to the rest stop to wait for AAA.

So we did not go to the bar and party the night before my trip, I just ended up having a mini heart-attack in the middle of the Skyway.  If you know me, you know that after my accident, I am terrified of being in a car accident and the sound of metal crunching into metal and that now I am a terrible backseat driver.  I don’t know if this bodes well for my trip, but we ended up going home and my two friends came over to have a quiet night with beers while I finished packing my bag.  I’m exhausted but I’m almost too nervous to sleep; it doesn’t feel real yet.  It didn’t feel real at lunch saying good-bye to all of my co-workers, it doesn’t feel real packing my bags or saying good-bye to my mom; I keep wondering when it is going to kick in.  I will probably start fully realizing it on the plane to Beijing, or maybe sleeping under an escalator in Bangkok’s airport.

Either way, I’m upset that my bag feels terribly heavy and I should probably get some real sleep before I am virtually sleepless on the plane.  I don’t know when the next time I’ll get to post, whether it will be in NY or Beijing or Bangkok, but I just want to say good-bye America!  I don’t know when I will see you again but I will be thinking of you and all of my friends and family; I just hope I won’t be lonely and sad and want to come home early while I’m there.  

I need this.

Holy crap, next Friday!

Wow, so I’ve been so busy with hanging out with people and camping out in springs and planning my trip that I did not realize that I am leaving NEXT FRIDAY!  There are times where it crosses my mind and my heart jumps in my throat and I feel like I am going to vomit, and then there are times when I get wildly excited.  I can’t understand the distinction between the two, but nothing is stopping me now.  I have pretty much packed my bag, I just have to add a couple more clothing items, lotion and bug spray, and my electronics (netbook, ipod nano, and very basic cell phone) in my backpack.  I weighed it today and with most of my stuff in there, it is only 16 lbs, which is under my goal of 20 lbs or less!

My Gregory Jade 38 litre backpack.

The thing that is weighing my pack down the most is probably my steel mesh bag protector, which is 1.5 or 2 lbs, but I am cheaping out in pretty much all of the hostels I stay at (a.k.a. the cheapest dorm rooms, possibility of no lockers), and I would rather not worry about my netbook and personal items while I’m away.  My netbook is my mom’s anyways, I gifted her a Mac for her birthday and she hasn’t used the netbook once since then, but still…  I bought a packing cube and rolled up all of my clothes, which has really helped conserve space, my backpack looks pretty small!  I won’t have a daypack either, just my purse, which is rolled up into my backpack in my picture, so I think I’m doing good so far on space and weight!

Work is making me very sad.  I really will miss everyone there, and they all just keep worrying about me and saying that they’re going to miss me and asking me questions about my trip.  My manager brings it up every once in a while and they are all just so attentive and interested, and I have never been around so many good people who care all at once.  The company I work for is screwing over the commission system again, so it seems that I am getting out at the right time, but I feel bad for everyone there.  This Friday is my last day, and I would like to think that I will be stoic and professional, but I will probably break down in helpless tears and ugly cry all the way home.

I’m going to list the stuff I’m packing hopefully in the next post, I have to help Samantha pack before she’s actually off…I worry about her because I’ve been to a 3rd world country (or close to it, Russia every 3 years) village and I’ve been to places with limited English and questionable directions, yet she has not, and I would not leave her alone in a foreign country.  I’m sure she would fare well, but I would worry nonetheless.

I have been stalking things to do while Samantha is with me and when I’m over there, and I’m planning bungy jumping, activities with elephants (per Samantha’s adamant requests to ride them), getting certified in scuba diving in Koh Tao, attending the Full Moon Party in Koh Phagnan, a 10 day meditation, and getting my first tattoo, a Sak Yant tattoo from a monk!  I have to find more things to do to spread out throughout the trip, but those are my goals so far.  I don’t know why, but I have had a stroke of luck making more money at work, which is allowing me to actually accomplish fun things in SEA rather than just starving in cheap hostels (which would have been fine by me anyways).

The only problem is that my wrist still hurts when I try to pick stuff up (from my accident), and my recent MRI showed a herniated disc, which explains the pain that shoots up and down my left leg.  It is affecting my daily life, and I’m trying to stretch it out and work it out as much as I can, but I really just want to have a normal backfor this trip…  This trip is a time for me to be more selfish than I have ever been in my life, and I want my biggest worries to be where I am staying the next upcoming night and what way should I wear my awesome convertible dress.  I have spent so much of my life worrying about schooling, a career, a significant other, EVERYTHING but how I feel.  This is my chance to worry about no one but myself.

I may or may not be a little inebriated in this post, which will happen the last 2 weeks that one is in the US and all of a sudden, everyone wants to hang out and drink to your well-being, so I apologize for my scattered thoughts!

I don’t even know where to begin because my whole story is kind of complicated…but I guess you can say it all started with my motorcycle accident.

I had a blue 2005 Ninja 500r, and her name was Darla.  I had her for about a year and a half, and rode her recreationally and to and from work.  I was riding her home from my new job for the first time on March 18th when a lady made a left hand turn in front of me, violating my right of way.  I t-boned her near the end of her car and flew over it, landing on the ground.  I broke some bone in my wrist near my joint, I don’t even know the name of it, and I had to get pins and screws inside my left wrist.  Apart from that, I had bruises and scrapes and I couldn’t walk normally on my left leg for a few weeks, but it could have and probably should have been way worse.

Darla was totaled </3

I also had a boyfriend that I was dating for almost a year.  It was serious (at least to me) and we were planning on moving in together when my lease was up in August, especially since I couldn’t afford living on my own with my crap hourly pay job.

I also was planning to start applying for my career, giving myself until May to get ready for the rigorous physical abilities test and to get all the needed documents together.

These three things all tie together because if even just one of these things hadn’t occurred, I would not have this opportunity that I am facing now.

• If I hadn’t had my accident, I would have applied in May and (hopefully) been on my way to starting my career at the ripe age of 22 (my surgery didn’t allow for me to be able to do push-ups for 3 months)
• If I hadn’t gone through the most terrible break-up of my life, the fear of losing our relationship would have held me back from an adventure in another country. After we broke up, I just wanted to run away from my life.
• As I was recovering from this time in my life, I put pursuing my career on hold while I scrambled to put my life back together and find a place to live since everyone I knew had signed a lease already

So through this break-up, I met a friend named Samantha, that I never would have met if I hadn’t dated ex-boyfriend, who ended up letting me live with her to avoid letting me live out of my car.  Consequently, the fact that I wasn’t locked into a lease also helped me make my decision to leave.  During the last days in my apartment, I made myself a bubble bath, had a glass of wine, and watched 13 Going On 30.  In the middle of this, I realized I needed something big and different to happen to me so I could find that naive peace within me again.

I contemplated moving to NY, but I realized that I would fall into a rut there like I had here. Then I considered working on a cruise line.  Then, while on the phone with Samantha, I realized I needed to just take a trip.  See some part of the world I had never laid eyes on before.

It took me roughly 10 full hours of having this thought in my head before I started telling everyone I was going to go backpacking in Southeast Asia.  See, I had quit smoking a year before, and the way that I did it was I told everyone immediately that I quit.  My pride was so big that I couldn’t bear to let anyone see me fail, so I made sure everyone knew I quit so I would fear their response if they saw me go back on my word.

So it took me about a month before I gathered up the courage to buy my ticket to Bangkok, but as of today it is official…I leave November 1st,  no turning back!

…now please excuse me while I go throw up from sheer terror.