The Future

This year, the month of May is a kind of “eye of the storm” period for us. Over the past six months, Bryn and I have quit our jobs, applied to graduate schools, traveled to Jordan, moved to China, acclimated ourselves to Kunming and traveled to the edge of China - the foothills of the Himalayas. Now that we’ve been in Kunming for over two months, life is settling into a rhythm. We’re still discovering new corners of Kunming every day and we have by no means conquered this place yet, but we wake up every morning 80-90% certain that we will survive the day. I can’t say we gave ourselves as good of chances two months ago. 

For the rest of the month of May, life will be somewhat subdued. We’ll go to class, we’ll read, we’ll keep discovering new things about Kunming. The teaching job that mentioned a couple of posts ago is gone now. After four weeks of lessons, the parents (through their daughter - my student) told me that they wouldn’t continue with class anymore. The reason was that their daughter had a school commitment on Tuesday nights that would prevent us from meeting. Seemed like a flimsy excuse, but they paid me for my month of lessons and the “break-up” was relatively painless. Other English teachers here that I know said that my experience was a little better than par. Apparently these kinds of things happen. No fear though, I’ve got another weekend teaching job lined up to take us through the month of May, so I’ll stay busy on that front.

However, as of June 1, we will begin the process of leaving Kunming. The next step: Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)! This graduate program was my top choice and I couldn’t be happier with the acceptance. Harvard, London School of Economics and Oxford all rejected me, but Kings College London and the National Unversity of Singapore also accepted me. I was very happy with results. I opted for a year at the SAIS Bologna campus in Italy, so Bryn and I will be spending a year in Bologna before finishing up in Washington DC in 2014/2015. On June 1, we fly to Beijing with our fingers crossed to apply for a visa to Italy. The checklist for getting an Italian visa in China is several pages long. Even though we’ve gotten verbal confirmation from the embassy that our application should be fine, we’re still nervous. We’re staying in Beijing for a week just to make sure that we get the covted sticker that lets us live in Italy for 10 months. 

After Beijing, we’ll come back to Kunming for about a week, and then we’re off to Singapore to catch our flight to Italy. We’re taking the slow way, though. I wasn’t able to get to South East Asia during my 2011 trip, and Bryn has never been, so we’re making our way from Kunming to Singapore overland through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia. From Thailand, we’ll make a 10 day detour in Myanmar! We’re actually going to get our visas for Myanmar tomorrow morning. That trip will certainly provide plenty of material for future blog posts. 

We’ll arrive in Italy August 10 for an economics pre-term course and then graduate school starts for real in mid-September. 

So, this precious month of May is one of the last quiet months that we’ll have for the forseeable future. Even though I know I should be appreciating this downtime, my brain is having trouble accepting it. I’ve been reading voraciously preparing for the SE Asia trip and graduate school. I’m trying to keep my head in the present and live this amazing life in Kunming, but it’s hard to keep my mind from wandering into the future that’s set up for us. I remember visiting my grandparents out in rural East Texas, wiling the hours away watching them read and do the cross-word. As an 8 year old, I was incredibly impatient and even bored. My grandpa used to tell me that it’s good to be bored every once in a while - it gives your mind time to recharge. 

I’m re-telling that to myself now. Not that I’m bored, but I’m just trying to appreciate this downtime while I have it.