Hey guys! Long time, no see.
Lots of things have happened since I last was here.
#1: One of the last things I wrote about was having a hernia. Fortunately, that has now been fixed. I went to Toronto, Canada to the Shouldice Institute at the end of February, and they done me good. I highly recommend them to anyone who needs a hernia surgery and can afford to be gone for five days. The surgery itself cost about $2500 USD, and including airfare, car rental, and a bed and breakfast for my wife, we only had to pay around $3500 USD. Not bad considering the price in the U.S. is often double that. I was back at work 5 days after the surgery with only minimal pain. About two weeks after the surgery, I rode my unicycle again for the first time, and it didn’t hurt as much as I feared it might. I only went about a block and did a few very minor hops, but I’m feeling good. I’m actually feeling so good that I probably will make it to Moab again this year (although I don’t know how hard I’ll be pushing myself).
#2: The last time I posted here, I also was planning on joining the Peace Corps with my wife. Not any more. After about 8 months of paperwork, interviews, and extremely thorough medical checkups, they decided that because of certain “conditions,” they wanted to defer us for one to three years. When we called them to ask them about the appeals process (because we feel that we are completely fit for the task, as did all the paperwork we sent in), they told us that if we appealed, we would probably be disqualified forever. As my wife and I can’t put our lives on hold forever, waiting for paperwork to clear, we decided to scrap the entire Peace Corps thing. With all the experience we were going to bring to them and all the effort and money we put in (not to mention the two years of our lives we were going to volunteer), they treated us like they were doing us a favor by even condescending to our level by considering us. The moral of the story: The goal of the Peace Corps is honorable. The Washington beauracracy involved with the Peace Corps is stupid. But I’m not bitter…
#3: With the Peace Corps out of the question, we decided that the best thing for me to do would be to go back to school to get a Masters Degree. I’ve applied to the Masters program of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (which is what I would’ve been doing in the Peace Corps). I should be receiving my answer hopefully today and then I’ll know if one more plan has been dashed or not. I’ll probably be asking a few questions about teaching opportunities on the West Coast, from Oregon to BC, where I want to settle. But more on that later.
#4: After years of riding only 24" wheels, my wife decided to buy me a Sun 29er. I know they aren’t very strong, but that’s all we could afford, and eventually I’ll upgrade it piece by piece until I build me an offroad 29er. For now though, I’m going to use it to commute to work. Alls I’s gots at the moment is my MUni, and that takes forever to get anywhere, so I’ll be glad to get a little more speed.
So that’s it for now. I probably won’t be back as regularly as I was before, but I don’t think I’ll go as long between posts again either. It’s good to be back. I missed you guys!
-Paco
