Hanna came to Colorado a couple of weeks ago, it was awesome. Also, it's been awesome spending time with my family and friends. Ok here goes...
It's been far too long since I updated my blog, even though I haven't really been involved in anything too exciting since returning to the U.S. Apologies to friends, family and anyone else who has enjoyed following the blog. I've been back in the U.S., in Colorado, for about a month and a half. Life, for the most part, is pretty good. I haven't really experienced too much in the way of culture shock since I returned, except maybe the price of beers at bars or restaurant. We were definitely spoiled by fifty cent draft beers in Phnom Penh. Even after being home for almost two months, it's still a struggle to hand over the credit card after looking at a bar tab that is way overpriced. Enough about beer for now.
It's been so long since I've done any writing, it's difficult to figure out where to begin or what to write and comment on. America...oh lord. After almost two and a half years abroad, mostly in the developing world, America is something else. The first things that hit me were food portions and fat people. Food portions in the U.S. are ridiculous. I can still remember being at a cafe, at a casino in Palm Springs, my first week back. I ordered a chicken fried steak and eggs and the plate was almost as big as my torso. It was HUGE! That was just the beginnning. I think after about two or three weeks in the U.S. I had put on 10 lbs. I'm trying to hit the gym every day, in hopes of dropping the return weight and getting into better shape. Another thing that's hard to not take note of in the U.S. is the absurd amount of fat people. Living in Asia, you don't see nearly as many fat people, and when you do they usually fall into one of two categories: A. Rich, corrupt businessmen or government officials or B. American or British tourists. Even those have nothing on people here. It's mind blowing coming from a country like Cambodia, where there are countless people starving, malnourished and dying because they have no food, to a country where people eat enough calories in one day to feed an entire family, a country where there are contests to see who can eat the most of one thing or drink the most of another thing. Needless to say, it's fucking disgusting.
I will probably rant more about fat and wasteful Americans later but on to other things. When I first got back to Colorado, I had plans to chill for a month or more, maybe do some in state traveling, but numerous comments from friends and family about how bad the economy and job market are, led me to start applying for jobs immediately. Luckily I managed to land quite a few interviews and job offers within my first couple of weeks. Unfortunately the sorts of jobs that I wanted to do, didn't pay very well and/or had limited benefits. My older brother Justin gave me a referral for his company, WOW! (Wide Open West), an internet, cable and phone provider that had openings for tier 2 tech support/customer service reps. I managed to land a job with them and while the work itself is not ideal, it's a job with decent pay, good benefits, and I work with some really great people. I spent about five weeks in training, made some new friends and met some cool and interesting people. While I really have no desire to do anything in tech support or customer service long term, the company is really great and I could see why people would want to work there for a long time. I am keeping an eye out for other jobs in the nonprofit, government and education sectors, but I'm ok for now. In addition to working, I've been trying to focus on studying for the GRE, which I will be taking in December.
Studying, especially for a standardized test, doesn't come easy to me so it's been a struggle. I've had the support of my wonderful girlfriend Hanna, who is a much better and more focused student/studier (is that even a word?) than I am and does her best to keep me focused and to provide me with helpful and useful links, practice tests, and tips. I've also received tips and encouragement from many of my good friends and offers from some to help with the studying (especially math O_O ). I've just started my new work schedule so I'm trying to balance my free time between working out, studying for the GRE, reading and working on my grad school apps. I'm applying to a couple of schools in Colorado, as well as a couple of schools in New York. I might also be applying for a leadership fellowship here in Colorado that seems really interesting. It's been a bit stressful trying to juggle all of this, especially with being away from Hanna again. If things work out as planned, she'll be coming out to Colorado for a while in January and we'll see where we go from there when we find out which grad schools we've been accepted to.
I've been bad about communication with friends lately and it's kind of bugging me. I haven't seen as many people or caught up with as many people as I'd like to since I got back and I've been bad about making calls, sending emails, meeting up with people. I think if I can focus on my short term goals, mainly preparing for the GRE and finishing up grad school applications, it will be much easier for me to start some semblance of a social life again.
I have a lot more to write about and apologies if this post seems really bland or poorly written. I haven't done much writing since I got back and I really need to get back into it, especially as I work on my statements of purpose and writing samples for graduate school. I'm glad I finally posted something though, and I will start maintaining the blog again as often as I can while I continue working towards grad school and what will hopefully be the next steps in my career. Thanks for reading. :)
Also, my friend CTG, in Peace Corps Kenya, has some great projects going on. Check out this site to see what he's been doing and hopefully contribute some money. Every little bit counts.
http://www.manysmallpeople.org/
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