Last night I had this discussion with Hilary about my experiences in grad. school and in traveling. She is planning on going back to school and thinking about what she wants to be when she grows up. It seems like everyone around me right now is going through this similar dilemma. I feel quite lucky that I found my niche in teaching and that it's a job I can honestly say I love and that I feel makes an impact on the world.
Thinking back to grad school, it was an experience that I truly cherished. Everyone knows that I love school and I love learning. But the more that I learned about the university system, the more I became disenchanted by it all. Graduate school is most definitely a gate-keeping system. It is meant to keep people out, that is, not everyone can participate in it or we wouldn't value it as a culture. At the same time, the knowledge that you acquire tends to alienate you from others (mainly those who haven't had this experience). I realized, when talking with Hilary, that I spent those 2 and a half years completely in my head. I stretched my brain...and it was amazing and painful at the same time. But I felt like I wasn't really living. And this is why I consider travel to be such an important part of my education.
These past two years in Thailand, I've been trying to undo all that over-analyzation that happened in grad school. And now I'm just simply living. And it's wonderful. I think so much of this can be attributed to the Buddhist culture and apparently it's rubbed off on me in ways I don't even see. When I was home in October, people kept saying to me, "You seems so much calmer" or "You look very content." And it's true. Something just happened to me here and one day I realized that I am genuinely happy. And it's not as though there was any one big experience that made me come to this understanding. It's just that I started to appreciate little things and to look forward to every new day. It was as if I were struggling so hard to swim against the current all my life and then suddenly, I let go. I am enjoying the simple things in my life: my garden with it's hammock and windchimes, cooking in my new kitchen, watching movies with my friends, going to the market (where everyone smiles at me!) And now I've even found this amazing yoga studio in Chiang Mai which has an herbal sauna and great (inexpensive) classes, women's workshops, wonderful teachers and classmates. I am really trying to value and appreciate the things in my life (which is something I've definitely learned form Thai culture). When I first came here, I would see some old lady selling sticky rice and she would just be smiling away, looking like the happiest person in the world. I would secretly think, "How could she be happy with that job? Doesn't it get boring? It doesn't seem very fulfilling." But then I realized that she was putting joy into her work, that it doesn't matter what you do but that your attitude toward life changes everything. I have been inspired by the kindness of people who offer to share what little they have with me, people who patiently try to help me when I'm jabbering away in my tone-deaf Thai. I know that these are lessons I will carry with me always.
I do plan to go back to school for my PhD eventually. And when I do, I know I will be ready to get back into that altered state of mind, to stretch my brain even a little bit more. But for now, I'm content to lay in my hammock and eat mangoes.
