edwards block

I’m shocked that it’s mid-November already – it seems like just last week it was 1987. How the time does accelerate as we age. Where’s the justice in this? It just reinforces my opinion that intelligent design was at best an ability of Le Corbusier and that the Darwin-deniers in Arkansas (or Red Deer?) have misappropriated the phrase to avoid facing their own existential insecurities. What sort of omnipotent intellect, especially one alleged to be loving, would create a world in which a man doesn’t begin to understand the pleasures of life until his body begins to forget them? There’s never any time to waste. As Guy Lombardo once sang, “It’s later than you think”.

With only three weeks of school remaining in this semester, and a more immediate decision to be made about the following semester, I am once again contemplating my own existence. This is not foreign – I have done so with compulsive regularity for as long as I remember. It’s only been in recent years, however, that I’ve managed to put the analysis to much in the form of practical application. Clearly, I am a slow learner when it comes to lessons of life. I’m a bit better in the classroom, but not by a wide margin. I manage to get good grades in my classes, but I don’t get the sense that my progress is destined to be cumulative, at least not in a manner that suits the conventions of academe.

For whatever reason you prefer to derive from the preceding text, I have decided not to register for classes in January. Recently, while sitting in the frigid college library (on a chair that provides all the comfort of an upholstered cinder block), I put Shakespeare aside and contemplated my options. Despite my admiration for all the dead white guys I have been studying, and the many revelatory moments I have had in the past year as I absorb information that I value, the classroom experience is just not turning me on with sufficient satisfaction to justify the time and money I’m investing in it. Therefore, I think it is time to move along to a new adventure.

Naturally, when I say “new adventure” I don’t mean go back to my little tan cubicle. Now that I’m off the treadmill, I’m not keen on jumping back on. I don’t mean to sound as if I’m soiling the old nest, but to resume being a cog in this hyper-efficient but frighteningly inefficient economy is just not an immediate option for me. Of course, there’s no escaping it completely unless one emigrates to North Korea, but I’m not so good with authority and bowing down to Kim Jong Il statues every third block is not in the cards for this cadre either.

No, instead, I am once again departing for Costa Rica. For how long? Until it’s time to move on, whenever that turns out to be. Three weeks? Three months? Three years? ‘Que sera sera’, as we like to say our cliches in Spanish. (Unfortunately, besides a few menu options, that’s largely the extent of my Spanish. I’m trusting that immersion is going to improve on that). Exciting, no? And aren’t you lucky? You’ll get to read all about it, right here!

I will be located in Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean coast, where I spent most of my time in August, 2005. If you’re reaching for your atlas, you’ll want to know that there are three towns in Costa Rica named Puerto Viejo, which means “Old Port”, so you want to find the right one. (As far as I know, there are no towns named “Puerto Nuevo”). See the location on this map. The yellow line is the highway from San Jose, the capital city:

What will I do in Puerto Viejo, you might ask? Well, there’s swimming. The eating of fruit. Swinging in the hammock. Yoga on the beach. Learning about the Spanish and indigenos cultures. Some of the best bird watching anywhere. Meeting lots of new and interesting people (as Colin likes to say, Puerto Viejo is a town for the ‘most wanted’ and the ‘least wanted’. My role is yet to be determined). Oh, I suppose I’ll have to do something to support myself, too. I have a few ideas on the go related to the tourism industry, as well as a couple of potential internet applications. Of course, none of this precludes my taking online courses while I’m in Costa Rica, either, and I hope to find time for that as well.

In the meantime, I have some preparations to look after, and some tangible assets to dispose of. If you’re looking for anything, let me know.