MileHiCon and Peace Corps
Oct. 24th, 2003 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
memelainaKent and I are heading up to MileHiCon in Denver after work this afternoon. Trying to do some serious trolling for memberships for the new con we are trying to hold in January in the Springs - Cosine. We really need to rack up about 50 pre-paid memberships at MileHiCon if we are going to make this work.
Had breakfast yesterday with Barbara Vik - trainer and organizational developer who got laid off from my company about six months ago. She has sold her house here in the Springs and is going into the Peace Corps the first of the year for an assignment in East Africa. I'm floored. What a thing to do at 50! I was afraid to face it at 20 (ended up turning down a posting in Togo). At 50 certainly one has more depth of character, more experience, more ability - but also more dependance on flush toilets, readily available medical care, and a familiar diet. Barb said that when she realized that the only thing keeping her from applying was her house, she immediately put the house on the market - refusing to be tied down by a single material object - refusing to let real estate control her life. I'm stunned by the daring. Much as I would love to do the work, I couldn't possibly face cutting all ties to my security base in that fashion.
While I can imagine packing up all my worldly goods and starting out with only a suitcase, I'm not sure I can get my mind around not having something to come home to. And books! How could I possibly manage without a pile of paperback novels. That's always my problem with packing for trips - my suitcase is overloaded with books and underloaded with other necessaries. My biggest fear in travel is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read. So I overpack books and end up hauling around the extra weight. What would it be like to live somewhere that there was no bookstore and no library? What would it be like to face reading a final chapter and knowing there's nothing else to read? Gack!
Attempting to think of some useful gift, I told her I would send her a set of Levenger leather bound "Dr. Livingston" journals. Need to go online and order those today.
Had breakfast yesterday with Barbara Vik - trainer and organizational developer who got laid off from my company about six months ago. She has sold her house here in the Springs and is going into the Peace Corps the first of the year for an assignment in East Africa. I'm floored. What a thing to do at 50! I was afraid to face it at 20 (ended up turning down a posting in Togo). At 50 certainly one has more depth of character, more experience, more ability - but also more dependance on flush toilets, readily available medical care, and a familiar diet. Barb said that when she realized that the only thing keeping her from applying was her house, she immediately put the house on the market - refusing to be tied down by a single material object - refusing to let real estate control her life. I'm stunned by the daring. Much as I would love to do the work, I couldn't possibly face cutting all ties to my security base in that fashion.
While I can imagine packing up all my worldly goods and starting out with only a suitcase, I'm not sure I can get my mind around not having something to come home to. And books! How could I possibly manage without a pile of paperback novels. That's always my problem with packing for trips - my suitcase is overloaded with books and underloaded with other necessaries. My biggest fear in travel is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read. So I overpack books and end up hauling around the extra weight. What would it be like to live somewhere that there was no bookstore and no library? What would it be like to face reading a final chapter and knowing there's nothing else to read? Gack!
Attempting to think of some useful gift, I told her I would send her a set of Levenger leather bound "Dr. Livingston" journals. Need to go online and order those today.
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Date: 2003-10-24 06:26 pm (UTC)As for packing (and overpacking) books, I have thought about starting a posting-thread relating to what you over-pack reveals your deepest insecurities. I can see overpacking books. But what I overpack is vision correction tools (spare pair of contact lenses and two spare pair of glasses on a regular basis).
As for doing it at 50 versus doing it at 20, well, there are advantages at both ages. At 20, you are more flexible (in the sense of using squat toilets more easily), but at 50, you have had more experiences and have a stronger sense of what you can do and have done.
I dunno.
Hey, since I'm out of work, should I look into something like this? Probably not, I have a responsibility, the resident feline (currently swatting at my ankles). But I should contemplate it.