I ended up in a sling for six months followed by another 3 months of physical therapy. To this day I can make my shoulder pop out of socket at will and if I lift my left arm above my head it makes a terrifying bone-on-bone cracking sound. I was never able to play baseball or football again and at 29 I'm already experiencing arthritis symptoms in that joint... Good times!
Anyway, during the 9 months of treatment I wasn't allowed to do anything remotely athletic. When everyone would go to gym class I had to hang out in the school library. And of course there was NEVER any other students there. It was just me and the retirement aged librarian lady. EVERY DAY!
I spent the first couple of weeks sneaking out and roaming the halls... Then when that got boring I was forced to take drastic measures and I started to actually read the books... Imagine that... One of my favorite things to do to pass the time was look up random countries in the library's various encyclopedias. I would come up with elaborate fantasies where I would criss-cross the globe, jumping from city to city like Carmen Sandiego. It was there that my disappearing dream began!
Over the years I have since narrowed down my selection to South American countries, eventually settling on Uruguay. I've written about this dream on a couple of occasions, but when I originally introduced the subject I even got a comment from Chanclita Divina (known at the time as Cracked Chancla) which laid out the perfect plan for what I could do when I got there:
"...i think i can see you owning some sort of bar and grill type of place out there. where one can get the coldest beers and biggest steaks made with local seasonings. you wouldn't do much in your restaurant, except give orders--but your employees would love you because you would be super charismatic when doing it--you would dress in guayaberas and walk around the place smiling and winking at all the pretty girls. moe would eventually forgive you and move out there to be with you. well, that's how it played out in my head."
That's pretty much the greatest non-Confession Awards comment ever written on this blog... it perfectly sums up the vision of what my Uruguay experience would be like... only now there is a problem... I no longer want to live in Uguguay.
First of all, the word has gotten out about what an underrated vacation spot it is. With all the increased tourism they've been seeing I probably wouldn't even be the only asshole in a guayabera walking around winking at the pretty girls!
The second issue is that their economy pretty much collapsed. That makes for cheaper hotel rates, but on the downside it means that their unemployment rate has skyrocketed. Basically the only option left for foreigners and ex-pats that want to work is to teach English to business men... yuck... That's not exactly the type of environment conducive to getting drunk and waking up in a hammock with a cute a waitress.
So this morning I decided to begin an exhaustive and thorough search process for a new destination. The new spot is Ecuador... Despite it's small size (wikipedia compares it to Colorado), it has 4 completely diferent geographic regions. There are the mountains of La Sierra, the jungles of La Oriente, the beaches of La Costa, and of course the Galápagos Islands... not bad.
I could spend hours photgraphing and exploring Inca ruins, or hours chatting up drunken college girls on the beach. But most importantly, according to Anywork Anywhere: "Jobs in the tourism industry are relatively easy to come by in popular tourist establishments. Jobs can be found bartending, hotel receptionist, managing a hotel, waiting tables, bike mechanic, or working at a travel agency. Often all that is required is the ability to speak English and Spanish."
That sounds like the kind of place where Chancla's restaurant vision for me could thrive! So anyway, I'm moving to
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8 comments:
take me!!! take me!!!
can I send a package via you to a good friend that lives there? He'll show you around.
Opposed.
I have been struggling with the idea that I am going through a career crisis (kinda like a midlife crisis) I have been working so long that your idea almost sounds inviting because nothing else motivates me.
sonrisa- let's go, i even have a job for you lined up.
teresa- it's not drugs is it? i mean, its cool if it, just let me know so i can have sonrisa carry the bags
moe- we used to make music together, and we've decided to make music together again...
c- thanks for checking out the blog. i find anytime anything remotely crisis like happens in my life my immediate reaction is to want to move to another country and never come back. i don't know if that means i'm a coward for wanting to run away from problems or a coward for never following through on it... good luck with your career crisis.
the vision still plays out that way in my head, except now that sonrisa wants to go, she's in the background on a platform dancing on a pole. you can dress her as you like, i keep seeing her with jeans and a red shirt like in that one picture she's circulated..and most importantly moe is there too--he's forgiven you for forcing him to relocate the whole family. (i mean if he can forgive the green toe thingy, he can forgive a move to south america. right?)
oh yeah, and speaking of confession awards, don't ya think you should do it again?
chancla- nice twist to the idea... I could be one of those sleazy guys that hangs around the strip clubs while the woman dances for the rent money! I've always wanted to be one of those guys. Of course if we're going to earn enough $ to start up the restaurant she might have to peel off the jeans and red shirt.
I think if Moe goes with us, he's leaving the family behind. I figure it would be cheaper just to start a new Ecuadorian (sp?) family then to relocate his wife, 3 kids, and all their stuff.
I figure he can still go back to the U.S. once every few months with a basbeall glove and a couple of barbies dolls for the kids and act like nothing happened. That's the great thing about children, they're so damn desperate and clingy that all you need to give them is a cheap present and half-assed "daddy is trying to find himself" excuse and you're back in their good graces!
As for the confession awards... I've thought about doing it again, and I still might, but there are some issues to think about... on the one hand, I don't know if everyone could come up with another round of confessions equal to the last round. It's not easy to come up with something that is worthy and interesting, yet won't hold serious consequences if your confession was ever discovered by the wrong people. It's hard to say if everyone could/would be up for that again.
Another issue is that because of "the dark period" I just don't have as many regular readers now as I did then... so we're talking about less confessions and confessions that, potentially, might not be as good as they were the first time around.
but on the other hand it was a lot of fun to do the first time around. That, along with Moe's 30 McNugget, large fry, large coke, and McFlurry meal were hands down the high (or low, depending on how you want to look at it) points of this blog.
I guess what it comes down to is that I need to come up with some sort twist to address those issues. I'll brain storm a bit and come up something... and I promise it will be soon.
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