A Plain Life to a Plane Ticket

I've been at the same job for four years now, bought a condo a year ago, even have a 401K plan. It's a pretty safe existence and would be great if it were a job I liked or was fulfilling, a house located in an area I wanted to live and had any clue about the whole 401K thing. Truth is, I fell into the "adult routine." It all seems like stuff that I SHOULD do, not really stuff that I necessarily want to do. So, after living the past year absolutely dreading going to work (not because there's anything wrong with my job, it's just so lacking in any challenge for me), I've been trying to come up with a solution to the question, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" I've tried out lots of ideas in my head, done some research on a lot of them and nothing has felt right to me. After going back to school twice after getting my bachelor's degree, dropping out both times and racking up a lot of student loan debt, I have been really wary of beginning something else that I might like at the outset, but that I lose interest in quickly. This fear was so great, that I felt crippled and was unable to make any decisions, second guessing my choices and staying stagnant in my unhappy, but comfortable existence.

Enter Linda
I had mentioned to my mom that I was thinking about going to a career counselor and she told me that her best friend, Linda was in school to become a life coach and needed a couple of people to coach as part of her training. I jumped at the chance to work with her, both because I already liked her as a person and knew I could work with her and it was free. After looking into how much some coaches charge, I realized what a steal it was and signed up.

It's still unbelievable to me how much this whole process has helped and really created such an impact on my life. In just the past two months, in working with Linda through a weekly one hour phone call (as she lives in NC and I'm in MA), I have come to some conclusions about what is important in my life and made some decisions about my next steps.

So, here's the deal:
I'm going to Costa Rica for a month to get certified to teach English as a second language in a 4 week intensive course led by TEFL International. While there, I'll be staying with a local family (way out of my comfort zone on that one and more on that later) in the southwestern town of Quepos in the Puntarenos area of Costa Rica.

I'll return to Boston just in time for Christmas (please note that everyone will be receiving bananas or the like for presents this year) and will stick around through New Year's. Shortly after that, I'm off again, but to sunny Minnesota this time. Who the heck goes to Minnesota in January you ask? I'm sure I'll ask myself that a few times while I'm there too. However, I'll be off on an Outward Bound odyssey for 8 days of dog sledding, x-country skiing and winter camping. Brrrrr!!

Then, it's back to Boston to continue the job search and finish up my application for Lesley University. I'll be looking for a job teaching English as a second language in Chile (all are welcome to visit!) for 5 or 6 months and applying to a Master's program in Intercultural Relations at Lesley to begin in Fall 2008.

That's it in a nutshell. I'll be filling in the details later in a hopefully more interesting dialogue. I hope to have lots of stories to bring you from Costa Rica about my trials (of which I'm sure there will be many) and my successes (there had better be many of those as well!!)