I've discovered two blogs, both about travels abroad. In one I get to share in the adventures of a former friend/acquaintance who transfered after sophomore year, ended up graduating at a state school, and now is a PeaceCorps volunteer working in Senegal. She works in the field of environmental education. The other blog is by a Canadian English/French teacher living in London, who has been traveling abroad since she graduated from college. Both women are independent and strong, following their dreams, and making traveling a priority in their lives.
I will be traveling to San Juan, PR this July for a conference on teaching Spanish to heritage speakers, but I feel like this trip will not be enough to satisfy my wanderlust. It feels unnatural for me to have lived in a place for so long. Philadelphia/Camden and its surrounding suburbs does not feel like home to me. The culture is vastly different from what I grew up with and I don't want to live here any longer than I have to. I moved here for a job, I bought a house because I thought it was a good investment and after having lived here for over a year, I feel like it was a mistake. I feel rooted here against my will.
I've been thinking a lot about all of the things that I could do and all the places that I could visit if I hadn't attended an expensive university, then went back to school and added another $46,000 to my already high debt, then bought a house on top of that (that required signinficant and costly repairs). I thought that I couldn't do what I wanted after undergrad, but now I really can't afford to do the things that I wanted to do (like join the Peace Corps, which I've wanted to do since I was a teenager).
I would need to pay off a lot of debt before I could even possibly apply to such a position, because they look at your financial obligations before they consider you as a possibility. I will say, though, that my teaching experience and degree in Education would be an asset.
Every time I try to figure out a way to pay off my debt quickly I hit a wall. I think that maybe it's not possible to make any real headway on it for at least 10 years and by then I'll probably be thinking about retirement and not even want to do the same things that I've been wanting to do.
