Taken by the Wind

This Blog has Moved!

2009-12-05T16:57:00.005+09:00

Well, the day has finally arrived. The wait is over. Yep, It's moving day!

And for once it's not me that's moving but the blog.

Here's the new address: www.takenbythewind.com

It's simple, easy to remember and no annoying (dot)blogspot(dot)com nonsense at the end anymore. And the best part is that now I won't have to hear my friends say: "Reannon, I'd visit your blog more, I would. But I can never remember what to type. Where do I put the hyphen again?"

I've been slaving away at it the last couple of weeks and I hope you like the new look. I made the move to Wordpress, which is a more advanced blog-hosting site. I've had to learn all about widgets and plug-ins and (blech!) HTML codes. Which is all just nerd-speak for a crap ton of work. I'm not the most computer-savy individual, so it took quite a few false starts, (whereby I accidentally deleted my entire blog) and about 10 hours of slugging through the internets, reading up on SEO's, CSS's and RSS's. My brain feels like it's going to explode.

But I like it. It's still a work in progress, but I think it looks sleeker, more professional and a lot more grown-up.

So please visit, bookmark the new address and let me know what you think.

Living abroad makes you more creative...But what happens after you return home?

2009-11-18T04:15:00.016+09:00

Writers Block by Jennifer K. Mulchahy

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.” — Henry David Thoreau

Lately I've been felt so uninspired...so stuck. It seems that every time I settle down in front of my computer with a cup of coffee and the resolution to work write something (anything!), I just end up spending the entire afternoon watching the screen cursor go blink, blink, blink as my mind mutinously continues to go blank, blank, blank. It's so frustrating! And I've tried all of the usual remedies, (reading, napping, going for a walk) but to no avail. It's like my well of creativity has dried up. And even though I know that's a horribly cliched comparison, it's all my uninventive brain can come up at the moment.

This was never a problem when I lived in Japan. Or in Austria or Germany either, for that matter. No, when I lived abroad, my mind seemed to be overflowing with an endless surplus of creative ideas. And not just ones that involved stories or blog posts either, but business ideas and art projects as well. My closet is stacked with notebooks outlining plans for the coffee shop I'd one day open or the design ideas for the youth hostel I'd eventually own. In Japan, I'd stay up late into the night painting and spend my weekends sitting in cafes knitting handbags for friends. But back at home in America, I spend most nights watching Project Runway; dazed and unmotivated.

Apparently though, it's not just me. Artists and writers have long been known to do some of their best work while living abroad. Just look at the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life, or Ernest Hemingway who was inspired to write The Sun Also Rises during after a trip to Spain. Irishman W.B. Yeats won the Nobel prize for the poetry he wrote while living abroad, as did Seamus Heany. And the Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov, wrote Lolita while living in Manhattan.

Researchers William W. Maddux (INSEAD) and Adam D. Galinsky (Nortwestern University) attribute this to the psychological change one undergoes when adapting to a foreign culture. Learning a new language and struggling through culture shock cause a shift in perspective, which opens the mind to new ideas and sparks creativity. As explained in Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers:
The Relationship Between Living Abroad and Creativity, not only are people who live abroad more creative than people who don't, but the longer they remain abroad, the more creative they become.

Interestingly enough though, the increase in creativity doesn't occur in those merely traveling abroad. Apparently, two weeks in Tahiti does not a Picasso make. You've actually got to live in another culture for an extended period of time, learn the language, embrace the customs and make an effort to assimilate in order for the change to happen. In other words, a year spent exploring the inside of the local Expat bar doesn't count.

So what's an uninspired writer/artist/composer to do? Country hopping every few years in search of inspiration may work for some, but most of us need a little more stability and structure in order to stay sane.

Well apparently the simple act of recalling time spent living abroad helps reactivate the experience and keeps the creative juices flowing. As does learning a new language, making foreign friends and living in multi-cultural cities within your own country.

Huh. It's hard to imagine how reminiscing about my life in Japan could possibly begin to compete with the experience of actually living there. But for now, I guess, that's all I've got. Although I want (need!) to finish this novel I've been working on since, like, forever and a half ago and right now I'm thinking that another long stint abroad might be my only hope.

Watch this interview with one of the researchers. I found this on Miss Move Abroad's blog, (which is also worth a visit, by the way). It's fascinating.

The Mini-Vaca

2009-11-12T02:29:00.000+09:00

Minature New York by Moon Pie

I used to be anti the mini-vaca. A long weekend in Aruba? No thanks. Five days in Athens? Naw, I'd rather stay home. A few days out of a lifetime to be thrown away at a seaside resort wasn't giving the city or country the respect it deserved. What could one possibly hope to absorb of a country's culture, history or language in such a short time frame?

But then I started working for an airline and now I have a dilemma. Because in the aviation industry the Mini-vaca is king. In fact, when you can fly anywhere you want for free and only have a limited number of days off, it's really all you have.

Rome may've not been built in a day but if you work for an airline, visiting it for the day isn't uncommon. I've talked to co-workers who've taken the red-eye to Paris or Hong Kong, sight-seed during the day, partied all night and then hopped back on a flight home the following morning.

It's also not unheard of for airline employees to live lives that span multiple states, or even countries, for that matter. A flight attendant might, for example, live in Texas and commute to Los Angeles for work. Her boyfriend may live in Chicago, her hairstylist in New York and her dentist in Seattle. For the average person, this is might be mind-boggling. Because to the average person, a ride in an airplane is a special treat; a once or twice a year event that's exciting and perhaps a little fear-inducing. To an airline employee though, an airplane is seen as nothing more than an employee shuttle bus or air taxi service.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with a customer service agent in New York who regularly uses the few hours he has in between work shifts to head to the beach to sunbathe...in Puerto Rico. Another one of my co-workers frequently flies to Las Vegas from where we're stationed in San Francisco for dinner. It sounds crazy but it actually makes sense when you consider that it only takes an hour to fly to Vegas and another ten minutes to take the employee shuttle from the airport to the strip of casinos. And if you factor in California rush hour traffic and the fact that he lives two hours from the airport, it's actually faster (not to mention cheaper), for him to grab a bite at an all-you-can-eat casino buffet in Vegas than for him to drive to his neighborhood Wendy's.

What this all amounts to is an industry of workers accustomed to warp-speed, wam-bam travel. It's ADD, Tasmanian Devil, whirlwind travel and it's bizarre...and it makes me wonder: What's the point? It's like, "Well, I guess I can squeeze in a trip to Barbados in between my orthodontist appointment in Tuscon and my cousin's bachelorette party in Boston. Might as well cross that one of the list while I've got the time." In fact, some of my co-workers could list you off a list a mile long of cities or country's they've visited over the years. But does 24 hours in Honolulu count as a visit to Hawaii, if you never ventured away from Waikiki beach? And does 30 hours at an airport hotel in Sydney constitute stepping foot in Australia?

Two months ago, I met a grounds crew member who claimed to have visited all 50 states in the United States. An impressive feat for anyone, sure..that is until he revealed that he'd knocked all 50 off his list in a span of a few days. The icing on the cake was that he never as much as stepped foot outside a single one of the airports and only stayed in each state long enough to chat with the gate agents and buy a souvenir magnet from one of airport gift shops.

In traveling this way, yes we see the world, but is it worth it when our only view is a jet-lagged, blurry one from the airport freeway? If we're not gaining some insight or perspective from the experience or learning something new, then aren't we missing the point the point of travel entirely?

That said, it's cold enough in San Francisco right now to make a field trip to Florida look pretty damn appealing....Who knows, maybe I'll hop down to Miami for a few hours on my day off next week?

America, I Love you but...

2009-11-06T02:18:00.001+09:00

“Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one’s own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live ... in our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation.”
- Anatole Broyard

I once visited a zoo in Kathmandu, Nepal. The zoo was like a poorly-tended hospice; a wasteland of sickly, under-nourished animals who'd been abandoned to die. The lion cage was lined with garbage and the hippos waded through a thick soup of sewage. But perhaps the worst off, were two twin black bears who'd gone insane from being trapped in a six by six foot cell. They paced their cage, back and forth and back and forth and each time they paced past the barred window that faced the entrance of the zoo, they'd bash their heads against it.

This morning I woke up thinking about those bears. Sometimes I feel so trapped here in the US; so stuck. 'Clawing-at-the-walls desperate to escape' sorta stuck. And it's frustrating because I can't pin-point why. There's nothing specific about my life here that I dislike, it's more just this general feeling of unease; this haunting need to break free.

I think Bill Bryson described it best in I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after 20 Years Away, when he wrote:

"I felt as if we'd made a terrible mistake. I had nothing against America, you understand. It's a wonderful country, splendid in every way. But this felt uncomfortably like a backward step - like moving in with one's parents in middle age. They may be perfectly delightful people, but you just don't want to live with them any longer. Your life has moved on. I felt like that about a nation."

Recently, I visited in an old friend from high school. As teenagers, we had a lot in common. Our mutual love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, our crush on Ben Afleck and our shared habit of cutting class to watch tapings of MTV'sTotal Request Live in Times Square...These were the bonds that held teenage friendships together.

But about 20 minutes into our lunch in New York two weeks ago, it became clear that our lives had diverged in two completely opposite directions. And after playing catch-up and reminiscing about some of crazy shenanigans we'd gotten ourselves into back then, we found we had nothing to say. The friendship was familiar and comfortable, but at some point over the years it'd gone stale. It had expired.

And that's precisely how I feel about my relationship with America. It's expired and no matter how hard I try to breathe new life into it, it's too late. We're just too different.

Are you a Risk Taker?

2009-11-03T02:48:00.001+09:00

According to Oprah Magazine, a spontaneous, risk-taking personality type is:

"Action oriented, curious, outgoing and lives for new experiences. You are drawn to risk-taking and aren't afraid to fail. Generally restless, you tend to job-hop or choose a field that offers constant novelty."

When I first stumbled across this in an article entitled "Who are you meant to be?" in this month's O magazine, I was floored. That last sentence completely stopped me in my tracks. It was like Wait a second. You mean to tell me that not only is my one-of-a-kind personality actually one of seven personality types but there are others like me out there, too?

I was simultaneously relieved to learn that I wasn't alone and dumbfounded that my unique, complicated and wholly incomprehensible inner motivations could be summed up so easily into three paragraphs. Apparently I'm not as original as I thought.

Curious, I started to research the risk-taking personality type and apparently not only is there a sub-species of risk-taking types walking (or free-falling, paragliding, rock climbing) the planet as I type, but they've been doing so since our ancestors first dared to venture out of the safety of their caves 100,000 years ago.

Photo courtesy of Science Daily

I can just imagine what my tribal role in life would've been back then. I'd probably be "Chief Food Taster", as in, "Here, try this weird looking plant and tell me if tastes poisonous, mmmkay?" or possibly "Chief Sketchy-Looking Cave Explorer", as in "Hey, do me a favor and scope out yonder cave for saber tooth tigers, will ya?"

For obvious reasons, the risk-takers of yore didn't live very long. But as Salvadore Maddi of the University of California-Davis pointed out, "It's better for one person to eat a poisonous fruit than for everybody," so they served a vital role in the evolution of mankind. And traces of that adventurous trait is still evident in people today.

Because apparently risk-taking is not only a personality trait but an inherited one. It's called the "high-risk gene" and through twin-studies, scientists have discovered that it's 60 percent genetic.

Which explains so much. It explains why, for example, although completely different an every other way, my brothers and I all share the same impulsive, irrational desire to repeatedly throw ourselves in harms way. Our methods may be different (they do it through cliff jumping, sky-diving, motor-cross racing and high stakes gambling and I do it through travel), but the driving force is the same. We hail from a long-line of risk-takers, starting with our unconventional, hippie, Harley Davidson-riding parents and going back to our great-grandparents who immigrated to the US 100 years ago.

The fact though that modern society has evolved in a way that we no longer need to spend our days hunting buffalo or outruning rhinos, makes some scientists wonder if the risk-taking gene has become obsolete. Or at worst, harmful.

Because the same gene that motivates high-risk personalities to bungee jump or move to Mongolia, also makes them prone to stranger sex, drug abuse, reckless driving and crime.As Maddi put it, healthy, well-adjusted people are "good at turning every day experiences into something interesting. My guess is that the safe-cracker and the mountain climber can't do that as well. They have to do something exciting to get a sense of vitality. It's the only way they have of getting away from the sense that life sucks."

He went on to say that high-risk takers "have a hard time deriving meaning and purpose from every day life." A psychologist from the university of Michigan, Randy Larsen, even went as far to state that risk-takers are "a little sociopathic".

Watching this video of people base-jumping off of cliffs superman style certainly makes me think that he may have a point. A very small one, but still. What do you think? Are risk-takers an inspiration to society or a hindrance?

Wanna read more? Check out:

Risk by Paul Roberts, Psychology Today.

Are you a Risk Taker? by Marvin Zuckerman, Psychology Today.

How Far Would You Go to be able to Fly for Free?

2009-11-02T02:58:00.000+09:00

If you've been wondering where I've disappeared to these past few weeks, you can look no further than the International terminal at the airport in San Franicsco. It seems that lately I've been working so many 17 hour shifts (yes, that's 17 hours straight), that I've practically taken up permanent residence in the airport. I'm like Tom Hanks in the movie Terminal, only instead of camping out in some, cozy, abandoned concourse, I sleep on a make-shift bed (made out of two plastic chairs), in the employee break-room.

And if that sounds a bit extreme to you, well it's all par for the course when you work for an airline. Back when I first started, I used to think that my co-workers were crazy when they told me that they regularly did this. No way was a job worth sleeping on a pile of abandoned airplane magazines with the "Attention in the concourse. The airport is now at threat level orange..." announcement ringing in your ears all night. Free, unlimited air travel or not, my downtime was too important to give up for a job that barely pays over minimum wage.

But it's amazing how quickly your priorities change when a week-long trip to Colombia is dangled in front of your eyes. A chance to explore South America with one of my best friend's from Germany? Sure, I'll sign my life away. And then before I knew it, I was shivering in a sleeping bag in my car in the airport employee parking lot, trying to block out the smell of jet fuel and ignore the roar of the plane engines overhead that were so loud, they made the entire car vibrate.

Because when you only have four hours between when one shift ends and the other begins, wasting precious sleep time on the drive to and from work just seems silly. And sleeping on the carpeted floor in the supervisor's office and then paying $10 to use the airport shower starts to seem like a perfectly rational solution.

But as I found out the hard way, three hours of sleep is not enough to get you through a shift of canceled flights and irate passengers. And caffeinated beverages only get you so far...In the middle of my 10th work day in a row, I had a melt down.

At least that's the only way I can explain why I started crying at the ticket counter. Yes, I actually burst into tears, and right in the middle of checking in a passenger. I was so mortified, I just mumbled something about the bag tag printer being jammed and then ducked behind the counter to try to pull myself together. Unfortunately the problem with pep talks that begin with "Stop crying!" is that they just make you cry even harder.

Thankfully the man I was checking in pretended not to notice. He just smiled and looked sort of confused as I explained to him in a shaky voice, my eyes brimming with tears, that his flight would be departing at gate A12.

Afterwards, I excused myself, walked outside and sat on the long-term parking bus stop in a complete daze. I felt like I was 80 years old and suffering from arthritis. My bones and joints ached and my head was pounding. I had a chest cold and a fever and the only thing I'd consumed all day was three red bulls and a hand-full of raisins.

What the Hell was I doing to myself? I felt like I'd thrown myself into a war zone. I was a prisoner of war, held hostage by my job and subjected to mind games and deprived of sleep and adequate food (I'm sorry but stale sandwiches from the airport food court do not count). This was torture. And the most insane part of it was, was that I'd volunteered for it. I was driving myself crazy and all so that I'd be able to a week off and go to Colombia, of all places.

Sometimes I wonder if all the stress and insomnia is worth it. Perhaps it would be better if I just got a real job that paid more so that I could afford to purchase airfare like a normal person. Because with every airline competing so fiercely for business right now, flights are fairly inexpensive these days. Just last weekend, for example, I checked-in passengers who'd bought their tickets from San Francisco to New York online for only US $29.00.

The irony of the job is that while I have these wonderful travel benefits, I get paid too little to be able to enjoy them. Sure our flights are free, but that's only a small portion of the total cost of travel. When you factor in the added expense of hotels, dining out and sight-seeing, a weekend trip to anywhere can cost hundreds of dollars.

Furthermore, when you live in a city as expensive as San Francisco, the cost of living is so high that it takes nearly all of your pay-check just to be able to make rent. Most of my co-workers either live with their parents or else rely on a spouse or significant other's source of income to make ends meet.

It's for reasons like these that there are days when I fantasize about quitting; about trading in the free flights for a desk job somewhere. But then days like tomorrow stop me...because tomorrow I'm flying to Los Angeles for the day so that I can get a haircut...for no other reason because I can.

It's for reasons like this one that I love working for an airline.

I went to Colombia! And other news...

2009-10-30T00:19:00.010+09:00

A lot has happened in the last three weeks.

1. I worked 112 hours over a 10 day period. Two of those days I worked 17 hours straight.

2. I bid farewell to my mid-twenties and celebrated my 27th birthday.

3. As a birthday present to myself, I went to Colombia for a week with one of my best friends, Kim.

4. In Colombia, we got pick-pocketed, horribly lost, stranded in a ghetto four hours from the capital and drank numerous cups of hot chocolate with chunks of cheese in it (which by the way, is my new favorite drink).

5. I also went clubbing, visited an underground cathedral made entirely of salt and bought 15 pairs of earrings for under USD $5.00.

6. I'm now officially in love with South America and can't wait to go back.

Here's a photo recap of the last seven days.

The Wanderlust Gene

2009-10-07T01:11:00.007+09:00

Photo Source

Well, travel lovers everywhere...You can now come out of hiding. Because science has discovered that there's a reason behind your chronic restlessness and compulsive need for midnight road trips to Guatemala. You no longer need to feel ashamed about the excitement you feel over a new addition to your passport stamp collection or feel embarrassed about that lump in your throat that you experience each time you pick up the latest Travel + Leisure magazine.

Because you're not crazy, and moreover, you're not alone. Stanford has now confirmed that age-old "travel is in my blood" theory with the discovery of the 'travel gene'. Yep, your love for travel is not only a natural and innate genetic tendency but it could also mean that you hail from a long line of risk-taking travel-enthusiasts. You could very well be the great-great (to the millionth power) grandchild of the likes of Marco Polo or Ferdinand Magellon.

According to this book published by Princeton:

"There is now growing evidence that the behavioral traits which predispose some of us to risky and novelty-seeking behavior have a genetic basis. A recent book, American Mania, by a colleague, Peter Whybrow, director of UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, summarizes this evidence. He begins by noting that human migration is one major form of risky and novelty-seeking behavior. Only a few of our species left their ancestral home in the African savannahs and began that long walk to the ends of the earth which allowed homo sapiens to colonize the world. Who were these earliest migrants? It turns out they had a particular genetic profile. They had a higher percentage of an exploratory and novelty-seeking gene than those remaining behind."

The gene is called D4. And certain cultures display a higher percentage of the gene, which can be traced back to the earliest population migrations in Africa approximately ten to 20 thousand years ago. Apparently, the Chinese who migrated from Taiwan to South East Asia, for example, have a "greater percentage of D4-7 allele in the population than the aboriginal population of Taiwan who stayed behind". The same goes for the South Americans, particularly the Colombians. The theory is that those groups had to migrate (I.e., walk), the furthest when crossing from Asia to the Americas during the Ice Age, which would explain why the 'travel gene' is prevalent among South Americans today. Not surprisingly, (when you consider their history of isolationism), the travel gene is almost non-existent among the Japanese.

And apparently the travel gene is not strictly reserved for homo sapiens. It's also found in fish as well, specifically in the Stickleback fish; a small, bony, fresh-water fish that never likes to stay in one spot for long. According to a study conducted by the University of British Columbia, Sticklebacks possess an "inclination to move into different salinities – a sort of 'wanderlust gene,' if you will – instead of staying put and acclimatizing to the current salinity". Or as Dr. Rowan Barret put it, "they just like to go to new places".

So take heart in the fact that at least you have a friend in the fish world. And next time you have to explain to your mother why you feel it's of utmost importance that you put off grad school to volunteer in Thailand for three months, remember your ancestor Chris. I bet he must've had a frustrating time assuring Mrs. Columbus that the world wasn't flat and that it was a perfectly sane idea to sail to a "new world" to prove it.

What do you think? Is it possible to be genetically predisposed to travel? Or is science just grasping for explanations where there are none? What motivates you to travel?

What It's Like to Work as an Airline Customer Service Agent

2009-09-30T02:50:00.005+09:00

I love watching the reality show Airline. It's not on TV anymore (it went off the air in 2004), but you can watch entire episodes of it on Video Google.

The A&E show documents the behind-the-scenes drama of working for an airline, specifically Southwest Airlines.

I've posted a few full-length episodes below, which I hope you're able to view (you might have a tough time if you're trying to watch them from outside the US). They feature the typical problems a customer service agent encounters on a daily basis (situations like canceled or overbooked flights, drunk or irate passengers, etc).

Keep in mind when watching though, that the director taped a week's worth of film and at four different airports and then edited that down to 25 minutes of the most dramatic footage. So naturally working at an airport isn't always as chaotic as the show makes it out to be. But I'd say that I probably get about one problem passenger per eight hour shift and sometimes more if the flight's been delayed or canceled.

They had a British version of the show too, Airline UK, which followed the employees of the airline Easy Jet and Britannia (which is now off the air too). I like this one even better than the Southwest version, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find full-length episodes of it on the web. I posted a nine minute clip of it below.

If you're interested in working for an airline and want to know what it's like, this is a good way to get a taste of what you'll be up against.

Why I Love Working for an Airline, Part Two

2009-09-30T01:23:00.006+09:00

"Excuse me, miss," a passenger said as she handed me her boarding card. "But there's a man over there and...I think, I think that something's wrong with him."

I was in the middle of boarding a flight, and as I scanned her boarding card and handed it back to her, I glanced in the direction she was pointing. And sure enough, there was a man laying on the floor, square in front of the gate across from us.

I sighed inwardly. Every shift there seemed to be at least one man somewhere, with something wrong with him...And always at the most inopportune moments,too. Like when I had to get a long line of impatient New Yorkers boarded, seated and all of their oversized carry-ons properly stowed and I only had three minutes to do it in.

"Thank you. I'll go see about him in a minute." And I meant it. But I had to first board the flight, make the final boarding call, page any missing passengers and assist the handful of people crowding the podium demanding that I switch their seats. A drunk party-goer sleeping it off on the terminal floor would just have to wait.

But then I did something I probably shouldn't have....I completely forgot all about him. In fact, it wasn't until I was watching the aircraft pull away from the jet bridge that it dawned on me that in all of the chaos and stress, I'd never checked to see if he was okay. What if he'd slipped, bumped his head and was lying there unconscious? What if he'd had a heart-attack and because I hadn't assisted him sooner, he was now dead?

Luckily for both of us, he was fine. Well, if you consider tripping on acid, fine. I found him on his back, spread-eagle with his hands folded behind his head. He'd also taken off his shoes somewhere along the line and placed them neatly next to his backpack.

"Where are you headed to tonight, sir?" I asked, towering over him. Planet Mars? He looked up at me and smiled.

"St. Maarten." Ah, that expalined why he looked like he was lounging in a hammock rather than on the hard, linoleum floor of the airport terminal. In his garbled thought process, he'd likely bypassed the part where he needed to fly in a plane for 10 hours and mistakenly assumed he'd been magically teleported directly to the beach.

"Well, um..." I always hate having to be the bearer of bad news. "Your flight just left. I'm sorry." And I was. That was the last flight out that night, which meant that this poor, confused gentleman would have to wait there until 12 noon the next day.

But surprisingly, he wasn't upset. He didn't even look shocked. He just smiled and serenely and said slowly: "Oh. Darn..."

Apparently, he'd been one of the passengers I'd paged for the flight, but he'd daydreamed through the announcement and hadn't heard his name being called repeatedly over the loudspeaker. This was another fact that he took with surprising ease.

"Be sure to be here on time tomorrow," I said as I booked him on standby for the flight the following day.

"Okay." He replied. "My name is Tom," he said, reaching out his hand to shake mine. "Don't forget about me tomorrow, okay?"

"Don't worry, Tom." I fought hard to keep a straight face. "I won't ever forget you."

My Job Might Be Leaving Me Soon

2009-09-29T04:54:00.014+09:00

I love working for an airline. So much so, in fact, that I can't seem to find a way to write about it. I only started a two months ago and I'm still in that honeymoon phase where everything is still so new, exciting, overwhelming and completely indescribable. Sort of like the first few weeks into a new relationship.

But what's crap, is that this lovely new relationship might be coming to end soon. Yes, I might be getting laid off in January. See, I work at the airport in San Francisco but about an hour away, at the airport in San Jose, our airline is laying off half of it's customer service staff. And because my position with this airline is based on seniority (and being so new, I have none), then the San Jose staff have the option of transferring to the San Francisco airport and stealing my job right from under me. This is referred to as "bumping" and its perfectly legal and happens all the time.

If this happens, which it's looking like it will, then that means I'd have the option of either transfering to a different airport and "bumping" off an employee there that has less seniority than me or else taking my severance package and leaving my dear job, possibly for good.

This means that come January, I'll have to decide if this job is worth moving across the country for. Because if a job opens up in New York or Boston or Washington DC, then I might very well take it. But that would mean that I'd be starting over somewhere new. Again. Which would make that the 18th time I've relocated...And I only just moved to San Francisco four months ago.

Siiiiigh.

Vacation Souvenirs: Why Do We Buy Them?

2009-09-28T14:29:00.014+09:00

I don't buy souvenir's when I travel because frankly, I don't see the point. Do I really need some tacky fridge magnet shaped like a sombrero to remind me that I went to Mexico? Um, no. Thank you. And ditto with hula girl dashboard dolls from Hawaii, Nevada license plate hand bags from Las Vegas or kangaroo back scratchers from Australia.

I mean, what are you expected to do with that lava rock you pocketed from that volcano in Costa Rica? Store it in a keepsake box with your seashell collection from Bali? Frame and mount it on the wall? Do you buy "I love (insert random city)" t-shirts and keychains because it brings you a sense of vacation closure? Does it make you feel better about heading home to Jersey City now that you've taken a little piece of your vacation with you (even if it's only in the form of an Elvis Presley Snowglobe from Graceland)?

Or is that postcard collection really just an adult version of an eight-year-old's recess sing-song "Na na na nana! Na na na nana! I went to Aruba and yooooou didn't!"?

Is souvenir shopping just a subconscious attempt at making ourselves feel superior over our friends and family?

I recently read an article about how jetsetters are being replaced by netsetters, which is a term coined to describe 20-somethings who travel mainly for the opportunity to brag about it on facebook, twitter or their travel blogs.

This quote from The Daily Mail describes it nicely,

"When you're sat at your desk on a rainy Monday morning in Britain, there's nothing quite like seeing social netsetters showing off their photos on their profiles, with smug grins on a sun-kissed beach or near an international beauty spot. It's clear people just love showing off online."

So I suppose before I congratulate myself on the fact that my bedroom is delightfully tacky-souvenir free, I should first consider this blog, which is perhaps...

the biggest vacation souvenir of all.

So what do you think? Do you collect souvenirs? Are you guilty of being an occasional netsetter? And where do you draw the line between well-intentioned travel blogging and self-absorbed navel-gazing?

Why Solo Travel Sucks

2009-09-26T02:07:00.011+09:00

I like the freedom of solo travel. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want and without the headache of having to consult your travel companion about it first. There are no debates, no compromises and best of all, no worries that your partner will find you lame and uncultured for ditching that 5th century Mayan temple for the air-conditioned Starbucks down the street. You can unabashedly get down with your dorky side and spend 20 minutes taking pictures of the funny signs in the Mexican market bathroom if you want. Or shop for cheesy souvenir mugs to your hearts content, if the moment so moves you. There are no prentences, no pretending to enjoy reading The Quest for Autonomy in the Age of Globalization poolside when you'd really rather be reading US Weekly.

But then sometimes you find yourself in a situation where no matter how many pep-talks and "You'll be stronger for it in the long-runs" you tell yourself, you can't help but think that traveling alone just plain sucks.

Like this past week in Mexico, for example, when I found myself facing a dilemma that every solo traveler faces at least once in their lifetime:

Who should I ask to put sunscreen on my back?

Okay, so in the big scheme of travel trials and tribulations, this one probably ranks pretty low on the list. But when you're on your own, wearing a low-cut, backless top and facing a day of intense, 'hole in the ozone, near-the-equator September sunshine', suddenly a sunscreen dilemma becomes a matter of great importance. It's like, should I risk the chance of a getting blistering second degree sunburn and and just skip it? Or should I approach some dude at the beach and risk having him mistake my desire to keep my pale skin from frying...for a desire for something else?

These are the questions you ask yourself when you're in a foreign country alone. And last week I spent a good chunk of my morning trying come up with a solution.

Maybe if there had been another female staying at my hostel, this wouldn't have been an issue. I would have had no qualms about asking another girl to do me the quick favor. But as it was, the only other person staying in the hostel dorm room with me was a bearded backpacker sleeping naked in the bunk across the room.

Okay, not naked exactly. He was wearing boxers. But bare in my mind that we hadn't so much as exchanged two words with one another; no, not even a hello. And try as I might, I couldn't work out a conversation where me asking a half-naked stranger in an empty dorm room to rub sun tan oil onto my back, wouldn't seem like a come-on. And the only other person in the building was the 12-year-old Mexican boy working at the front desk...and there was no way I was going to ask him.

But I imagine that as dire as a predicament that it was for me, it would've been even worse for a guy. I'd imagine that no matter who a man asked, male or female, young or old, they'd all get the wrong idea. I mean, what would you think if some shirtless stranger handed you a bottle of lotion and mumbled in broken Spanish: "Hola Seniorita...Do you mind helping me out here, por favor?"

But let's say that you're able to find someone; some grandmotherly type sees you struggling to slather sunscreen between your shoulder blades with the corner of a beach towel and volunteers to help out. What do you do when you when you finally arrive at the beach and want to go for a swim? Being solo means that you have no one to watch your stuff, a fact that I'd failed to consider before I decided that a dip in the Carribean sea would be a good idea. And Mexico or not, I'd never leave $50 in cash and two credit cards unguarded on a beach. Not if I wanted to them to still be there when I got back.

So not only does a solo traveler have to risk sun burn and theft, but they also have to contend with the fact that they have no one to take their picture. And what's the point of surviving an adventure if you don't have a shred of photographic evidence to prove it? This leaves leaves you with two options.

1. You have to snap the photo yourself...which usually results in some blurry, off-center close-up of the inside of your left nostril.

or....

2. You have to ask someone else to do it for you. And that someone else is always some grandpa who's never operated a digital camera before and thus you're left with yet another blurry, off-center close-up of the inside of your left nostril.

But the number one reason why solo travel sucks? You don't have anyone to share in the experience. And somehow, this diminishes it. Afterall, how can you fully enjoy watching a sunset like this one, for example, if you have no there to marvel at it with you?

I'll finish with one last example of why solo travel sucks.

While I was hiking through the jungle in Mexico this past week, a large, four-legged, black and white striped animal ran across the path, startling me.

"Did you just see that?" I said to the hiker behind me. "It was like, this giant zebra-cat thing!"

But the man just stared at me and smiled the vacant, confused smile of someone who

1. Thinks I'm completely crazy

2. Didn't understand a word of what I said

I know that if I'd had a boyfriend and he'd been with me, he probably would have known precisely what the zebra-cat creature was. And he probably would have said something along the lines of:

"It's actually a cross between a zebra and a panther, known to zoologists as a Zanther. It's extremely rare and indigenous only to the jungles of Central America. And it's a herbivore, so there's nothing to worry about. The Zanther's diet actually consists of mostly coconuts and tree bark."

But alas, my fictitious zoologist boyfriend wasn't there and there was no one around to ask. So I spent the rest of the excursion nervously looking over my shoulder; prepared to hurl my water bottle at any animal that so much as looked my way.

I still don't have any idea what it was that I saw out there.

I think that given enough time, even the most enthusiastic solo adventurists grows tired of it. I certainly have and so has Nomadic Matt. Read his post about the havoc that long-term travel can have on relationships, if you don't believe me.

Because the truth is, all that's left from a solo vacation after that high of accomplishment wears off, are a few stories that no one at home will care to hear, a collection of badly shot photos and a blistering sunburn.

And what doesn't suck about that?

On Why I Went to Mexico

2009-09-25T01:46:00.037+09:00

So I didn't go to Aruba. Or Bermuda. And I didn't go to Antigua to visit my college roommate. Or to any of the other places (besides NY) that I'd originally planned to visit when I first decided to take an imprumptu mini-vaca somewhere tropical.

No, I went to Cancun, Me-he-Ko! Which in America is known as like, the place to get shitfaced if you're in college and on spring break. It's also known as the poor-man's Miami, but with no drinking laws, prettier beaches and road-side taco stands. And it's known as somewhere couples, honeymooners or families go on vacation.

But what it's not known for, is an ideal destination for single, 26-year-old females traveling alone. I guess the idea of walking along white-sand beaches at sunset, surrounded by couples holding hands or frolicking in the surf...completely alone doesn't appeal to most single women, or men for that matter.

At least judging from the number of women I saw (Mexican or otherwise) traveling alone which was um, none. In fact, I saw only one single traveler in the entire four days I was there and he was male, and a backpacker from Israel who'd only wound up in Cancun for our hostel's free Internet access.

I had a feeling it was going to be like that. But I decided to venture to Cancun anyway and not just because I love Mexican food and coconut cocktails and the beach. There were some logical reasons behind my decision as well.

1. The low airport taxes. Even though I work for an airline I therefore don't have to pay for airfare, I still have to pay the taxes for traveling internationally as well as any fees involved with the country's airport. If I went to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for example, I'd have to pay nearly USD $100. But to go to Mexico, I only had to pay USD $25.

2. Lots of open seats on the flight. I fly for free, yes, but not on a confirmed reservation. I fly on a space-available basis, which means that I only get a seat on a plane if there's one available. The flight to Mexico had 90 available seats. 90! A fact that I later realized was due to it being hurricane season in Mexico at the moment. Oh and Cancun is humid as hell in September, too.

3. My hostel only cost USD $4 per night. Which is about USD $196 less than the cheapest hotel I could find in Bermuda (an island which by the way, lacks youth hostels, guest houses or any remotely affordable form of accommodation).

So even though a visit to Cancun was never exactly on my bucket list, I chose to go there because I'm cheap...and broke. And because I'd spend less on a four day vacation in Mexico then I would if I stayed home in San Francisco. Isn't that wild?

Although I think that next time I'll try to organize it better so that I can go with a friend (or if I'm really together, a boyfriend). Because traveling by yourself should really only be reserved for quarter or mid-life crisis, or post-break-up Eat, Pray, Love type spiritual reprieves in Indian ashrams. But not resort towns in the tropics...no, definitely not.

I'm Going on a Travel-Spree!

2009-09-19T14:09:00.003+09:00

I appologize for leaving ya hanging there with that last post. I meant to finish it, I did. But then I got sidetracked with planning a trip to the Caribbean and had to run to work.

And well, you'll have to wait a teeny tiny bit longer for the ending. I'm sorry! I know that I've been this horribly sporadic blogger lately and I blame it all on work stress and the fact that life in America is totally overly familiar and uninspiring (which I know is a totally crap excuse, but it's the truth).

Plus, I've been totally consumed with planning this mini-vaca I'm about to embark on. Yep, I'm totally gonna take advantage of these free flight privaledges and head to New York...and maybe, probably, Aruba. Or Bermuda. Or Columbia.

Because that's one of the perks of working for an airline...you can leave everything up in the air until the last possible second. Because booking yourself a flight is as easy as signing into the intranet portal, highlighting a destination and then point! Click! You've got yourself a seat on the next flight to...well, anywhere.

I swear, these travel benefits are like crack in the hands of the wrong person (read: Me). Already I can see myself spending all of the money I've put away into my car fund, on hotels in Jamaica and zip-lining excursions in Costa Rica.

New York Sunset by
Ferguson

Photo by Caruba

Oranjestad, Aruba in Pastel by Atomic Shark

Big Bonsi in Aruba by Matthew E. Green

I don't really have much of a plan. Tomorrow night I know that I'll be staying with a friend in New York...but after that...Who knows? I haven't exactly reserved a hotel, or planned for what I'm going to do once I get there. Hell, I'm leaving in three hours and I haven't even packed and I have yet to even pin-point a precise destination.

But that's just all part of the adventure, no?

I'm so unbelievably excited. But I can't write even a sentence more because I need to go pack and then hopefully I'll have time to sleep for about a half hour before I've got to wake up again to catch my flight.

Why I Love Working for an Airline (Part One)

2009-09-15T12:25:00.022+09:00

Yesterday I almost got my fingers chopped off by an airplane (ahem, I mean aircraft) door handle.

I was attempting to shut the airplane (I mean aircraft), door so that the airplane (okay, I give up), could make an on-time departure. Unfortunately for me, the plane and all those on board, I'd never received jet bridge certification. And regrettably, my knowledge of the mechanics of jet bridges and airplane doors amounted to three paragraphs in a training manual and a five minute instructional video I'd half-slept through during training five weeks ago.

And before you go thinking "Jeeze Reannon, it's just a door. You've been opening and shutting them all your life!" I'd like to make clear this wasn't your average 'turn the knob and pull' type of door. No, this door was armed and dangerous. One false move and I could lose my fingers (by failing to remove them quickly enough from the metal release latch). And if I wasn't careful I could accidentally deploy the emergency slide which could pin me to the jet bridge wall. And then I'd suffocate to death under a ton of inflated yellow plastic (What? It's totally been known to happen).

And then there's the fact that this door comes attached to a 200 million dollar flying machine, which could possibly make it one of the most expensive doors in the world. Therefore if I even so much as accidentally scraped the overhanging canopy against the side of it, we'd be talking a few million dollars in lost revenue. The plane would have to be grounded until the door could be properly inspected and repaired...which could take days. And the airline would not only get hit with hefty fines from the FAA but from a media backlash. People would read in the papers about about how some rooky employee drove a jet bridge into the side of a plane and they'd declare that airline unsafe to fly. One careless mistake and I'd not only lose my job but possibly put an entire airline at risk of bankruptcy.

So just what exactly was I doing there? you may wonder. Would you believe that I was risking life and limb for a job that pays not much over minimum wage?

See, last month I started a new job (lucky number 19!) and I'm now working as an airline customer service agent. That means in that addition to helping customers check-in and board, I'm bestowed with the awesome responsibility of sealing the plane door and seeing that the jet bridge properly detaches and is steered to safety (I.e, far, far, from the departing jet).

But although I'd seen it done before and I'd even practiced it once during training, closing a plane door in a classroom with the assistance of an instructor and closing the door of an actual, operating airplane (and all by myself, I might add) are two very different things.

Technically, I should have never been there in the first place. But my supervisor was tending to an emergency and my co-workers were clear across the concourse boarding another flight. And with only a minute left on the clock before that plane needed to be taxi-ing down the runway, I was the airline's only hope.

A fact that left the lead flight attendant completely flabbergasted.

"What? You never closed the door before?! Oh no, honey ". He gave me a pitying look.

"I'm new!" I yelled over the plane engine, an answer which over the last few weeks has turned into a my go-to response for pretty much everything. As in, "I accidentally checked you into the wrong flight? Oh, I'm sorry sir...I'm new." Or, "I'm sorry mam, but your luggage was sent to San Jose, Costa Rica. I know that you're in San Jose, California mam, and I apologize for that. You see, I'm new..."

And for the most part this answer has worked like a charm. A simple smile, a shrug and a "This is my first day..." (an answer I plan on using for the next three months) has this magical way of creating all sorts of understanding to a situation where there once was only anger and outrage. "Oh, wow. Well congratulations! How do you like the job so far?" Is what passengers will usually say in response and presto! They'll forget all about their missing bag / boarding pass / seeing eye dog.

Well suffice to say that answer didn't work as well on the flight attendant.

"Well honey, you've got about 20 seconds to figure it out." And he wasn't exaggerating. The flight was already running behind schedule and there was only a minute left on the clock. And in that minute I'd have to seal the aircraft, move the jet bridge out of the way and pray that the captain took his foot off the break in time. Because until he released the break, any delay that happened between before then would fall on me. And if you delay a flight you get written up. If you do it more than once you lose your job. It's that serious.

"Help! Anyone! Do you copy?" I shouted into the walkie-talkie. "I don't know how to close the plane door!"

Static, static. "Push..." static. More static. "Make sure..." Static..."Hand..." Static..."Aircraft." came the reply. I stared at the walkie talkie in disbelief.

Like, WHAT?

"You're going to have to do it right now. We've got to go." The flight attendant was impatient. And irritated. And probably thinking that I was an idiot. "Just push really hard and then when the jet bridge goes "beep beep beep!" you move it backwards with the controls." He then pointed at a counter full of knobs and buttons and something that resembled a 1980's Pacman joystick.

"Um...alright. Okay....Um," I said uncertainly. But he'd already disappeared back into the plane.

Great, I can't even parallel park and now I'm expected to back a giant slinky tunnel on wheels alongside a glass terminal full of people? Like, what if I back into a parked plane?

Somehow I doubted that the owner of a 747 jumbo jet would let a minor fender bender slide. And I'm sure an "Oops! Sorry! I'm new..." wouldn't fly (ha).

....To be continued....

Have you seen my Muse?

2009-09-11T05:53:00.004+09:00

I can't write. And when I say that I can't write, I mean that I can't write. Anything. No thing. Not a blog post, not my grad school application essay. Not even something as minor league as an email. It's like my muse has up and abandoned me. He's found someone new. He's probably off inspiring some painter in Poland at this very moment while I'm stuck trying to tough it out on Writer's Block all alone.

I know, what a jerk.

The hardest part is not understanding why he left. I mean, it's not like I didn't try to keep things interesting. I did! I provided him with countless writing topics and all he had to do was chose one. Just one. Like my trip to New York, for example. Or my new job. Or my near fatal plane crash or the "befriending death" workshop I took last week, (which, by the way, was taught by none other than Oprah's personal spiritual advisor). I mean, that's some good stuff. Some top-notch material right there. But no, he wasn't interested. I guess that now that I don't live in Japan anymore I'm not worthy of his attention.

My biggest fear is that he's moved on for good. What if I end up like one of those tragic "almost was" types on E! who were dumped by their muses too soon in their careers? I'll be the Eve Plumb of the writing world. Just another eccentric who once upon a time almost wrote a novel that almost got published.

Crash Course

2009-09-03T07:33:00.006+09:00

Photo by Tiffany Von

I'm afraid of flying.

I know that may seem like a strange confession to make considering that I fly often enough to practically count it as a hobby and I work for, you know, an AIRLINE...but well, I didn't say that it made any sense.

It doesn't matter how many "You're more likely to get hit by a car/lightning bolt/flying squirrel" statistics I hear, I'm always convinced that my plane will be the exception to the rule. My plane will the one in a billion to run out of fuel or oxygen. My plane will be the one to lose a tail or a tire or whose pilot will fall asleep at the wheel and make an unannounced stop into the side of a mountain.

But. That all ends today. Because today is the day that I'm going to lay that fear to rest. Yes, today is the day that I'm going to learn how to pilot an airplane.

Well. Not exactly. Substitute the "I" in that sentence for a "Some dude" and the "airplane" for "a rinky-dink prop plane that looks like it couldn't stay upright in a bathtub much less the air" and you'll have my plan for overcoming my fear of flying.

See, I befriended a pilot back in Airline Boot Camp in Orlando and as it turns out, he works part-time as a flight instructor at an airfield a few miles from my house. Today one of his students will be practicing "emergency landings" and he invited me to come along for the ride.

Now, I'm not dumb. I'm fully aware that "emergency landing" is just the aviation industry's polite way of saying "nosedive into a tree" but he assured me that we wouldn't actually be crashing, just coming close to it. And that the guy in the pilot's seat is "totally almost a real pilot" but that if something were to go wrong, my flight instructor friend would take control of the plane and fly us to safety.

I know that was meant to be reassuring but I've been flying with my flight instructor friend when something went wrong before...and let me tell you, there was nothing safe about it.

Because last month I rode with him while he piloted a flight simulator. A flight simulator is like one of those giant, vibrating 3-D rides you find in the arcade except it's worth about 15 million dollars and rents for $800 an hour.

The inside is an exact replica of an airplane cockpit, except that it comes with a movie screen that projects life-like versions of every major airport in the world. The pilots use it to train and practice crash scenarios.

I'd thought that if I could learn a little bit more about what goes on in the cockpit and about the flight process in general, then maybe it would take a little of the mystery out of it and I'd be less afraid.

But in actuality it had the opposite effect. For starters, the flight simulator gives you one helluva realistic flight experience. It shakes, it sways and it pitches forward; enough so that about 10 minutes in, I was wishing I'd brought in an airsick bag. It was so true-to-life in fact, that you could hear the roar of the engine at takeoff, "feel" the landing gear fold back into the plane and actually see a flock of geese flying over the horizon.

But what made for an awesome simulated flight experience also made for one scarily accurate, simulated crash experience, as well. I was amazed at how quickly it can happen and how very little time the pilot and first officer have to react.

I guess I'd always thought that if I did find myself on an airplane when something went wrong (like if the plane's engines failed, for example) that we'd be able to coast through the air for while; that somehow between the wind, the velocity and some fast manoeuvring on the part of the pilot, that we'd manage to drift paraglider-style, down to safety.

But apparently giant jumbo jets are too heavy for that. They need to maintain a high speed in order to remain airborne, (I know, who would have thought?) and without it...they crash. And they crash quickly. It only took a couple of seconds, for example, after one of the simulator engines conked out before the "plane" began to seesaw back and forth. And by the time my friend had realized what had happened, the second engine had died, we'd caught on fire and were nose-diving into a freeway. All he had time to do was curse and attempt a last ditch effort to swing the plane to the right before bam! we'd crashed head first into rush hour on the Long Island Express way. And the whole ordeal took 20 seconds, tops.

We crashed several times after that. Once into the Hudson River and another time upon attempting an "emergency landing" at JFK. We hit the runway too hard, which popped the tires and sent the plane spinning before it tipped over on it's side and exploded.

So...you can understand why I'm a little nervous about placing my life into the hands of "some dude" I've never met (no doubt he's some Richy Rich with a Howard Hugh's complex). I mean, if I learned anything from the flight simulation experience, it's that flying should be left to the professionals. Like the birds, for instance. Or Superman...

I'm pretty sure that my volunteering to take-part in a practice plane crash makes it official. I'm completely certifiable.

Here's me pretending to fall out of the emergency exit...You know, in case you had your doubts.

New Posts Coming Soon

2009-08-30T03:09:00.006+09:00

So great news. I'll be back to writing again on here soon. It's been a crazy last few weeks and I've been bursting at the seams with all these great ideas for future blog posts. I guess I've just missed blogging too much to stay away for too long.

Plus I figure that if I wait until I have my life completely in order, then well, I'll never write anything ever again. So I figure now is as good a time as any.

I've got so much to tell you, but I don't have time at the moment being that I have to report at the airport for work in two hours and I'm still on the couch in my pajamas.

But as you've probably guessed, I survived Airline Boot Camp ("Hoorah!"). I'll pause here so that you can offer me your heart-felt applause and congratulations.

...................

Thank you...Thank you. It was a tough three weeks and I almost didn't make it through, (but more about that later).

I'll leave you for now with a few photos to give you an idea of what's yet to come. We had an impromptu photo shoot in the plane mock-ups at the training facility. I'm sorry if you're offended by the cheese-ball quality of these pictures. I just couldn't resist...

There I am, practicing opening and closing the plane door. I know what you're thinking...but it's actually heavier than it looks and dangerous, too! One false move and you could accidentally inflate the emergency slide and kill yourself.

The Future of this Blog

2009-07-27T13:33:00.000+09:00

Photo by Tudor Costache

The Taken by the Wind blog has sort of been taken out to pasture lately; neglected, abandoned.

I could say that it's because I've been too busy apartment-hunting or studying for the GRE to write, but the truth is that I just think that I've grown tired of this subject-matter. I mean, how much longer can I continue to write about Japan, teaching English and traveling when I'm no longer doing any of those things?

Obviously if this blog is going to last, then it's going to have to undergo a serious transformation. But the problem is...into what, exactly? Frankly I think that I just need a break from writing about myself. I'm beginning to think that there is such thing as too much introspection and that I could really benefit from just relaxing into the uncertainty of it all. Take a hiatus from over-analyzing life...because damn, it's exhausting living this way.

I know that working for an airline will probably provide me with ample blog subject matter, but I don't want this blog to become like one of the many flight attendant blogs, where I write exclusively about bitchy passengers and juicy, behind-the-scenes airline industry gossip. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just don't think that's my thing.

As for my future, welll...

I'm taking a writing class. If I had to make a comparison, I'd say that it's a lot like group therapy, although technically it's a course on how to write a memoir. Each class, we sit around a circle and scribble a few pages of fuzzy memories and then share what we've written with one another. People write about overcoming drug addictions, coming out of the closet, rape and incest...it's pretty intense. I walk away from the class depressed; images of blood spurting out of slit wrists and a 12-year-old getting jumped by a mob of racists in 1960's San Francisco.
I'm hoping that the class will provide me with the motivation I need to just write a damn book already. Maybe one day (fingers crossed), you'll find it in the travel section of the book store, right next to Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love...

Well, I can dream, right?

I've also decided to go to grad school. There's a program called Masters International that partners with the Peace Corps and allows participants to do graduate work while volunteering for two years in the third world. I've only just begun the application process and I'm at least a year or two away from going (if I get accepted), but at least I now have something to work towards.

And that's it, really. At the risk of sounding totally corny, I wanted to thank you for reading and for taking the time to comment or email me with your support. While it's been an incredibly odd experience having complete strangers comment about my personal life on the Internet, it's been really validating as well. Sometimes I worry that I'm this complete weirdo and it's nice to know that there's at least a dozen people out there who don't think so.

I'll sincerely miss hearing from you all...

Until next time,

Reannon

The Travel Stage

2009-07-27T09:12:00.012+09:00

"Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what`s to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn`t have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves... for growing up."

~ The Wonder Years

My cousin Anderson and his wife Liz recently left for a four-month biking trip across South East Asia.

You would think I'd be envious of them. What an adventure, right? The old Reannon would have definitely thought so. But no, as I dropped them off at LAX last week and watched them haul their waterproof packs towards the check-in counter, I didn't feel even the tiniest twinge of jealousy.

At first I chalked it up to their chosen method of transportation. I mean, I enjoy riding a bicycle as much as the next person...but you know, to the beach, not through the bumpy, unpaved, dirt roads of Cambodia. I also enjoy rollerblading and swimming too, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'd ever want to rollerblade to Vietnam or swim to Thailand.

But after I thought about it for a few days, I realized that my having no desire to go with them had nothing to do with saddle butt and everything to with me just wanting to stay in one spot for a while. Holy crap, I know. I don't get it either.

Could it be that my love for travel wasn't genuine or authentic; wasn't the stuff of true love? Maybe it was just a passing crush? A fad? A passionate yet momentary obsession? Could it be that it was all just a stage....and now I'm growing out of it?

I've been through this before. When I was in college I went through a hippie stage. I didn't go as far as sporting dreads or tie-dye, but I became a vegetarian, attended anti-war protests, pro-choice rallies and took up the guitar.

But I must admit here that I was sort of crap at being a hippie. While my Freegan friends were the real thing and went dumpster diving for bags of expired potato chips outside the Lays chip factory, I went on midnight grocery runs to Walmart and ate chicken McNuggets in my car during lunch breaks at McDonald's.

Maybe it was when I became anemic from too little protein and too many Dorito chip dinners or maybe it was just because caring so freaking much about the world was so much work, but I eventually grew tired of hippiedom and moved out of the house I shared with the jazz musicians... and never looked back.

That was just one of many stages that I've outgrown. I remember once, when I was 21 and in the midst of the "Let's go clubbing! And isn't Getting Wasted just so much Fun? Stage" I had a conversation with one of my long-time clubbing friends. She was a few years older than me and had moved out of the land of Jaeger shots and beer bongs to a land wholly unfamiliar; one that I couldn't even begin to imagine.

"Wait, what do you mean you'd rather stay home and watch Harry Potter than go out? Are you okay? Are you sick? What the hell happened?"

"I'm old," she'd said, as you know, a joke. But although I didn't say anything I secretly agreed with her. How sad, I'd thought. Not only does she does she not want to go out, she doesn't even care that she doesn't want to go out. God help me if I ever feel that way.

Um, yeah...last weekend? I opted to go see the movie The Hangover (with my parents!) rather than risk a hangover by going out clubbing with my friends...yep, I'm so living that reality...and I don't even care.

Maybe it's only because I've spent the last the four months living on some one's sofa or futon, but I'm really, really looking forward to (ugly word coming up!) settling down...even if it means still sleeping on the floor (I have no furniture), but at least it'll be MY floor in MY apartment.

Maybe this mood will change. Maybe I'll find that once I've started working again and have gotten adjusted to life in San Francisco, that I'll feel replenished and ready to hit the road again. I mean, it's been known to happen.

Or maybe not. The funny thing about stages is that you don't know that you're in one until it's over. Maybe one day years from now, when I'm in the middle of the "Mommy Stage", the "Travel Stage" that was my 20's will seem as far away as the short-lived "Goth Stage" of high school or the "The Little Mermaid Stage" of the second grade. I'll look at old photos of me in Japan and think: Wow, I was sorta crazy back then. And then I'll breathe a sigh of relief that I finally outgrew that.

Flying High

2009-07-23T01:04:00.017+09:00

So much has happened in this past week I don't even know where to begin so I guess I'll just cut to the chase: Last week my favorite airline called to tell me that after two phone interviews, an in-person interview, a drug test and a 10-year criminal background check...they'd finally decided to hire me.

!!!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say I've been over the moon about it. The competition for the job had been fierce (hundreds of applicants), and the wait had been long (the whole hiring process took about a month!) and I'm just so relieved that I'll be working again soon. I celebrated the job offer with a shopping spree and a vaca to Los Angeles, which I'll write more about that later but for now here's a rundown of the job:

Position: Customer Service / Gate Agent

Where: San Francisco International Airport

When: I start training in Orlando, Florida next week!

Benefits: Medical, dental and free airfare!

My flight benefits will kick-in as soon as I successfully complete training (I've already started memorizing airport codes in preparation for it) and I've started a list of all the places and people I want to visit. A trip to Puerto Rico for my cousin's wedding and a visit to London and Tokyo are the works!

More details later...Promise!

The Patriotic Tattoo

2009-07-16T01:01:00.007+09:00

This past 4th of July (America's Independence Day) I met a man who'd had his telephone area code tattooed to his shoulder.

I was dumbfounded when he told me this. We were sitting around a bonfire in Santa Cruz, California when the topic of tattoos came up.

"But...Why?!" was all I could think of to say in response. I couldn't imagine how anyone could be so infactuated with their home town or city to have the numerical code permanently inked onto their body.

But apparently he wasn't an anomaly. Everyone present at the bonfire had either known or heard of someone who'd gotten one and a google search brought up a few dozen web-searches on the subject (although most of them were related to prisons or gangs).

I'll have to be honest here and admit that I was pretty quick to judge him on that one. I even turned and whispered to my friend: "God, that's so American."

Which is really funny considering that I myself have a similar tattoo. No, it's not my area code or zip code but it might as well be for all that it represents. Because I have a tatoo of a map.

Yep, a map.

A map of the Hawaiian Island chain. I don't have a photo of it but it looks something like this:

I know that representing your birthplace in a tattoo is the same whether it takes the form of a map or a numerical code, but believe it or not, I never made the link between the two until a full three days later. I guess I just thought that hailing from a tropical paradise was way cooler than say, Sacramento (obviously, I've got a snobby streak in me). I thought that made my tattoo meaningful and nostalgic whereas his was just tacky and unsophisticated.

It seriously irks me though to think that I'm one of those people. You know, those insanely patriotic types that get drunk in some biker bar and wake up with this on the back of their heads:

But really, when you think about it, how am I any different?

Study Examines Role of Tattoos in Construction of Personal Identity is an interesting article about how people use tattoos as a way of establishing "permanence, meaning and stability" in a fragmented and unpredictable society.

The researchers claim that because we live in a world of "rapid and unpredictable change"; in a world where people frequently move, change jobs and even spouses, that tattoos provide an "anchor" to the past and a form of identity.

That made me think a lot of about the aspects of our personal histories that we use to define ourselves. We all do it. It's a part of human nature to roll-play and get wrapped up in finding new ways to label ourselves.

"I'm an American"
"I'm a teacher"
"I'm a travel-holic"
"I'm a fan of 80's pop music".

I think that sometimes it's comforting to cling to the few things that we know as absolute truths, especially when we live day to day in a bubble of uncertainty. But at what point is it unhealthy to base our sense of self and self-worth on a point on a map?

Photo courtesy of Giana G's Flickr Photostream

Where do we draw the line between being proud of our roots to letting that be the end-all definition of who we are?

I'll end this post with a photo of Angelina Jolie's latest tatoo. She had the latitude and longitude birthplace locations of all six of her children inked to her upper arm.

What do you think? Do you have or would you ever get a patriotic tattoo?

Alice in Americaland

2009-07-14T22:11:00.003+09:00

Alice in Wonderland by Annie Leibovitz

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” - G. K. Chesterton

"So how are you adjusting to life back in the US?" That's a question I've gotten asked a lot in the six weeks since I returned 'home'. Particularly this past week while I was in Canada visiting the older brother and his family. Frankly, I'm surprised I'm still here. I guess a part of me just always assumed that I'd marry a European and would be living on a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean by now. The idea that this whole living in America thing could be permanent makes me more than a little uncomfortable. Whenever people ask me where it is that I live, I have to think about it for a second before replying uncertainly: "California...I think. Sorta. Well, for now anyway."

Reverse culture shock has definitely set in. It feels a little like trying to squeeze into this four poster canopy water bed I had in Elementary school. I've completely outgrown it and no matter which position I scrunch myself into, there's always an arm or a leg that's left hanging over the side. I don't fit anymore...and I haven't for years. And yet it's so familiar and I have these vivid memories of when it felt comfortable and comforting. It's a very odd feeling.

Will.i.am (from the Black Eyed Peas), compared returning home after an extended period abroad to walking back into your house and noticing for the first time that it's got a 'funky fish smell'. The fish smell had always been there but it was so familiar you'd never noticed before. It was only after you'd left for a while that you realized that what you're friends had been telling you all along really was the truth: The place you've called home all these years smells...really weird.

Not that I think America stinks. I don't. I'm actually really happy to be back...but Home has definitely taken on a foreign, alien quality. First of all, in Americaland, people smile at each other. All the time. They also like their food served with a double dose of dairy; (everything comes swimming in Ranch dressing or cheese). And then there's the health food store New Leaf. It's like the mothership of bizarre American culture; as large as a super Walmart and instead of frozen TV dinners, it sells organic potato chips (75% organic!), organic boxed Mac n' Cheese (with organic 'natural food coloring' and organic sodium phosphate) and books on how to lose weight without exercise or dieting.

Sometimes I casually mention these observations to friends or family and am usually met with a glassy-eyed stare in return. I worry that with each passing day I'm further cementing my outsider status. Give me another few decades and I'll be 'kooky ol' aunt Re...always going on about how everything is better in Japan/Europe.' I'll be the Uncle Fester of the family and banished to the crawl space under the stairs.

But I can't help it...I think that if you live abroad long enough, you stop being able to identify with your home culture and instead develop this curious culture hybrid. I've subconsciously picked up habits and characteristics from each culture I've visited and have consequently turned into this science experiment; a test tube mixture of cultures. I eat European style, with a knife and for (thanks, Germany) and I nod and "Mhm" non-commitally at everything anyone says (thanks, Japan). I drink Chai all day and put coconut oil in my hair (thanks, India) and the other day my mom walked in on me wolfing down leftover fried fish at seven in the morning.

In short, I'm freakish. I should just start over on some uninhabited tropical island somewhere. Set up my own artist colony for other lost transplants.

Eight Ways to Know You're Home for Awhile pretty much sums up my life at the moment perfectly.

Why don't more Americans travel abroad?

2009-07-07T12:19:00.009+09:00

I read an interesting article recently, entitled Why Americans Don't Travel Overseas. And before anyone accuses me of making a gross generalization, let me just give you a couple of statistics.

70% percent of Americans don't have passports

Only 1% percent of American college students study abroad

Many Americans don't travel outside of the continental US. It's a fact. A puzzling one that many theorize has to do with America's size ("Why go snorkeling in Australia when we've got Florida?") or America's diversity "("Why go to Mexico to speak Spanish when we've got Taco Bell?") but I think that it has more to do with the fact that it's so easy to live this risk-free, safe life in America that people find themselves stuck. They tell themselves that they can't travel because they don't have the money or the vacation time but those are just excuses that mask the real reason: they just don't want to. They're comfortable in their shells; watching their lives dribble by in between commercial breaks of CSI.

It seriously irks me when my single, childless friends tell that they don't have enough money to go anywhere. Seriously, what's stopping you? Even if you only get paid minimum wage, if you lived on a tight budget you'd be able to save up the $10,000 needed for a round the world trip in a year and a half or so. This guy did it.

Before I went to India for four months, I sold my car and worked three jobs in order to save up for the trip. For nine months, my life was not fun. I didn't go out or eat out or shop anywhere but the sales racks at Target.

And now I'm 26 and I don't have a career or a car or a lot of expensive clothing but I've traveled to 25 countries in 10 years. Some would argue that it was all a waste of time and money and that's fine. Those people have cars, spouses, children and a flat screen televisions instead because that's what they wanted.

Americans don't travel for the same reason that anyone from a developed nation doesn't travel: it's just not a priority. If it was, they'd find a way to do it, regardless of the current economic situation. I think that they've all just bought into the popular American marketing plan that the world is too dangerous or too expensive or too unpredictable and that travel just isn't worth the hassle.

Maybe I'm being naive but I really think it's that simple. What do you think?

P.S. Behind the myth that Americans don't have passports disputes everything I've just written. The author brings up some good points, but she uses the example of the average American couple with the added expense of children. I still assert that the average childless couple could afford overseas travel.