In some ways, I’m a little surprised I’m doing this. I’m far too conscious a writer to make this blogging process quick and easy. But I need a forum in which to type words onto page, to freeze my thoughts, to chart a path. Without a forum, any forum, it simply doesn’t happen.
I’m currently two years out of my undergrad and, since then, I’ve been voraciously, almost consumptively, accumulating experience. I hit the starting gates of graduation in full tilt, propelled by all that I had read and thought, seeking adventure to balance out my over-inflated head knowledge. So, I did what all good, Canadian boys should do: I hitch-hiked out west.
In hindsight, the hitch-hiking allure had all the cliches of ‘the restless wanderer’ type. And I suppose I played it up to a certain extent. But I was restless. The intense faith of my youth was no longer in any way definable; I had read an array of texts that undermined so many of my political, social, and cultural assumptions; and, I was standing before an extremely open-ended future (read: “what the hell am I going to do now?“).
Happily, there has been a maturing, of sorts, over the last two years (marriage, however prepared or ill-prepared, tends to demand this). I’m in a better headspace now. It is time now to digest the lived experiences of my post-graduation years through reflection and retelling. This is one of the purposes of this blog.
The other purpose is to enable a processing in real-time. My wife, Colleen, and I are currently packing our bags for a 15 hour flight to South Korea. We are leaving next week on a twelve month teaching contract. I hope to post somewhat regularly the occurances, frustrations, and excitements of life and love in “the Land of the Morning Calm.”
A third purpose is to showcase some of my photography in a more specified way. I usually upload a steady stream of photographs throughout my travels; but rarely do I discuss a picture or explain its implications and context. I’ll be picky with which ones I post here.
So with all this laid out before me, I will now post the very first blog on my very first blog!
Thanks for reading,
Geoff Martin
