comienza

My adventure has begun! It was hard to say goodbye to family and friends but by the time I left Monday morning I was excited and more than ready to go. I thought I would be posting this earlier but I have not had internet access. And thus here is my first blog post.

At first I was uncertain about starting a blog. As I thought about it, I decided I would for several reasons:

1) I hope it serves as an exercise in articulation for me. In my opinion, I am not very good at expressing my experiences and thoughts in a clear, meaningful way.

2) No one is forced to read it so it is not a waste of anyone’s time.

3) It will provide me an opportunity to reflect on my experiences and thus hopefully gain/learn more from them.

4) Maybe, if people read it, I won’t have to tell the same stories 30 times when I get home (although I doubt it and I will be more than happy to talk to people when I return).

5) There may be a few people out there (in addition to my parents) who want to hear about my adventures and this is the best way for me to keep them up to date with all that happens. A pamphlet I received from my school’s study abroad office states that a blog will “increase their [aka your] understanding of the world as it really is – making you [meaning me] an agent of change.” I don’t expect to live up to that but one can hope.

The next step, coming up with a title, proved to be difficult. Due to my lack of creativity and the massive number of blog domains already used, I finally settled on un malabarismo (a balancing act). This does have some sort of significance (which I may discuss in some later post) but mostly I just liked how the word sounded.

In case you don’t know much about what I am doing (I don’t really either), I am studying abroad in Panama for three months with the School for Field Studies. For most of the time we will be living on Isla Solarte in the Bocas del Toro province. Our group of 18 college students from around the U.S. (none of whom I know) will be doing field research and taking courses with 3 professors. The focus of the program is to learn about topical ecosystems and how they can be sustainably managed while considering all the socioeconomic pressures in the region.

Now I will go write my next post (which will actually tell you something about my time here).