New Year's Reflections

The end of a year is always a time I, like so many of us, take time to reflect on what has passed. After countless hours of quiet meditation in my hut (interrupted only occasionally by bugs I had to remove), I have come to realize that 2013 was really an outstanding year for me. To say the least, it was eventful for so many of my peers as well. For those of you that care to read, here’s the recap, starting last January.

• I began my last semester at Butler University.
• I began an assistantship with the Indiana Minority Health Coalition as a research assistant, and was able to gain a better understanding of health opportunities and challenges right in my own community.
• The joint IU-BU research team I was a part of got a few papers published in some journals about rapid HIV testing in community pharmacies.
• The BU basketball band attended the rounds of 64 and 32 with the basketball team in Lexington, KY. Although the Sweet 16 didn’t happen for us this year, it was still a great basketball season. Beating IU on my birthday certainly didn’t hurt (sorry mom and dad)!
• I received an invitation to serve in the Peace Corps in Swaziland, which I accepted.
• Kappa Kappa Psi’s seniors went through the ritual of the third degree a final time, and became alumni members shortly afterwards. This was the first of the hardest goodbyes to say in college. The bond of brotherhood I had and have with KKY was something I really treasure, and I can’t imagine my college experience without the influence of this fraternity.
• I was able to present the HIV testing in pharmacies research at the Undergraduate Research Conference. The Principle Investigator, Dr. Beth Meyerson, was able to present the research at the World HIV and STI conference in Vienna.
• With the help of Dr. Priscilla Ryder and Dr. Jason Range, I wrote a thesis.
• With 717 others, I graduated. Hearing John Green’s commencement speech and Dr. Catherine Pangan’s interactive stories really made the ceremony special. Waiting for 717 people to walk across the stage was a little bit lengthy, and the fact that I was one of them still feels surreal. Is college really over?
• I watched my friend and roommate Sara Waters become Sara Miskin as she married the love of her life.
• I said goodbye to apartment H103, where Lindsey, Sara, Kelli, and I had shared so many incredible memories.
• I drank far too many McDonald’s Cokes with my mom, AC blasting in the car to combat the early summer heat. We always swore each Coke would be our last. Until June 26, it never was.
• I had a graduation/farewell party for my extended family. This was when leaving started to feel really real.
• I shopped and packed and said goodbye to my family, friends, and everything I had ever known and shipped off to Swaziland with 34 strangers. I cried most of the plane ride to Philadelphia and was so scared for what I was doing. Being 22 and leaving for such a long time is a hard thing to do, which I did not realize until I was already doing it.
• I got pretty much every disease known to mankind during the 9 weeks of PST, but I survived the hard work, the loneliness, the homesickness, the freezing cold, and the incredible mental challenges of learning a new language and all new skills.
• I moved to my permanent site and went through the process of loneliness all over again. This move, though, was not coordinated with 34 strangers; it happened with 32 members of my brand new family (2 people quit). The other PCVs have seen each other at our best, our worst, and our weirdest.
• I made Swazi friends and prepared to start projects.
• My baby brother turned 18 (though I still think this is a lie and he’s secretly a whole lot younger than this).
• I survived an infestation of baboon spiders and earwigs. The fumigation fixed the spiders, but we’re still working on the earwigs and all the slugs, snails, centipedes, and scorpions that the summer heat pushes into my hut.
• Through a lot of quiet reflection, meditation, and growing up, I became the most mentally healthy I have ever been.
• I learned how to be appreciative of what we as Americans take for granted, as well as how humbling it is to have the opportunity to be highly educated. If I was suffering from malnutrition or starvation, having to raise my siblings at the age of 8 with no parents, fighting through the sickness that ARV side effects cause, trying to get treatment for TB or malaria, or having to grow my own food, I would not have been able to get where I have so far. If adults such as my parents, teachers, and professors had not encouraged and supported me, I would not have been so successful. I say a thank you every day in my head to those who have raised me up to be able to think for myself, chase my dreams, and challenge the injustices of the world. I thank my teachers for empowering me with critical thinking skills (those aren’t taught here – I have seen what a difference they make). I thank my parents for being my cheerleading team and allowing me to make my own mistakes, even when it hurt them to know that I was hurting myself. I thank my professors for helping me to grow from a student to a colleague, which gave me a professional confidence that I value. I thank my friends for accepting me for who I am and staying always by my side without question or condition. The youth here have so few of those thank yous to say, and that just breaks my heart.
• Somewhere along the last 6 months, my mindset has changed. When I was in high school, I was highly focused on becoming someone. I wanted to go to a university that was recognized for its prestige. At the reassurances of Mr. Shoup and my parents, I attended Butler University, which was without question the right fit for me. I then focused my attentions on getting into the most prestigious graduate school I could while chasing what I perceived to be what mattered: greatness and recognition. Now, I focus on making the next 1.5 years as important and beneficial to my community as I can. I went from “which journal will publish my research?” to “how can I help orphans and vulnerable children build winter food security so they can stay in school and fight malnutrition?” Peace Corps was exactly what I needed to put the world in perspective. Now, the most important question to me as I consider graduate schools is not: Which name looks best on my diploma? Rather, it is: Which program will give me the best tools to inspire the most positive change for my community? Maybe that’s Harvard, but maybe it’s not; the name matters less than the toolbox I’m trying to build to inspire the change and fulfill the vision of my community, wherever it may be.

It’s been an eventful year, to say the least. Happy New Year to all my friends and family back home. I miss you all tremendously, but if the next 1.5 years pass as quickly as the last 6 months have, then I’ll be seeing you all again before I even have time to blink.

Here’s to 2014!