Bubbleland

As you've probably read, or maybe heard from me, I am happy right now, and while excited at my happiness, I am also slightly confused by this current period of my life. (As confused as I am when I think about why grammar rules can't bend themselves to fit my want of reader digestion.)

[View from my balcony - essentially, I'm two doors down to the right.]

[View from the main lobby; looking down at the Kayak Lagoon and Water Park.]

I live in a Bubbleland. I'll be the first to admit that while this is real life, it's not real. I mean it is, but what? It's not. I'm a sunburnt 25 year old living in a shared hotel room with dozens of other crazy twenty somethings down the hall and upstairs (they live in actual rooms, not just squatting out in the halls). Can we just go back to the fact that I'm 25. The age where I believed I'd have it all figured out, but here I am, sitting cross-legged on my bed typing out my jumbled thoughts, dreams, desires and delusions to you in your far away land with technology that is more than likely going to destroy us all. I'm also uninsured so I tend to act very carefully and avoid [most] seemingly dangerous situations. Most of these things I just shared are neither here nor there.

[The Marine Center on a slow day.]

Bubbleland. Aside from the perfect weather and the 24/7 smiley-happiness that goes with this job, working at a resort tucked away from the main road and placed on a bay amongst many other resorts is a pretty sheltered life. This happened to me once before. I worked at a sleepaway camp in Maine over the summer of 2005 and it was magical and life was planned out. All I had to do was wake up and have fun; I didn't keep up with news of the outside world that summer, occasionally I looked at a newspaper, but more often than not, I did not, and instead ran and skipped over rolling hills, laughing like a fool. The only difference between that Bubbleland and this one (well, this is a lie, there are plenty of differences, but we're not focusing on them) besides the stifling humidity is the turnover of our guests. I suppose that's the only crack in our communal bubble here at work; when you met a person, child, adult, whole family that you like and you get to know them and you're all having such a great time playing charades and laughing, and then you ask them about their duration at the resort and the mother delivers the fatal blow of "Today last day. Tomorrow go home Japan/Korea/Taiwan." with sad eyes and looks down at the sand. That's when you get yanked out of BL and back into the reality of the world. Life is short, people come and go, sometimes you don't get to know them as well as you would've liked, but at least you were able to share a short time together, and hopefully you learned something out of it. I have around 65 days left... I'm not counting though, just an occasional glance at the calendar to ensure I have enough time to enjoy all the things I love and have yet to do on this island.

[My students loved the LION game, which included me roaring, getting shot and then piggybacking each kid around the Playroom.]

And I suppose it's not just working at PIC that's been a Bubbleland experience for me, though in the past 18 months it's been the most extreme version of living in a bubble. Korea was pretty bubbleful with me teaching babies and generally treating South Korea as my playground - it's a FUN place!! I was sheltered from the SK/NK conflict worries by Koreans nonchalantly answering my paranoid inquiries with smiling reassurances that it was only the Western media making a big deal over a small inconsequential skirmish. I was happily employed and was unphased seeing new reports or reading online articles about the skyrocketing unemployment rate and people living in their cars in California. Life was good. Life is good. That's not to say it hasn't been hard. I've had to patch a few holes in my bubble over time. Being slightly unaware of why certain things were done, and sometimes completely unable to communicate in Korea and other countries in Asia was incredibly difficult, but in overcoming each situation, I felt my patience grow as well as my understanding of other people and their cultures. It is also lonely in the bubble at times; I never imagined how hard it would be to be away from everything and everyone I ever knew for such an extended period of time, and then to extend my stay!?! I may be crazy.

[The spa's hammock that I like to sleep in between shifts.]

[Where I get to practice yoga Monday - Sunday!]

In short, I hope that I'm this happy for all the days of my life. I'm not talking creepy smiling all the time and being chipper from dawn 'til dusk, but I hope that this isn't just a phase and it's not a mood simply because of the physical place where I am, but where I am in this journey called life and that the days only get better and better with my understanding of things. Maybe I'll still be as happy when I leave this island, but hopefully I'll lose some of this cheese that I've acquired. Again, I'm not really sure what's going on or what day it is, but wherever you are in your life, inside or outside of your own Bubbleland, I hope you're happy and you think of all the reasons you should smile, and then you do. Life is good, and if it's not at the moment, stay strong until the storm passes.

[Remember how I told you we've had some yoga classes on the roof? These next photos are from one of those times.]

[I think I added something equal parts enlightening and hilarious to the conversation.]

[It was a full moon, too. So as the sun was setting in the west, the moon was rising behind us in the east, and it was indeed magical as the mind's eye would lead you to believe.]

I like this song.
[pictures taken from my friend Ryan P.]

To end, I'm probably never going to have it all "figured out" in the sense that I always believed, but to go along with the above, I hope that I'm always able to deal with the things life hands to/throws at me in step to the tune:

(Alan Watts' "Life and Music")