Nostalgia #3 (December 2008)

Here Comes the Sun
...Ok, no, there goes the sun. A glimmer around 9, a "sunrise" around 10, 10:30, breaks the surface clear for a few minutes and heads back down. I can easily say I'm in school working from before the sun goes up until after it comes back down. And I miss that big orange ball. I never thought I was that crazy about the sun, rather liked the dark, but (going deep here) the dark doesn't mean much when there isn't any light. I'm not all into that yin/yang stuff, but I'd appreciate the dark quite a bit more if it wasn't so... prevalent. I'm downing Vitamin D, but I literally am feeling physically sick because of the lack of sun; like the feeling after you just spent an entire day inside playing video games, drinking a 12-pack of Pepsi and throwing candy wrappers on the floor, that feeling, constantly.
Of course, I am a spoiled American, as I've come to find out. I get pissed if I can't have my whole milk (screw that dry crap), run out of juice, can't take a shower because the water is too hot (yep, too hot, not cold)...I sat and read all sorts of sad stories of how kids live all around the world in garbage dumps and infested with diseases and pulled into gang life, yet I can't seem to let go of all the simple things that God has blessed America with. Well, this "adventure" has certainly made me grateful for all of those things, something that is impossible to do unless those things are taken away. I wonder what sort of eye-opener living in a Peruvian village would be...probably an adventure I wouldn't be willing to take. I used to fault America for basically being rich while the rest of the world is poor...I wonder if the greater fault is that it's so natural to us we can't help it but to take it for granted; instead, we trample people to death to get things, and not even things we need, not even things we can't afford. The "rich" wouldn't harm us as much if we were humble and grateful for it.
Life was starting to slip into a bit of a monotony, but the nice thing here is that there is always something to break the monotony. The volleyball tournament begins tomorrow (I am the coach), and I'm excited to see how my team will do. The Venetie Wolfpack came a long way in just one month, learning how to come together as a team, and I'm excited for the kids to have an opportunity to have some fun on the court (and win!). I've had a blast teaching them, and have turned into a decent volleyball player myself (never touched the stuff before)! I'd rather be playing basketball, though...
This is an adventure, and something I knew, having read many adventures stories, is that the adventure is always coupled hand-in-hand with simultaneous good/bad pairs; its the constant up and down extremes, the beauty of seeing the golden sun break over an absolutely white earth, seeing trees that are actually white (I always wondered why they made fake white trees, now I've actually seen real trees that are 100% white b/c of the snow and ice), feeling the cold of -30 degrees which, in itself, is an amazing thing, knowing you are living somewhere where human beings have no business living, that coupled with missing the sun, being "trapped" inside by the bitter cold, not having quick access to Juicy Juice Fruit Punch (don't laugh unless you've been there) along with missing other things...Adventure is something that's fully appreciated afterwards, or by people who didn't have to go through the suffering or the loss or the trials. But it changes the people on the adventure, and perhaps I'll feel the changes for the better when this adventure ends. And the adventure is always, always better than staying at home, its always better to experience brand new things and see sights that you never would have gotten to see from your front porch; and, I think, adventure is best, especially when it leads back home in the end.