25 year old SWM, currently unemployed, having worked just about every entry-level job you can think of. I've worked in a pizza joint, been a security guard, a Resident Assistant in the university dormitories ("Dorm Dad"), secretary in a medical office, secretary in a stock broker's office, computer consultant and graphic designer (freelance), dishwasher, Radio Shack salesman, you name it... I like to say I'm a freelance travel photographer now (that's what my business cards say, anyway), but until I get some sponsorship or advertising on this page, I probably can't legitimately call it a real job.
I've always been athletic. I played soccer for years, swam throughout high school, and completed my first triathlon in May of 1993. I was only a few weeks short of getting my certification as a NAUI scuba instructor when I was hit by a car. I have only recently developed a love for photography, which is rather unfortunate, as it's an absurdly expensive hobby. I hate television (an hour watching TV is one less hour in my life), except for shows like Discovery and National Geographic Explorer. I do, however, love movies of almost all sorts. I love the outdoors: camping, mountain biking, hiking and, of course, travel.
I began my post-secondary education as a Computer Science major at the University of Oregon. I quickly decided, however, that I liked computers, and that if I kept working with them as a career, I would hate them. I didn't want that to happen. In an attempt to decide what I really did want to do with my life, I transferred to St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. No, for those of you who haven't looked at a map since you tried to find your way around Disney Land, it wasn't a foreign exchange program -- New Mexico is a state of the US. No, they don't have a basketball team (that's another St. John's College). They don't even have a gym. It's a "Great Books/Liberal Arts" school, and what they do have is a lot of discussions, debates, and general-purpose B.S. One of my classmates referred to it as "jerking off your brain stem" or "mental masturbation." While not particularly useful in landing me a job, it certainly helped me discover my social and intellectual interests. I transferred back to the University of Oregon for pre-medical prep classes. I graduated in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in General Science, with minors in Biology and Chemistry. I wanted to minor in Classics as well, but it would have taken another year. I took the MCAT (scores: Q, 12, 12, 11) and applied to medical school.
I had completed only three terms of my pre-med curriculum when, on July 3, 1993, I was broadsided by a car while riding my bike to a friend's house. It's hard to say whether I was ever unconscious or not (I'm a poster-child for helmets, that's for certain). I was certainly in too much shock to recognize that the blood gurgling out of my leg was the result of a compound tibial fracture (no longer visible once I rolled a stop on the pavement), or that my leg definitely wasn't supposed to be pointing in the direction that it was. I kept trying to "tell" my leg to point in the right direction, but it just wouldn't cooperate. After my first surgery, I told my parents "at least it happened on a weekend; I'll be back in class on Monday." They looked at each other and silently decided not to break the bad news to me until later.
Two weeks, two surgeries and several ounces of implanted surgical steel later, I returned to my intensive summer chemistry class, in a cast from hip to toe. Digging in my heels, and with a great deal of help from friends and family, I managed to finish out the summer -- with A's, no less. Based on that inertia, I registered for a full class schedule for the fall. I began to lose steam, as the stress built up and I was unable to cope with it. I had gone from being fiercely independent to needing help with such every-day needs as carrying my food to the table. All my life I had used sports as a means to relieve stress, and now I could hardly crutch my way to lunch without being nauseated with pain. I withdrew from all my classes.
Dropping out of school, I felt like a complete failure. I dove into a deep depression, with no way (that I knew of) to deal with the anger and frustration. I knew that I had to get back into school, even if only with a few credits. I knew that I needed to find some new way of dealing with stress that didn't involve being physically active, so I took classes in guitar and ceramics, and one academic class (Latin Composition) to keep my brain going. I slowly eased myself back into academia with German and Trigonometry, and then that summer finally resumed where I had left off the previous summer.
It took two and a half years, five surgeries and almost eight months on crutches to get my leg back to the point where my doctor said I could ride a bicycle. I had gained 30 pounds (13.6 kilos), and desperately wanted to start exercising again. Despite my enthusiasm, however, I was still scared to get back on a bike. Even when walking, I was easily startled by cars, and if I caught one out of the corner of my eye, it made me jump and made my heart race. Finally, my surgeon gave me the go-ahead to get back on the saddle. I immediately went out and bought the best mountain bike I could afford, figuring that I would get used to being on a bike again by riding off-road, where there weren't any cars.
I knew, however, where my first ride would have to be, so I asked my girlfriend to come with me. I didn't tell her where we were going, but I think she knew. Less than a mile down the road, we pulled our bikes onto the sidewalk where I had landed, bloody and broken, two and a half years before. I leaned my bike against the telephone pole which I had so narrowly missed when I flew 15 feet (5m) over the hood of a '72 Mercury. I stood and stared at the scene, thinking of nothing but the split-second which had so dramatically changed my life. My girlfriend put her bike down and gave me a hug, and I cried.
I had wanted to go to Europe for years, but I had never really considered how. During my recovery, however, I decided -- somewhat flippantly -- that I would cycle it. I'm not sure if I even believed it myself, but it was a very therapeutic dream. The doctors were saying that I might never walk again without a limp, that I might never run again, that I might have to walk with a cane. I was always a very independent person, and being incapacitated (and hence dependent on others) for so long made me crazy. I planned, I organized, and I prepared, but most of all, I dreamt. I told all my friends that I was going to cycle across Europe. I'm sure I received all sorts of different reactions, but to this day only one is clear in my mind: my girlfriend said to me one day, "I was talking with one of my friends today about your trip, and she said she didn't think you'd ever do it."
I think that was the linchpin which insured that I would in fact cycle across Europe. No matter what, nobody would ever be able to say that I wasn't able to realize my dream. I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of my recovery. I was going to cycle across Europe, just like I said I would. So I did...
In brief, I cycled 3500 miles (5600km) across Greece, Italy, Malta, Holland, England, Scotland and Ireland. I also spent a month in Turkey (where I deeply regretted not bringing my bike) and a couple weeks in Germany, with a friend-of-a-friend. I always kept a journal, but I haven't typed the whole thing out for all to read, only a few select entries. I couldn't possible scan in all of my pictures, either, but I have compiled a small photo gallery.
My first tour probably changed my life as much as my accident did. Having been physically incapacitated for so long, cycling 3500 miles (5600km) was possibly the most liberating experience I could possibly have had. I lost the 30 pounds (13.6 kilos) that I had gained, plus another 15 pounds (6.8 kilos). My left leg, which had atrophied tremendously, regained its bulk and now looks just like the right leg, except for the surgical scars. Dealing with the trials and tribulations inherent in traveling in foreign countries, I gained a great deal of self-confidence, not to mention cultural awareness. I met new people, made new friends, learned new languages, tried new foods.
A new world appeared to me as if I had been blind my whole life, and had suddenly been given sight. I realized, however, that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Life in Europe is different from life in the US, but it's also very similar. After my first trip, my favorite country was probably Turkey (technically not Europe, but that's for the cartographers to debate), precisely because it was so unlike any place I'd ever been. The geography is different; the language is different (and fascinating); the people (particularly outside of the cities) live a way of life which is radically different from life in America.
So, in my entire tour, I felt like I had just barely scraped the surface of the world's cultural diversity. I met other travelers who had been to Asia, Africa and South America, and they cultivated the "travel bug" that was growing in me. When I finally received the rejection letter from the last medical school that I hadn't heard from yet, I was in Italy. Instead of being disappointed, I was relieved. Had I been accepted, I would have felt obligated to come home; acceptance to a US medical school is not something you just turn down. Though my plans for the future still include medical school, it is a huge commitment of time; once I'm in, I'll never again have the freedom that I have now to travel in this manner. So, Carpe Diem, "seize the day."
On my first trip, I had flown into Athens on a one-way ticket. I didn't know where or when I'd be returning, so I couldn't book a return ticket. When I finally knew that I had to come home, I wanted to make sure that I didn't get stuck back home, so I bought a round-trip ticket from Ireland. The goal in my mind, however, was Africa. I had discussed the idea with a South African doctor, who thought that it would be feasible to cycle the entire length of the continent. Not only was it an opportunity to really explore an incredibly diverse continent, but it was a real challenge, the adventure of a lifetime.
So, my basic plan was to cycle from Dublin, Ireland, to Cape Town, South Africa. There were a few glitches in the way (mines, civil wars, etc.), so I expected to skip a few places, but that was the basic plan.
For better or worse, that plan fell through in a big way. After France, I took a little "detour" towards Scandinavia. I rode through Belgium, Holland, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Finland. In the roughly three months that it took for me to cycle from Ireland to Finland, I saw at most 36 hours of sunshine. It rained almost constantly. When it wasn't raining, it was hailing, or snowing, or sleeting. Since I was trying to save money by camping (not to mention that some of the places I rode in Scandinavia were far enough from civilization that I didn't have any choice but to camp), I was waking up in the rain, packing my gear in the rain, cycling for 8-10 hours in the rain, setting up camp in the rain, sleeping in the rain, and repeating the whole ordeal. After three months of this, I simply couldn't tolerate any more. "If I have to cycle one more day in the rain," I said to myself, "I'm going to quit and go home. I have to go someplace warm and dry."
I eventually found a cheap ticket to Cairo, Egypt; "Now that," I thought, "is guaranteed to be warm and dry. And so it was. I stayed in Egypt for five months, studying Arabic a bit and teaching scuba diving. On the whole, I hated the place. Finally, a friend invited me to join him in China, and I jumped at the chance. I spent a little under three months in China, most of which was spent teaching English. I loved China, but having been out of the US for almost 11 months, I decided that it was time to go home for a while. I needed to spend some time with friends and family, and I needed some time to get organized and decide what to do next.
My fundamental plan for the future has not changed in the last four years. I still plan to go to medical school, I still plan to become a doctor. Medical school, however, is an incredibly long commitment: four years of school, one or two years of internship and anywhere from three to eight years of residency. Then you actually have to go out and find a job and pay off all your school debts! So, at minimum, I'd be looking at a 10-year commitment, and 13-15 is more likely. Perhaps I'll have a family at that point, hopefully a stable job, a stable place to live... you get the idea. At the moment, nothing ties me to one spot, which makes this a unique opportunity in my life. Medical schools, on the other hand, will not vanish in the next couple years. I am now 25. As I understand it (don't quote me on this, it's just word-of-mouth), the average age of acceptance to US medical schools is 26, and the average age of acceptance to Oregon Health Science University (my school of choice) is 28. I'll have to take the MCAT again, which is a rather hellish test, but I'm confident that I can study hard enough to do at least as well as I did the first time, which was pretty darn well, if I may say so myself.
My plans for the relatively near future are totally up in the air, unfortunately. Ironically, the freedom which makes my travels so enjoyable also makes it very difficult to make decisions about what to do next. In other words, I have too many possibilities, and I can't make up my mind at the moment. As soon as I know, you'll know. :)
There ya' have it!?