Yes, I love technology

While sequestered in my apartment tonight due to an rain storm of epic proportions, I decided I need to do an art project of some sort. This decision led me to iPhoto to select some greatest hits photos for a photo board to put in my room.

You know what's crazy? I think I have short-term memory. I sure am thankful for the technological invention that is digital photography. I'm one of those people who has 27 photo albums that span my years in middle school through sophomore/junior year of college, and when this new fangled technology appeared I tried to put my foot down in the old-school world vowing to never make the switch to digital. There's something about flipping through physical photo albums and remembering times that have passed. But then I gave in, and now I appreciate it. I digress.

I started with the most recent albums, then flipped through the photos of the last 9 months, of my adventures in Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina. First of all - 9 MONTHS?! How did that happen? I actually forgot about a lot of the things I've done, experiences I've had, and people I've met. Isn't that kind of sad? Maybe it's because I spent a good 7 of those months having so many intense and amazing experiences one after the other (and don't forget those 3 months of cycling last summer!). Maybe it's something about being in a more stable place again, working, and living in an apartment, back to the a "normal" way of life that makes me forget. Whatever it is, it's thanks to my photo journey that I can remember each place, person, moment, feeling and even smell.

Of course, this led to searching through older albums. Albums including my family and closest friends, Bike & Build, New York, Indiana, and the University of Dayton. I spent about two hours flipping back through the last years of my life, reflecting on every experience, remembering every detail of every photo. Literally moments captured in time. Sometimes moving to a new place is hard. It takes time to adjust to a new place, culture, routine, group of people. It takes time to meet and form your posse so that new place starts to feel like home.

But those old photos remind me of how great my life is. Not just now, with this opportunity to live in Buenos Aires, continue learning Spanish, working a job I really like, but how lucky I am to have had such a blessed life with so many wonderful amazing people. It gives me hope for what is yet to come here, wherever I end go in the future, and for whatever I end up doing.

Similarly to the last year and a half, I don't know what the plan is, how long I'll stay here, where I'll go next, how it will all end. But I do know that I have been living my life the last few years with my eyes wide open, and as long as I continue to do so it will all work itself out. Someone once told me you get what you give. So I'll keep giving my life my all in hopes that I keep getting results similar to those of the past.

And whoever invented digital photography. I think you're the bees knees. 

Oh, and also. I miss my tan.

And these guys who I got to skype with yesterday...