The short answer:
Spend a month or two here and visiting with my family, then travel the world for eight or nine months. When I come back from the trip, I'd like to go back to school and study geology or geophysics.
Of course, that's one of those answers that just creates a lot more questions. I don't have the answers to all -- or even to very many -- of them, but I have some loose plans.
I'm registered for a NOLS mountaineering course in Patagonia in January, so that puts me in Chile or Argentina for the first part of 2004. I'm super-excited about the course. Everybody I've talked to that has been on a NOLS course has loved it, and I've wanted to see and export Patagonia for a long time.
Before and after the course, I'll have some time to spend exploring the rest of Chile and Argentina. I'm looking forward to being immersed in a different culture and a different language. It's been a long time since I've done anything in Spanish (junior year of high school), but I expect that it will come back quickly.
I'd like to spend some time in New Zeland, and I'd like to do that before it gets too cold and wet there, so I'll probably head there after the NOLS course. I need to do more research before I figure out where/what exactly I'll do there.
After that, I'd like to come back to the Americas, and spend some time in Honduras. I've heard many, many good things about the Bay Islands, so I'm planning on going there for a while and doing some scuba diving. This will be another good chance to work on Spanish, and it also provides a nice starting place for exploring more of Central America. (I spent some time in Costa Rica with my mother and sister a couple years ago, and I'm curious how the rest of Central America compares.)
I'd also like to visit India and the Himalayas, though I haven't figured out yet when or how that fits in with the rest of my plans.
As far as going to school when I get back goes, there's not a whole lot to say. I started taking classes in the earth sciences during my senior year at Berkeley and I thought they were great. I'd like to do more, and I'd like to do some field work. I'm hoping that I can get into a program here at Berkeley, but I need to apply first.
Posted by vanwie at September 22, 2003 09:09 PM