Of Cats and Cashiers

   

             My cat has yet to get used to the new arrangement as he is a simple creature. A bit too simple, actually. He does not know that I leave every morning now. After two months of searching, I landed a job at Giant Eagle as a cashier. At last my world journey is starting to take shape. However, my cat does not involve himself in my worldly exploits or in the means I use to achieve them. He simply worries that I will not be there to let him in and out of the house, a task which he demands constant attention to.

              Of course I worry about him. His fur is not so thick, and he doesn't do well in the cold. He is also, as I said before, simple. He often meows at the wrong door, and has no personality. I'm just glad he knows what a door is, and doesn't spend his time meowing at walls.

Durrrrrrrrrrrrr.......but seriously he's an idiot

            Being a cashier is nice, though right now I'm pretty slow. They say I will speed up, but I'm afraid it will be similar to my experiences with video games. I can play them for weeks but I fail to get any better. I do like playing CoD 4: Modern Warfare. I like the Prypiat level. I enjoy buildings that have been abandoned, ghost towns, and empty asylums. 
           Pictures of those who were in the asylum also seem to draw my curiosity, but not in a morbid way. I want to talk to them, help them, heal them, hug them, make their shattered world make sense. This last thought however only serves to remind me that my own perspective of the world is disjointed and cloudy. Perhaps they see something I don't. Any insight into the world view of these patients fascinates me, but not in a way that they are simply curiosities. I sympathize with them, and want to show them that I care about how they see the world. No sane person I know understands the world any better than they. 
            But I digress.          
            Right now my research is getting extensive. I've been reading Robert Young Pelton's "The World's Most Dangerous Places." This book is by far the most helpful, telling you how much to bribe officials, prevent diseases, and avoid land mines (stay on the pavement). 

Or get a friend who walks faster than you. 

He has also written a book called "Come Back Alive." Pelton is no regular traveller. He travelled to Grozny while it was under siege by the Russians in December 1999, he's interviewed terrorists (or freedom fighters, depending on who you are), and survived being hunted down by Algerian death squads. Other contributors to "World's Most Dangerous Places" have faced similar perils in places like Somalia and Columbia. The book is all firsthand information and Pelton is often consulted by numerous travel agencies.
           I'm leaning towards Tanzania  as my first destination. No, the Maasai reference in my earlier entry was not a casual one.I was originally thinking about Kenya, but Kenya is at the moment pretty dodgy, with sporadic violence occurring ever since the previous election. Tanzania is on the other hand, fairly stable. It also allows you to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. This is an activity that I am excited about, but I'll have to get in shape first. As it now stands, I'll need to lose about a hundred pounds. The only other obstacle to climbing the mountain, money, is taken care of by an exchange rate of 1,350 Tanzanian Shillings to one US dollar. This also makes safaris readily affordable as well, allowing me to see wildlife like elephants and giraffes and lions.  
           Already, I've found a ton of organizations willing to ship me in exchange for work. Crewseekers.net specializes in getting yachts to rich people all over the world. Crewfile.com and Findacrew.net are not so elite, and just need a few good men to watch over whatever is on the boat. 

If these guys can do it, I'll have no problem. 

           Other organizations are ready to house you as soon as you get off the boat. WWOOF.org, the website of the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms organization, will put you to work on an...wait for it...ORGANIC FARM! You work in the fields and in exchange you are housed and fed. A similar organization is Growfood.org, which also unites farms around the world. Other working sites include Workaway.info and The7interchange.com. Now for those who can afford to buy their own food or are otherwise less willing to contribute to society, Couchsurfing.org and Globalfreeloaders.com will simply hook you up with a host family for the night.

Go ahead. Eat all of what little food they have. 

         Yes, travelling the third world is definitely within the reach of even cashiers like me, though take note that you'll have to watch what you eat and drink, avoid mosquitoes which carry Malaria and Dengue fever, staple your wallet to yourself, and remember when in doubt, get the hell out. 

You should have some serious doubts right now. 

          

           

I Quit

            That's it. I'm done with Edinboro University, and I'm done with northwest Pennsylvania. This area, dear reader, is not a good place to grow up.

Bah!

             Sigh. But forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is Zach, I'm 20 years old, and I live with my family in that wretched place indicated above. More specifically in Franklin, the center of economic nowhere. There are few jobs and absolutely no place to hang out. In fact, just the other night, the best my sister, her friend, and I could come up with for a crazy night was to go to Walmart.

            I attended Edinboro University for two and a half years, majoring in Secondary Education in Social Studies. Basically I wanted to be a history teacher. But that was only part of the plan. I wanted to use my teaching job to fund journeys around the world, helping people. I wanted to be big in the field of human rights. 

           But it came to me over winter break that I hadn't learned the things I needed to learn. 

That semester, I worked hard to get good grades. I'm smart, so things like tests are easy for me. I also have ADHD, so things like attending classes are not. 

           I believe January 2nd was the fateful day. I booted up the family computer, a process which takes ten minutes at least. My mother, ever paranoid of viruses, has put every free antivirus program onto the old machine, causing it to be as slow and difficult to work with as it would be if it caught a virus in the first place. 

            Anyways, I checked my grades. All Bs, save for one. An F. 

            But it had to have been a mistake. I studied hard for that final. A few emails later, the professor informed me that it was not a mistake. I had missed seven classes, and University policy had dictated only two had been allowed. 

            Now by this time, I had hated Edinboro. The university, not the people. It was as though the university didn't care about its students. This is true of most universities, but many at least pretend. When I visited my sister's university in Mansfield, I nearly cried. It was so...nice. They seemed genuinely interested in your progress.

Bah!

           Anyway, I decided that I was, as a coworker so amazingly put it, "tired of the rat race." America is so artificial, and compared to other countries, so fake. I'm not saying I don't like this country, mind you. I just am tired of the lifestyle. This is a place where having the right paperwork will let you live your life. In Africa, paperwork doesn't get you clean water. That's a place where your daily decisions do matter, a place where, if you don't fill your daily calorie recommendation, you might not have another chance the next day. I'm tired of meaningless choices. They don't care how many classes you missed there, as long as you kept the lions away from the cows. 

SATs will not help you here.

            So now I'm off on a grandiose adventure. I'm saving up my pennies and traveling through the many places on this earth full of danger and struggle. I figured out how to travel and live at places for free. I simply volunteer. There are organizations that let you work your way over on a boat, and other organizations that will have a family take care of you as you volunteer and help them. There are just endless possibilities when it comes to travel.
           
            In a nutshell, I'm done with this life of filling in bubbles and writing essays. I'm off to live with the Maasai.