back from the rainforest

Hello friends! I'm glad that we've been hearing from a few of you silent beauties. Thanks for the updates, pretties! And as always, a big thanks to Selena for getting the ball rolling on the 2012 new years reunion! It's going to be epic, friends. Epic. The world (as we know it) might be ending, but at least Chapman will be UNITED.

In other news, I've returned from Ecuador. My time in the tropics was lovely, and I was sad to leave. But! I left the country with an interesting offer: to be the co-director of this biological reserve which also happens to be my favorite place on the planet (seriously). A dream job, right?
Well, my brain was a jumbled mess for a few days trying to make sense of my life, and in the end, I decided that the job in the jungle wasn't the right next move for me. For one thing, I already have a job (working on a farm in Belchertown starting in April) and also, they wanted me to start asap meaning I would have to drop everything and fly back down to Ecuador (on my own dime) for an extended period of time (at LEAST 2 years. The woman I'd be replacing was in the position for 9 years and was a fixture in the community - tough shoes to fill). As appealing as that all is in theory, I decided to take the "responsible" route and stick to my original plan. Also, the pay was truly a pittance, even for me, and I'm used to being underpaid! (I just found this handy dandy flow chart that would have been helpful last week when I was grappling with this decision. I know you guys and gals will appreciate it - http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com/)
Hopefully, I will get the opportunity to do something like that at some point in my life because I really do think that it's super important work. I just can't make that commitment right now and the responsibility of running a remote biological reserve is a bit scary to me right now...

Otherwise, being back in the rainforest was so wonderful, and I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to return to a place that I've been dreaming about for nearly four years. Each afternoon, after a hard day of hiking and planting in the jungle, I would go down to the river and just soak it all in - the beauty, the sounds, the serenity, the life force that exists there is simply astounding - and every day I would internalize it all and bottle it up inside me to carry with me always. Pictures will never do this place justice, but I will damn well try.

and for more videos from Ecuador, go to my youtube channel. love!!