Gregalder.com

I have said a lot of goodbyes in the past few days. They have all been sweet and sour moments--sweet because they have brought to my attention how many neat people I\'m lucky enough to know, sour because I\'ll miss them.

I spent Halloween weekend with some good friends up in Berkeley, and when I got back to San Diego on Sunday I saw my friend Nate for the last time. Nate asked me how I was feeling about leaving and I said I didn\'t know. I told him that I\'d lost all perspective on the whole situation. \"I\'m trusting that the decision I made to go a few months ago was a wise one, and I\'m going. That\'s all I know,\" I said. \"I\'ve lost the ability to think objectively about it at this point. The only thing I really feel is some sadness about leaving my friends.\"

Dave Fogelson, the Peace Corps recruiter who interviewed me back in May, invited me to attend and speak at a Peace Corps information session he was holding on Wednesday at Point Loma Nazarene University, my alma mater. Dave wanted me to talk to the students about my experience with the application process and my motivations for joining.

Until this meeting I had firmly believed that you don\'t learn anything by listening to yourself talk. And, of course, the corollary is also true. As we were designed with two ears and one mouth, we should listen twice as much as we speak.

But I found that listening to my own voice on Wednesday was didactic like never before. I was talking to the students about wanting to be more than a tourist, about Lesotho being called the Switzerland of Africa, how I\'ve always wanted to become fluent in another language, about getting to trek in the highlands, and about the Peace Corps giving me the opportunity to make some real contributions. The fog of lost perspective that I had been mired in was burning thinner with every word I uttered. It was all coming back to me. I was getting excited again. I was remembering where I was at, where I was headed, and even considering it all worth missing the people I love at home.

Dave and I walked out to our cars when the meeting was over and I got to say yet another goodbye, but I was in much better spirits, and with Dave it felt different anyway because I knew he knew exactly what I was about to embark on.

\"Have a great time,\" Dave said to me. \"Your life\'s about to change forever.\"