Gap Year Musings

When I tell people that I took a gap year the general response is “Wow! That’s so cool! I wish I could have done that.” I find this intriguing because when I initially announced that I was taking a year off after high school... the reaction was quite different.

In the United States it is generally discouraged to take any time off from anything, ever. The go-go-go mentality that Americans are known for is so deeply rooted in our psyches that it makes it difficult to rationalize any sort of sabbatical. Despite the fact that I strongly disagree with this mindset on principle alone, the society that I grew up in actually made me feel guilty for acknowledging when I needed a break- and doing something about it.

(Petra, Jordan)

Let me stop here and clarify that my parents were extremely supportive of this decision, and were instrumental in making it happen. Even before my mom married my stepdad in 2010, and we all started going to Jordan on a regular basis, she was a huge proponent of travel and desired nothing more than for me and my sister to grow up cultured and accepting citizens of the world. Being a single mother who was working full time, international travel was never really a possibility. Her rather ingenious solution to this problem was to have a constant flow of exchange students who lived with us anywhere from two weeks to a full year.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this early exposure to other cultures undeniably contributed to my current fascination with them (Woo! Anthropology!).

(The Citadel- Amman, Jordan)

For the vast majority of my senior year of high school my intent was to go to a university in my home state of Washington and pursue a dual degree in vocal performance and music education. I had been studying music for ten years and it seemed like the logical next step. I was good at it, I received a lot of compliments on my abilities, and to me that was enough. I had actually sent in a $500 fee confirming my enrollment in said university just weeks prior to the meltdown.

(Ajloun, Jordan)

It was around the middle of March and with graduation just a mere two months away, my friends and classmates started to get impatient to finish high school and go off to their respective universities. For some reason, I found myself unable to partake in this excitement. After weeks of introspective thought pertaining to why this was (and because I have a tendency to over-think and over-analyze everything) I came to the conclusion that I just didn’t love music anymore- at least not enough to dedicate four to eight years of my life getting the necessary degree.

(Dead Sea)

I’m very fortunate that my mom is a rational person and respects my decisions without much question. That being said, when I approached her with the idea of taking a year off I had already thought the idea fully through and had valid reasons to back up my request. It would mean losing the deposit fee, and having to go through the application process all over again, but $500 costs a lot less than an unwanted and unused degree.

(Amman, Jordan)

The most common concern I heard from family and friends was that I would enjoy the time off too much and not go back to school. Which was reasonable. But when it comes to planning out your own life, or a gap year in this situation, it’s important to know your own limits and what you can handle. I knew that going to university was important to me- I just needed to find the right one.

My mom was already planning on moving to Amman, Jordan to live with my stepdad (they had been doing long-distance MARRIAGE for two years) so it was fairly simple for me to tag along with her. I had a boyfriend back in Washington at the time and spent most of my first long-term stint in Jordan Skyping at odd hours and missing him. I didn’t meet any new people, was extremely homesick, and spent most of my time alone in my room. I ended up coming home early and spent Thanksgiving and Christmas back in Washington.

(Photo shoot in our backyard in Amman- taken by my aunt Natalia!)

Come January I began to get antsy again. My hometown, Puyallup (pyoo-ALL-up) is ridiculously boring, especially since I wasn’t working or taking classes and all my friends were off at school. But a year earlier we had an Australian exchange student, Tiarni, who stayed with us and became one of my dearest friends. She, and her family, had been asking me to come down to Australia for quite a while. Just for fun, I began researching round trip tickets from Seattle to Sydney. One day a ridiculously cheap ticket popped up, that I knew wouldn’t last long, but it left in less than a month. I bought it, figuring I could plan out the details later.

(Sydney, Australia)

My time spent in Australia remains one of the happiest times of my life. I was very stressed out as a teenager and the laidback, fun-loving, slightly vulgar Aussie attitude definitely changed my perspective on life a bit. I played with kangaroos, koalas, and learned how to surf- all the required activities during a visit to the land down under, but I gained more valuable experiences as well. I had my first drink, learned how to plan an entire trip on my own, and discovered the hospitality-based website, Couchsurfing.

(Venus Bay, Victoria, Australia)

After returning from Australia I began to miss Jordan again, and all my family there. I really wanted to go back and give it a second shot but my mom and stepdad were hesitant, and understandably so, since I had such a rough time back in September. But after a few weeks of begging, they obliged, and I was headed back to the Middle East.

(Wilson's Promontory, Vistoria, Australia)

When I look back on those later months in Jordan it’s almost as if I were in an entirely different country. I chose to learn from my mistakes the first time and make a more substantial effort to enjoy myself. Instead of being constantly in my room, I was rarely there! I went out with friends about four or five times a week and smoked way more shisha than I’d care to admit. When in Amman, right? It’s amazing how as soon as I changed my attitude, I started meeting all these incredibly interesting, intelligent, and kind people left and right. I had never felt more accepted and loved in my life and still cherish those friendships more than I can possibly convey. If you’re reading, you know who you are, and thank you.

(Melbourne, Australia)

I think you all know the story from there. I spent my summer in Central America and then somehow wound up on this crazy place we like to call the East Coast. To be completely honest, my first year in Boston hasn’t been everything I expected it to be. Parts of it were downright terrible.

But then others weren’t.

I suppose it’s easier to notice now, since I’m leaving in two weeks, that I’m excited to return here next fall. I didn’t think I would be. No matter how many times people tell you to give it time, that things will get better, sometimes you just have to figure it out for yourself. But as long as you do figure it out, that’s all that really matters. 


~Kaelin

Pre-departure Post

As I prepare to embark on my second Guatemalan adventure, memories of last summer have been rushing back to my mind like an unstoppable waterfall. Tiny details that I haven’t thought about even once in the past ten months are suddenly reemerging, readying my currently Boston-oriented mind for the Central American spirit that I’ve come to crave so much.

The logistics for this trip have already been infinitely easier than they were last summer, when I backpacked with my friend Eric from the Caribbean Sea in Belize to the Pacific Ocean in Guatemala. And while this trip is actually less of a “trip” and more of a semi-permanent “move”, many of the preliminary details have been similar- things like passports, visas, vaccinations, what to bring, etc. Having my own personal experience from last summer to go off of has been an incredible help and convenience that I’ve never been able to utilize before.

My personality type constantly craves the new, the un-experienced, the unexpected. So when I took a gap year after graduating from high school in 2012, my travel choices were quite all over the place, without much logic. At the time, I was lucky to have had a fairly substantial savings account in addition to the monetary gifts I received upon my graduation (this is customary in the US) to fund my spontaneous, and perhaps a bit reckless, travels. The difference is that now I have a year of university education under my belt, and a thoroughly depleted wallet.

Around February, when I started to think about how I wanted to spend my summer, there were a number of roadblocks in the way that were previously nonexistent. This whole business of being a university student, and also completely addicted to the world and its inhabitants, is a difficult one to reconcile. After much thought and contemplation I came to the conclusion that my options were thrice:     

1. Spend the summer in my hometown, a medium-sized suburb of Seattle, WA.

2. Spend the summer in Amman, Jordan- the closest thing to “home” currently, when I’m not studying in Boston.

     -or-

3. Get creative (which is always the best option).

The first two options were completely viable, and each had their own advantages, but I wasn’t able to shake the feeling that I would be wasting four months of potential travel time that wouldn’t exist again for another year. The challenge was as follows: finding a culturally stimulating, affordable, and enjoyable place to live where I still had the ability to continue my education.

When I say education I’m not talking about coursework, although that has its value as well. I’m referring to my constant pursuit of knowledge and skill in as many varied fields as I can manage. My interests tend to change rather quickly, and for that reason I often find myself needing to prioritize. One skill that I’ve developed rather well over the course of the past year is my ability to speak Spanish. I studied it for two years in high school but absolutely despised my teachers and never put in much effort. I also grew up hearing my maternal grandparents speak Spanish to each other, and was fairly familiar with how Spanish commands worked thanks to my mom’s preference for them over English (“Venga! Sientate! Vamanos!”) but my interest was never sparked.

That is, until last summer.

Hearing the language spoken in its native land and combined with the insurmountable beauty of Guatemala’s landscape, I never regretting anything more than not taking those classes seriously. It was shocking to me how very little English was spoken, even in the larger cities. And due to my innate love of culture and people I wanted nothing more than to be able to communicate with them and hear all about their lives. I felt bad for being yet another American tourist who just expected that everyone would speak my own language and resolved that the next time I visited, things would be different. And so, from a tiny internet café in the streets of colorful, colonial Antigua I logged onto my university’s registration page and changed my schedule around a bit to afford for some Spanish classes.

Two completed semesters after that day, I’m amazed at how quickly my Spanish has progressed with just a little motivation and a goal in the back of my mind.

I decided on going to a Spanish speaking country this summer fairly early on with the intention of becoming fluent, or close, by the end of August. Instinctually, I wanted to go somewhere new. Peru and Argentina were pretty high up on the list initially, as I’ve dreamed of making it down to South America for quite some time now. The main problem with both of them was the airfare, so I started looking closer. I’m not sure exactly when the thought popped into my mind but I remember being surprised by it- what if I went back to Guatemala? The concept of revisiting a country is more foreign to me than almost anything else. The only other time it’s happened is with Jordan. Part of me resisted the idea at first- how was I going to see everything in the world if I kept going back to the same place? But the more I thought about it the more appealing it became. It was true that I'd felt more connected to Guatemala than any country I'd visited previously, and there were hordes of things that I hadn't had enough time, but wanted, to do.

After accepting Guatemala as the most realistic and desirable option, I had to decide where in the country I wanted to go, and how I wanted to live. Thankfully, that part was beyond easy. Eric and I had stayed in a small town called San Pedro, which is located on Lake Atitlan up in the mountains north of Guatemala City. The lake is cradled by three volcanoes and recognized as the deepest lake in Central America with a maximum depth of 340 meters (1,120 ft). It’s absolutely breathtaking. I specifically remember saying to Eric that I was going to live there one day. The funny part is that we hadn’t originally planned on going there at all, but met a Frenchman named Adrian in a hostel in Monterrico, a small town on the Pacific coast, who made us swear we wouldn’t miss it. Adrian also recommended that we stay in a hostel called Mr. Mullets that was less than a year old and not even in most of the guidebooks yet. Following his advice, we found Mr. Mullets upon our arrival in San Pedro and were informed that they were fully booked but that they had openings for the following night. For a new hostel to be fully booked, without even guidebook recommendations to send travellers its way is pretty impressive. And made us even more excited to see what all the fuss was about.

Eric and I stayed in a small hotel a few doors down that a girl recommended to us, and returned the next day to what became my favorite hostel of the entire trip. The staff was exceedingly friendly, fun, and helpful and the owners had addressed all the issues that I had come to expect with most hostels. The wifi was fast and reliable, the showers were hot, and the mattresses were some of the most comfortable we’d slept on. Definitely a great experience. To this day I’m still friends with people I met in San Pedro and at Mr. Mullets.

Long story short, I am going to be working at that same hostel this summer and couldn’t be more excited. I’ll be taking Spanish lessons at the same time, writing, researching, and a getting a chance to explore the area in and around Lake Atitlan more thoroughly. I’m excited for the challenges and learning opportunities that this summer will inevitably present, since it’s so different from any way I’ve travelled before. San Pedro will become home- not just one more town I’ve backpacked through.

So there you go. To all that have asked, and for all those who didn’t already know, that is the full story. I hope you’ll follow along as I document my adventures and personal growth throughout the following months.

But until I take off in less than three weeks (!!!), it’s time to focus on the current “adventure” at hand: 

Finals.



Thanks for reading!
~Kaelin

(Here are a few of my favorite memories from San Pedro last summer!)