The Adventures of the Amazing Eddies

This blog comes as a nexus between an ending and an exciting yet unforeseen beginning that shall rear its head in a few months. Endings are always special occasions, and this ending shall live on in the circuits of my blog. Final assignments mandated the composition of a reflection on the year's learning and experiences, so with a multitude of mediums available to me, I sat down and began a blog so that I could share my thoughts with all my friends. Anyone who has dared to leave the comfort of home and travel has made numerous relationships with new people, and sometimes these relationships blossom amazingly. But all good things must come to an end (at least in the physical presence), and in a few months we must leave each other. I’ve been through these emotions and steps several times, and they’re the same emotions packaged differently each time. Hence, I invite you to share in my reflections on my past year at UPeace.

Ultimately, whenever I think of endings, I think of T.S. Eliot and a stanza from his 4 Quartets.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

The Beginning
Before I came to UPeace, I was asked several times by friends why I was coming to UPeace, what I expected to get from this program, and what the job prospects were like. The questions were, at best, exploratory and, at worst, laced with skepticism. They were reflections on popular society, schooling, and my own inner inhibitions. And they were also requests for me to not leave home and Japan. But from that ending came this beginning.

After I got to UPeace in August I met 140 other like-minded persons from across the globe that believed in the goodness of people and the urgency to establish and maintain peace. It has been one of the most diverse groups I will probably ever work with. Sixteen of these compassionate souls became my closest friends and critical pedagogues. They are…

The Teacher (Stephan),
The Philosopher (Charles),
The Journalist (Sandra),
The Advocate (Som),
The Music Box (Salud)
The Oracle (Shreya)
The Drama Queen (Loizos),
The President (Yaya),
The Beautiful Calm (Viola),
The Nomad Mother (Jen R.),
The Experiential Educator (Jenn S.),
The Holistic Healer (Catalina),
The Loving Mother (Formerly The Endless Writer) (Karen)
The Mediator (Mary)
The Honest One (Nora)
The Poker (Brigid)
The Poet (Myself)

And we would be nothing without each other, so together we are….

The Instigators (Loizos and Nora)
The Competitors (Karen and Kevin)
The Thinkers (Stephen and Charles)
The Dreamgirls (Salud and Shreya)
The Chucklers (Sandra and Yaya)

One day on the bus, early on, a group of us brainstormed a collective name for our class. First, we were the Macondo Peacetime Band…Then Jesus and the Eddies (but we thought Jesus wasn’t quite appropriate)…and finally the Peace Eddies.

There is a time for an evening under the stars. There is a time to dream. There is a time to be. And love is most certainly near. As this year is coming to an end I shall not forget in the coming days the smiles and laughter of my friends here, nor of my friends anywhere. It is ultimately the people we meet who impact us the most and introduce us to new ways of thinking and living. T.S. Eliot said, “Home is where one starts from.” Home is, for me, where one’s friends are. Knowing my wanderlust as you do, it’s exciting now when I think of all the homes I have around the globe, and all the friends I will soon see. Because as I learned long ago, it’s not when and where I am that matters, but who I am with.