i've been planning on getting a digital camera for a while, and now this gives me a better excuse for blowing so much money on something like that.

and i keep thinking about the plane ride down, the connecting flights, the final car ride down to where ever it is i'd be staying.

and i know i romanticize it in my head, im well aware of that.

but dammit.

brazil.

and i'll have a lot of free time, and i can see myself wandering around the town, taking pictures. sitting out somewhere reading. talking to kids.

and im afraid that once i get down there i won't want it to end.

inside me, somwhere, is this voice that says i need to settle down somewhere, eventually. that i need to do something real and solid, and travelling to different countries, teaching kids english, it isn't really solid, because it's not long lasting. six months, two years, those are good bits of times, but they're not careers.

and i don't want a career, not really, but i know i need one, or need something, if i'm ever going to stop and stay in one place long enough to have a family, which is what i think i really want, in the end.

but there's this other part in me that's saying i'm still pretty young, i've got a lot of time to travel, to teach different things to different people, absorb, observe different cultures.

and then i can come back, find some place in the states, somewhere, to settle down, and maybe ill have an idea of what i want to do, maybe i'll go back to school and get my teaching license or that mfa i really want. or maybe something else will happen along the way and i'll find that i'm supposed to live in a small village in the middle of peru.

but basically what i'm thinking right now is this: