“Imagine that you wake up in a strange land. Your room is small but comfortable. As the sun streams through fine lace curtains, you look at your watch. It’s 4:30 A.M., far too early for the sun to be shining. Then you remember: Thirty-five years after President Kennedy’s call to serve, you’re in the Peace Corps, and you’re going to be living in this strange land for the next two years.” An excerpt from ‘Two Years of Cyber Deprivation’ Download full article.
Bloggers Note – I wrote this article for Cybertimes, an offshoot of the New York Times web site, shortly after I returned from my Peace Corps service and started temping at the New York Times electronic media company. I went from being a teacher in Rietavas, a town of 4,000 in western Lithuania, where I awoke to the crowing and mooing of our neighbor’s farm to honking horns and screeching New York City subways. Needless to say, my head was spinning. The most difficult aspect of my Peace Corps service was coming home. Though I spoke the language and dressed the part, I felt as though I didn’t belong. Everyone had two years of references that I didn’t get, and I had two years of references that were foreign to folks back home. However, I couldn’t have picked a better place to land than New York City–where an escape to a foreign country was always only a few blocks, or subway stops away.
Well, I did it! I finished the Westchester Triathlon in 2 hours, 43 minutes and set a personal record in the process! This time bests by 2 hour 55 minute time at St. Anthony’s by 12 minutes, but what’s even better is that this time I completed the .9 mile swim in 29 minutes! That’s a 9 minute improvement! I feel validated in my swim training strategy, which was simply to focus on form instead of worrying about getting fast. Well, the practice on form translated into less effort and SPEED. I was consistent about sighting and swam pretty much in a straight line. I emerged from the water ready for the bike ride.