Well, I’ve been back in my default country for a bit over six months now. I can’t deny that it burns a little bit; I was hopeful things would coalesce a little more smoothly. According to the formula I’ve devised over the past few years, six months is near the long end of how long I can take before I feel like renouncing my citizenship and one-waying it anywhere else in search of a moderately more meaningful life experience (in my own estimation).

I have, however, been fortunate enough to take some roadtrips through Texas to slice up my time and keep from going crazier. Texas is a huge state and even though it may not sound exotic, there is an amazing amount of natural beauty and other things to see and do.

Since being back I’ve gone to Austin a number of times for coffee-related activities, as well as couchsurfing and general exploration. Recently I visited a friend in San Antonio and saw the Alamo for the first time. The Alamo was always interesting to me as a child, probably due to it being eternally associated with courage and endurance in a desperate and hopeless situation. I find analogies in my own life (like life). It was a refreshing day and very positive but also a punching reminder of my lack of peers in day-to-day life as I drove back to Austin from San Antonio. I had thought I was wanting to move to Austin but as I go there more and more I feel that it probably isn’t a big enough jump for me. I wrote another blog post on that but I’m having trouble making it so it doesn’t just sound sad.

Besides Waco (for its own sake and the obligatory stop on the way down I-35 to Austin), Austin and San Antonio I also took a long weekend down to Houston to visit a friend and check out Texas’ largest city, population-wise. They have a train! I love public transportation so we took the train to the baseball game except we took the train the wrong direction, so we essentially just paid to walk a longer distance. On the way home we took a bus in the right direction. The buses and trains here are embarrassingly small and inefficient compared to what I’m used to seeing in Asia. Our cultures have evolved down different branches to warrant this so it’s not an entirely fair comparison, but it is something i couldn’t help but notice. On the way back from Houston I hit up Huntsville State Park on the way back to Dallas. I saw some beautiful dragonflies and swampish habitats and definitely plan to go back and camp there some time.

Now that things have settled down a bit and I got a job that very much resembles a real-life video game (tell you more about that later), I have been working on some more galleries since I haven’t had enough time to go out of town as much. In the meantime, did you read about that time Andrew and I went to Ecuador? How about that time we were in Spain celebrating the gift of marriage with some friends? Why not try grazing through part of the historically open and accepting southern United States and having a sweet tea and some fried chicken??

So, we’ll see what happens. I’m not thrilled being back in Texas but I’ve definitely been worse places in worse situations. Hopefully this is just a quick reset until I find a different adventure more to my liking. People keep telling me life will get better.