A Big Move

With little fanfare but much nervousness, today I told everyone at the Union Project that I will be leaving on July 13. And not only that, but I'm leaving Pittsburgh. Yikes.

I've been offered a job teaching English in Tehuacan, Mexico starting August 18. I've also submitted an application to the graduate program at Simon Fraser University's School of International Studies in Vancouver. Today I got offered a place in a volunteer program in Granada, Nicaragua helping to build low-cost homes.

I don't know the details of the Nicaragua thing. I don't know if I will be accepted to the program in Vancouver (or if I am ready to go back to school). I don't know where I will be come September. But I know where I won't be -- the United States. Some other country is gonna get me before the summer ends, just which is yet to be determined.

I'm so ridiculously excited for this summer -- Deep Creek, Cooperstown, Lewes, and some international destination yet to be determined. It's going to be a big transition; saying goodbye to this place I love and the people I share it with will be one of the hardest things I have ever done. But it's time for me to move on. This departure isn't final in any sense. The door is wide open for a return to the Steel City at some point down the road. I will take so much with me when I pack up my Corolla, roll down the windows, and whisk myself through the Squirrel Hill tunnel for the last time in the foreseeable future.

I was going to make a list of the things I will take with me, but there is no way it could ever be complete. What the hell, here's a feeble attempt:

-love for the Steelers
-pride in the invention of the aluminum beer bottle
-appreciation for the damage that can be done by 6 inches of rain in 24 hours
-the ability to navigate an city of curving, hill-kissing streets, none of which bear even a remote resemblance to a grid
-memories of walking more than 30 different miles of city streets
-an obsession with Dave & Andy's ice cream, and the way it can make even a statistics class at the top of a monstrous hill on a hot day seem worth it
-the incapacity to pay more than $1.50 for a beer without feeling cheated
-hope that UPMC and PNC Bank use their ridiculous power responsibly
-a habit of putting french fries on my salads
-a wish that every 4th of July can be spent on the Fort Pitt Bridge, wrapped in the arms of loving friends
-the tendency to speak words like "dahntahn"
-a complete intolerance for anything other than Heinz ketchup
-a belief that Central Oakland really only exists between Forbes and Fifth Ave
-the need to growl whenever the Pitt logo is shown on TV
-the knowledge that SoCo mixed with root beer tastes like bubble gum (Thank you, Brendan. And to answer you question, maybe I don't remember because I was full of Soco and freakin' root beer. My goodness... Steve!)
-absolutely no ability whatsoever to walk through South Oakland without tripping over the sidewalk
-parallel parking expertise
-the keen eye of a yinzer when it comes to finding the silver lining in every season of Pirates baseball