about me
Hey y'all! Whether you are friends and family hoping to follow my journey or strangers interested in the Peace Corps, welcome! So Long Leah is a blog to chronicle my journey in the Peace Corps. My mission is to share my experiences and help foster a better understanding of the developing world to my readers, learning about it myself all the while.Hailing from a small town in Florida and found most recently roaming the streets of NYC, I am no stranger to following my passions wherever they take me. My mom likes to describe me as "strong-willed" which I used to think was a bad thing. Now I think it describes me perfectly. I graduated from the University of Central Florida (Go Knights!) in 2013 with a degree in marketing, which would eventually lead me to the New York Mets. With two years under my belt in New York, it was time to head on to the next adventure... Becoming a Peace Corps Jamaica Volunteer in the Parrish of St. Ann.
At this point, you might be asking yourself, "Why are you doing this, Leah?" Good question! There are a few reasons why I ultimately decided to uproot my life for 27 months to join the Peace Corps. The first one is simple: I love working with kids and I love helping people. I grew up at my mom's baton studio and as soon as I was old enough to start coaching, I did. And I loved it. I coached all through college and up until the week I moved to New York. Quickly realizing how much I missed my students (HI MUNCHKINS!), I decided to become a New York Cares volunteer and get back into working with the kiddos. I eventually realized that I was spending absolutely all of my time volunteering and started thinking about the Peace Corps, something I had in the back of my mind since I was in high school. The second reason, and this is a big one, is to become a better global citizen. It's dangerously easy to stay in our comfort zones and pretend like everything in the world is great. Taking a step out to examine the different struggles faced in all corners of the world is eye opening; oppression of women, lack of education, hunger, human trafficking, disease, crime, and unimaginable violations of basic human rights are very real. I think that this will give me the best opportunity to learn and grow as a person by getting up close and personal with some of these issues.
That pretty much leads us back to where I am today and the purpose of this blog. I can hardly wait to share every aspect of this incredible adventure with all of you. From the food to the music to the culture to the communities to the landscape...we are all in for a pretty epic 27 months.
I'll leave you with the namesake of my blog. For those of you that don't know, I live in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens.
about me
Reviewed by Unknown
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12:11:00 AM
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Reviewed by Unknown
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12:11:00 AM
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Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Jamaica? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Jamaica in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez