raison d'etre for the blog changes

It's been over two years since my AT thru-hike, and although I still say that it was the highlight of the decade, I must admit it doesn't define me as it once did. College seems distant already, and slowly I'm accepting the fact that making friends and hanging out will never be that easy again. Mississippi is closer because I still teach, but I've gotten used to bumps in the topographic landscape. When a new teacher joined the staff, she seemed so... young. So who am I now?

I am still "finding my way", and I'll probably always be. But it seemed appropriate to update my blog to reflect these subtle changes. At first, I tried "logos (study of) bios (life)", but I don't quite have a scientist's objectivity and observational powers, nor do I think being a teacher is the it. I recently took three Ecology Club students to Asheville to hear Robert Bullard speak about environmental justice. Even though they remembered the vegan food more than the speech, I noticed how the speech shaped the direction they wanted to take the club. The it for me was somewhere in that experience.

I came to this depressed county to teach its kind of children, and also to be close to the southern Appalachian mountains. I came young, educated, new to North Carolina, an outsider, and the hardest thing was (is) the community piece. But to me, it's also the most important, and as I continue to search for it, it's fitting to title my blog so.