"Alice laughed, 'There's no use trying,' she said
'one can't believe impossible things.'
'I dare say you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen.
'When I was your age, I always did it
for half-an-hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as
six impossible things before
breakfast."
In case you didn't know, the Spanish translation for Alice in Wonderland is Alicia en el País de las Maravillas. Since moving to Chile, I've been forced to accept the fact that people here will always wholeheartedly believe that my name is actually Alice and that I'm just trying to "Chilean it up" by introducing myself as Alicia. Lots of my Chilean friends call me Alice; some because they genuinely think that's my real name and others just to tease me. Needless to say, I hear an "Alicia en el País de las Maravillas" reference almost daily. Recently, this inspired me to re-watch the old Disney moviewhich got me thinking about a couple of things...
First, hot damn Lewis Carroll did a lot of drugs.
A. Lot. Of. Drugs...
Secondly, the story about the walrus manipulating the cute little baby oysters, devouring them and then getting chased by a redneck with a hammer is much more twisted than I remember. Third of all (yes, here's where we get to the point of this post), the movie got me thinking about the idea of imagining "impossible" things. I suppose, that unlike Alice (well, the other Alice) and the queen, I'm less concerned with the impossible as I find myself consumed with deciding between the seemingly endless stream of the very possible possibilities before me.
On a 40 minute walk between home and work, my life plan might change 3 or 4 times. Now consider the fact that I do that walk between 2 and 4 times a day and things start to get complicated. In the course of 24 hours, we're talking about a dozen different versions of the few years of my life. I'm constantly tossing new ideas around in my head and adding new cities and countries into the mix.
Currently, I'm pretty settled on staying in Chile until next July when I will return to Cali to fulfill my bridesmaid's duties at the Bawk-stamijam wedding. However, the details of the next seven months until then are not quite hammered out yet. The idea that was rolling around in my head for quite a while involved moving to the south of Chile for a month or two and then going back to Santiago from March to July.
Although this is still a possibility, my boss is now pushing for me to stay in Iquique and work up in the copper mine (teaching, not mining). The schedule would either be 4 days in the mine, 3 days in Iquique or (for half the salary) 2 days in the mine and 5 days in Iquique. Each plan has its pros and cons but, though I'm kind of getting ready to move on from Iquique, the idea of saving up a little bit of money (finally) and having the opportunity to travel more within South America seems particularly alluring at the moment. As far as I know, the contract would be for 4 months. I won't know the start date or any details until mid-December and then it's decision-making time.
Until then, I'm trying not to think about it too hard. The queen of hearts might be able to imagine 6 impossible things before breakfast but leave it to me to dream up 6 lifetimes worth of plans before las once.
