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environmentandrenewables-blog · 8 years ago

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One year to dream a dream, one year to pursue a dream, one year to fulfil that dream. It has been an absolute rollercoaster and its finally all converged to a point, not the final point but most certainly a point, where I can pause to reflect and collect my thoughts. I always had a feeling that 25 would be a good time in my life and also for a lot of people around me.

One year ago I found myself as a graduate having had a phenomenal summer in Brighton and en route to a hippy commune/eco-village/internship (choose whichever is suited best to your interests!) in the south of Spain where I learnt about community living, embarked on practical investigation into renewable energy technologies and was introduced to the world of permaculture (theory around sustainable agriculture and living). I met some amazing people one of which was a man called David Dean, a man who many might call crazy, eccentric, interesting or just plain out of his mind. I’d say that a culmination of these combine to make the man I know and which happens to be a trait in many of the people I call my friends!

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During my stay in the eco-village he called on me to help with a presentation he was giving in the coming months. It just so happened he was doing this in Geneva at the United Nations, I was slightly taken aback, but not enough to pass up the opportunity to ask him if I could tag along, he obliged!

So I found myself in Geneva (December, 2016), at the UN, a childhood dream of mine, standing where the humanitarian heroes have once stood before me. Where the pinnacle of bureaucracy attempts to meet the worlds desperate cry for help. Some would say a paradox and others, our best attempt at global aid, I guess it depends on what perspective you have of the glass, no judgement from me, my perspective is continually changing!

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I met an old friend, Katie Hayes, who at the time was working at the World Health Organisation, who graciously introduced me to her friends and helped accommodate me considering my default budget travelling mode! She introduced me to her boyfriend who, as luck would have it, worked at the Large Hadron Collider (CERN). For those who don’t know what this is, it is basically the pinnacle of particle physics in the modern age, something I have been aware of since my early interest in physics as a young boy and due to my mathematically inclined father. He gave me a personal tour of his work including a brief look inside the largest cryogenic facility in the world, as his work involved lowering the temperature of the magnets to control the path of the colliding particles, I was awestruck!

I then took it upon myself, considering I was in the Alps, to find somewhere to go snowboarding. I got in contact with a few friends I knew might be around and embarked on some epic fun. An old housemate named Lieke showed me the ropes in Nendaz, which was a beautiful ski resort in the southern Swiss Alps and then made my way to meet my old friend Katherine in another outrageously “bougie” resort called Val d’Isere. Both places as beautiful as each other, I was able to get all the snowboarding I had out of my system, and this time without injury!

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I then made my way by bus and train across France to spend the first Christmas in ten years with my parents, a truly fantastic occasion (for those that don’t know, it’s not that I’ve been shunned, we merely celebrate before the actual season and spend said day apart from each other!).

From there I made my way back to London to spend the all my time with my marvellous girlfriend who’d just secured an internship with the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) in Rome. We were about to embark on our own adventures, pursuing our aims and goals, they just so happened to be on other sides of the world for now! With the knowledge of spending a year apart from each other, we prepared for her departure. Conversation, tears and laughter comprised our time during those days and then she was off. I was off. A small piece of each other travelling in our hearts, we’d each begun our adventure separately but more entwined and in love than ever.

My next step was Nicaragua for a four month development project using solar power, not before a swift and disturbing stop off in Florida where my flight had been redirected due to the domestic terrorist shooting at Fort Lauderdale Airport, welcome to Trumpland ( I say sitting here in the USA). I learnt a lot in Nicaragua from how to a small organisation like Grupo Fenix functioned and contributed to a local community through to really getting to grips with my Spanish. I met weird and wonderful people, some of whom I remain in contact with and shared the same moral principals as myself.

Next began my trip through America, something I had been meaning to do for years. Skepticism and angst were present in my state of mind but I was keen to keep an open mind and finally travel a country where I spoke the language and would be able to understand everything around me. What I was really excited to do was explore the majestic nature that the country had to offer. One of the other aims of the trips was to talk with professionals from the renewable and sustainability industries to explore and learn about certain companies and organisations, looking for a place to sit for a moment.

I started in New York, revisiting my childhood, potentially making last memories with my Auntie as she suffered from a flurry of devastating cancers (she’s clear of a few now, still kicking and won’t go without a fight, lots of love Priscilla). It was an emotionally taxing three weeks considering that I just emerged from a small mountain village in Nicaragua to the Big Apple. But I got see my mother and also spend some quality time with her which was fantastic. I got shown around the Google offices, the TED offices, talked with the Rockefellar Foundation and interviewed with the UNEP in Brasil.

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I continued on to Washington D.C. to have a chat with someone from the UN Foundation which I also combined with visiting a couple I had met in Geneva. They made sure I saw the capital correctly and it was lovely to get to know them better before they embarked on their own adventure across the States.

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I had caught wind of an old friend working for the Wall Street Journal in Chicago and I just had to go and pay him a visit! I got my first AMTRAK (cross country trains) from D.C. to Chicago and Benjamin Parkin took me in with open arms as I delivered him my backpack in the lobby of Corporate America, it was quite a funny scene. We had dinner that evening and then I was off to Colorado in the morning.

This was a much longer AMTRAK train but I was able to experience part of the Great Plains of America, where wild horses and buffalo once roamed, a true expanse of flat or undulating low hills stretched to the horizon. A place now dedicated to corn and cattle. An unsettling feeling of a dystopian twist on nature crept over me as I watched the sun rise on this oddly beautiful and monotonous landscape, illuminating the land before me.

Denver, Colorado was what waited for me. A city in the sky, the mile high city, sitting at 1609m above sea level at the foot hills of the Rock Mountains, there was something that called me there. Writing this I am reminded of my time in Kathmandu, another epic journey of mine. The stark contrast of these two cities but with very similar geographies, located at the foot of epic mountain ranges, to be honest, they couldn’t be any more different but the magic of the mountains resounded in both. I stayed with the parents of a my friend Meg who I’d met in Nicaragua, they were absolutely magnificent and took me in for a week or so as they showed me the city and bits around it, I cannot thank them enough for their kindness and the time we had together.

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I then met with a friend of my girlfriend Abbi called Caroline. We’d met before in London and when she heard I was coming to town she was keen to get on the road and see some things she’d been meaning to do for a while. She was a nature freak and that’s just what we did. From Hanging Lakes to Aspen (where we visited the Rocky Mountain Institute) continuing on to Utah to the breathtaking Arches National Park and Dead Horse Point. It was an immense amount of beauty that I was not expecting, especially from Utah, but there you go, the desert sculpts beauty.

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From here I made my way to California to see friends both old and new and also some family. My friend Jacqueline was coming out to combine work with leisure so we embarked on a 3 weeks road trip beginning with the legendary Six Flags amusement park after having an informal interview with one of the SolarCity offices. We continued on to Flagstaff, Arizona where she had a conference and I explored the immensely beautiful volcanic-desert-pine-forest nature that was there. We saw the Grand Canyon and then moved onward to Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe. Reno, Nevada ensued where we shot guns and gambled with cowboys to then go and visit my old friend Michael in San Francisco and stay at his LGBTQ cooperative, quite the contrast! We continued on and discovered the underwhelming California coast (nothing compares to the ruggedness and beauty of the Welsh and Cornish/Kernow coastline!) back down to Los Angeles. My old friend Barney took me out to an unsuspecting night filled with hipsters in shorts at a warehouse in Chinatown of an art exhibition put on by AllSaints (the clothing company not the band). It seemed so quintessential of my perspective of LA that I relished in the moment of it and had an amazing night (helped by an open bar!

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I then returned to San Francisco for two weeks to pursue job prospects and continue talking with organisations like the Sierra Club, SunRun and Grid Alternatives. I snuck into one of the biggest Solar conventions and also, for both Sundays that I was in town, went to the weekly outside roller disco in golden gate park, truly amazing! I interviewed with another SolarCity office up there but the role was not right and it turns out I much preferred the climate down in LA.

I then moved onto Vancouver by train waking up to the sunrise over Mount Shasta which was so raw and beautiful, almost moving. I was off to Vancouver to catch up with an old friend by the name of Alex Herron. I’d been so inspired by his passion and commitment to becoming a chef that he’d up and relocated here in Canada. We had a marvellous time. Vancouver is a beautiful city with snow-capped mountains for the backdrop as well as the sea lapping at your toes. The summer there means a consistently great temperature and plenty of cycling through the city. Alex had found a very niche Japanese restaurant where he had learnt mass amounts about Japanese cuisine and language as well. I sat at the bar on several nights being fed special made dishes from him and his very warm and welcoming team. We then scarpered off to Whistler which is the centre of the Canadian Rockies, juts of mountain sticking out everywhere, where we dabbled with some white-water rafting, spa lounging and best hikes I have ever done. I had not read that much about the hike (being the nature freak and geographer that I am), and hence I was astounded and flabbergasted to see my first glaciers, coupled with a glacial lake that they fed which were colours you’d only normally see in movies or certain filters one might put on a picture!

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The next stop was to be Montreal, Canada where Abbi and I would finally see each other after 6 months. I was nervous as I always am before seeing her after these lengths of time we do, and as always there was no reason to be. We had an amazing time visiting Quebec and it was a time where I got to know and meet some bits of her family I’d never met before. We then did a small road trip through Vermont and Upstate New York where we visited a second cousin of hers who owned the dream home equipped with natural springs, fully sustaining vegetable gardening, swimming ponds and yoga yurt! From there we canoed around the Thousand Islands and then further explored the beautiful city of Montreal. We then parted ways for the second bout of 6 months. Which at this point, I must shout out to her as she had now secured a job at the UN as an international consultant. My dream woman just became even more dreamy. When people ask if it hard making our relationship work I can honestly say, that to make it work, absolutely not. We follow our heart and dreams which overlap and which in turn inspire one another, she is one of the biggest inspirations of my life. Sure we miss each other though, that’s the hard bit, not trying to keep it together.

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I then made my way to Toronto where I was very excited to catch up and spend the week with my good pal Cal and also have Herron back with us. It was a week of pure debauchery 100% accredited to Cal which is not something I tend to indulge in, but when you’re feeling slightly blue about constant rejection from jobs and your partner leaving for a while, an assault on the senses with food and drink can sometimes be a good remedy! As he always does, Cal had established a solid network of people so that we could enjoy, and that’s just what we did, a truly wonderful time.

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Then back to the reality of quickly diminishing financial situation where I weighed up moving on to New Zealand to work and continue travelling or spend the rest of my money pursuing a job in southern California. I sacrificed one dream for another and went for the latter. Barney put me up in his place for a week while I applied for jobs and followed up on leads. Following a week there, I decided to WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) to bide my time while waiting for responses for free room and board. So I began two weeks on a small date farm in the middle of the Colorado Desert (in California) where days reached 48°C/118°F with 15% humidity and on others 35°C/95°F with 75% humidity. I stumbled on and caught rattlesnakes, mitigated against racoons stealing dates, coyotes, kangaroo rats, beautiful birds, luminescent scorpions and bats coming out of the chocolate mountains at dusk as we bathed in natural hot springs on the property. I truly discovered the fragility, diversity and beauty of the thriving desert ecosystem. Due to the nature of the climate, work hours were few and very early in the morning which meant I had a lot of free time in the day to read, and research. But as with the general etiquette of job search I had little response which is quite disheartening, until one afternoon where I had three inquests from SolarCity/Tesla offices on recommendation from a manager I had previously spoken to as well as an interview request from SunRun, finally, things were looking up!

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I then came back to LA where I began living on an urban farm/Kibbutz in Silver Lake, which is pretty central and residential. We had 10 sheep, 5 chickens, 4 dogs, 7 puppies and 1 goat. It was really quite impressive! So while I worked for my keep at the house/farm I was able to interview and secure a job with one of the Tesla offices on the grounds that I acquire my driving license which the matriarch at the farm helped me by lending me her car. With the car in hand I completed my test and the papers were sent over my way to sign for the job!

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And to top things off, I’d planned for ten days in September to road trip with my boy from University, Tom Creed. With the Ford Expedition (not something, as an environmentalist, I am proud to say, but then some of the most fun things are also the worst!) Tom and I set out to the southern Sierra Nevada’s. We spent a week sleeping in the truck with 5 of those days deep in Sequoia National Park and King’s Canyon National Park. Walking, driving, talking and camping. A beautiful end to an amazing trip. My trip that is, Tom was about to embark on his own open return trip to Bangkok which I is going to be amazing.

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And there you have it. One year, one wonderful year. Filled with adventure, but more importantly for me, I was pursuing the next step in my life and I finally acquired it. After a year and a half, 36 applications JUST with Tesla and a whole lot of perseverance I got to where I wanted.

Am I content? No.

Why? Because this is only just the beginning.

A huge thank you to my wonderful parents, my marvellous grandma and my amazing partner in crime, Abbi. I’m a lucky human being and for that, I am thankful and grateful. Due to my position in life, I aim to give back to our world and society in the greatest possible way. I’m always trying to figure that one out, so if you ever have an idea on how, let’s talk.

(PS shout out to Tania for helping me with this website, long live sunseed!)

One Year One year to dream a dream, one year to pursue a dream, one year to fulfil that dream.

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environmentandrenewables-blog · 8 years ago

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Am I content? No.

Why? Because this is only just the beginning.

One Year One year to dream a dream, one year to pursue a dream, one year to fulfil that dream.

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