La Settimana secondo di mesi di Marzo

Alright Family, Friends, professional homosapiens--let's get down to business here. What's really been occurring in our life on the other side of the world?

Well, aside from battling to survive the struggles of Italian living, we've been thriving!

In January, Jenny and I decided to take a few college courses that are taught locally at the Base sponsored by the University of Maryland Europe Campus. The two classes we decided upon were Psychology 100 and Italian 111. I can hear you all now thinking to yourself: Two college courses? Don't they have enough occurring in their life already? Why two take two demanding, brain-bending, book-binding classes like that? Well, here is the answer--but first, a little (or a lot) of the background information.

When Jenny and I first met a long, long, LONG time ago (in a galaxy far, far away), we discovered that among the many magical, kismet-based similarities we had between each other, one of the most intriguing was our mutual interest in the mind-body healing processes. Before I had the great fortune of meeting my rara avis, Jenny, I had been thinking much about how stress affects health and wellness of the human. My interest spawned from an extended, traumatic experience while I was on the STENNIS that left me a changed person in many psychological ways. Meanwhile, Jenny was navigating her way through a pestiferous agglomeration of events that caused her to start thinking very hard about making some life changes towards natural healing. Shortly after we met, we realized that both of us had a deep interest in non-allopathic healing--an interest that was much more than a causal, intellectual fascination.

Once we moved to Italy, we began taking about possible post-Navy employment opportunities. Our ideas oscillated between opening climbing gyms and natural health clinics to working for the State Department in other foreign nations and everything in between. During our brainstorming conversations, we held very closely to one principle: we do not want to work separate jobs that lead divergent paths. Our vision and goal for our marriage (and life) is to share every minute we possibly can with each other. And, the view of most employment today is not congruent with our vision. Consider this simple math calculation: a person works an average of 50 hours per week, four weeks a month, 52 weeks per year. That equates to 2,400 hours of time spent apart from his/her spouse (not including unexpected after-hour work and commute time). We decided that 2,400 hours, or any portion of that time, apart is unacceptable for our marriage. Life is too short to spend so much time apart! Sound unreasonable? Sound lofty and visionary? Sound impossible? It may to you, but not to us. In the words of Mohammad Ali, "Impossible is Nothing." Jenny and I are determined to make our vision and goal a reality. Our vehicle for such a galactic proposition is this: Careers in Naturopathic and Oriental Medicine as Naturopathic Doctors and Licenced Acupuncturists.

In keeping with the traditions and principles of holistic living and healing, as prescribed by Naturopathy and Classic Oriental Medicine, we see a vibrant future together as Naturopathic practitioners in a healing inspiration center that we own and operate. A center that is founded upon principles of community healing, family connectedness, and holistic living that inspires friends, family, and prospective clients to think in the Gestalt fashion about their health: that is, the fashion in which one believes that total wellness (mind-body-spirit) is greater than the sum of any individual part (symptom, disease or organ) and must be treated in a holistic fashion. Or marriage revolves around the same principles of connected wholeness: no single part is greater in value or influence than any other. The sum (total expression of our marriage in everyday living) is more important and valuable than any single individual expression. We make decisions, and will continue to make decisions, based on what is best for the whole of our marriage and our life. Thus, Naturopathy and holistic healing is a natural occupation to explore.

If you've just finished the above paragraph and feel as if we are totally out in Left Field--miles away from conventional reason and modern rational thought--you'd be right. We are in Left Field, but we're not playing in the typical ball field either. We're creating our own game, field, and rule set that doesn't necessarily fit nicely in the typical paradigm.

So where does that leave us now? What are we doing to facilitate our vision?

At the moment of writing this post, we are formulating our plan for further education in Naturopathy and Oriental Medicine. We are looking at school programs, costs, time availability, and locations that best suit our vision. Right now, our eyes have focused on a school in Portland, Oregon called the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM). Additionally, we've been researching other potential schools such as BASTYR University (Seattle, WA); Southwest School of Naturopathic Medicine (SCNM) (Tempe, AZ); and the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine (BINM) (Vancouver, BC).

All schools are accredited medical inspiration centers (universities) with 5 and 6 year curriculums in Naturopathy, Oriental Medicine, and many other disciplines. At the completion of the Naturopathic curriculum, we would be awarded with doctoral degrees in Naturopathic Medicine (ND vice MD) and a Masters of Science in Oriental Medicine (MSAOM).

As for the original question of why we are taking classes here in Italy, the answer is this: we are satisfying prerequisite courses for entry into the ND program so we can matriculate shortly after returning to the States.

If you are interested in learning more about Naturopathic and Oriental Medicine, or about the schools that I've mentioned, here is a website that you can visit: http://www.aanmc.org/

Of course, Jenny and I always value feedback on our ideas. (A big thank you goes out to those who've responded to our first two blogs--we love hearing from you all) If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please shoot us an email and we'll respond.

Yours in health and with kind regards,
Nate and Jen