Thursday, March 15, 2007
It's getting warm. At least warmer. It's in the 50s and with the warmth comes familiar smells. The biting cold and wind of winter took those smells away. But now you can smell it again. The squid or larvae cooking at the street vendors, or that fleeting waft of sewage. Maybe the simple smell of our school building or the scent of a warm subway car. They're back. And most of all they remind me of the time when I arrived here.
It's been nearly six months, which is unbelievable and believable at the same time. But I'm restless. Mostly I'm restless because I feel like I am doing nothing. Tonight I realized (although I can't imagine why I didn't realize it before) that I am saying the same script, day in and day out, quite literally, while teaching. Our students use the same workbooks over and over and the format never changes. I am saying the same things today that I told my students in October. It's frustrating and defeating. I want out.
Stephanie and I started running again about a month ago, which at least eats up some time, four days a week. For now I've thrown caution to the wind and I don't even think twice about walking to the river in our workout clothes and undone hair. I couldn't care less what these people think about me.
The weirdest thing to me is that I don't know what I'll do when I go back to Portland. Yes, try to find a teaching job. But who knows? That has a big possibility of not happening. The actual weird part of this situation is that I cannot remember a time where I felt this up in the air about my life. Everything has always been: go to school and graduate. Even throughout the last year of college I knew I would be going abroad. And now I'll go back and have no idea. I'll also have no home, no car, no cell phone, no furniture. I am freaked out.
Sometimes we make plans for ourselves. We make grand plans and schemes and we forget to think twice. I'm 24 years old and I have no idea where my life is heading. For me, that is a very scary thought.
Did it ever occur to you that sometimes people leave because they want to be missed?
It's been nearly six months, which is unbelievable and believable at the same time. But I'm restless. Mostly I'm restless because I feel like I am doing nothing. Tonight I realized (although I can't imagine why I didn't realize it before) that I am saying the same script, day in and day out, quite literally, while teaching. Our students use the same workbooks over and over and the format never changes. I am saying the same things today that I told my students in October. It's frustrating and defeating. I want out.
Stephanie and I started running again about a month ago, which at least eats up some time, four days a week. For now I've thrown caution to the wind and I don't even think twice about walking to the river in our workout clothes and undone hair. I couldn't care less what these people think about me.
The weirdest thing to me is that I don't know what I'll do when I go back to Portland. Yes, try to find a teaching job. But who knows? That has a big possibility of not happening. The actual weird part of this situation is that I cannot remember a time where I felt this up in the air about my life. Everything has always been: go to school and graduate. Even throughout the last year of college I knew I would be going abroad. And now I'll go back and have no idea. I'll also have no home, no car, no cell phone, no furniture. I am freaked out.
Sometimes we make plans for ourselves. We make grand plans and schemes and we forget to think twice. I'm 24 years old and I have no idea where my life is heading. For me, that is a very scary thought.
Did it ever occur to you that sometimes people leave because they want to be missed?
