june

i am writing this post hoping that someday i will look back on it and laugh. i do want this blog to be a (mostly) accurate and honest account of my feelings during this experience and this feeling of disgust and impatience and exhaustion is part of the whole shebang. let the complaining commence!

i have made it here nearly 15 months. 14.5 months, to be more accurate. an entire deployment for most enlisted military folks. more than half of the time i've agreed to spend here. a friend and i recently discussed how the people surviving this experience are not the ones who were necessarily the most excited, but rather the most stubborn and unwilling to go back. this rings particularly true for me at the moment, especially in moments when i am sitting at a table full of host country nationals drinking brandy and answering this question: "why on earth are you here?"

a marvelous question, i tell myself, chuckling about all the times i've not been able to answer this question for myself and then continue on to explain my ostensible reasons. they're solidly planted in my brain, these illusory reasons, and i can now spout them off rather quickly considering 15 months ago, i did not speak of word of this language. anyhow.

15 months. yay me.

and yet, i have these pesky two weeks sprawled out in front of me. two weeks that are just creeping on by, that refuse to speed up or go away. when i reflect on this experience a year from now, i think i'll lump june in with october...and january...and last july in the category of hardest months here. all this to say, if june could pass by more quickly, i wouldn't be upset in the slightest.

it is hot. the students could care less about school. instead of teaching the students, i field questions about my sex life, the overall low quality of life here, my summer plans that do not include returning to the u.s. and other absurdities for 45 minute time increments in a sweltering third floor classroom of a culture that believes a cool breeze, even in 95 degree heat, causes even the healthiest of folks to catch cold. hell, maybe they're right. i've been battling a bizarre head cold since saturday and am frustrated that it refuses to abate. my running schedule would appreciate clearer sinus flow and fewer snot-related headaches. i still argue that opening a window and a door to allow a nice breeze to flow through the room won't kill anyone, but instead, we sit and sweat and no longer pretend we care about foreign language learning.

the topping on all of this is the knowledge that soon and surely many of my closest friends and lifelines here will be returning to the states... a huge blow that will undoubtedly be a topic of many future posts.

so. recap: head cold. uninvited sex talk during class. sweltering heat. long days. crippled running schedule. plans to travel just two weeks away, but entirely outside of my grasp at present. swell friends leaving soon to resume lives elsewhere.

= i am ready for the end of june.