Vaguely Updating

I cannot believe that I have been here for almost a year now...it feels like it has been so much less and yet so much longer than that.

I remember when leaving Louisville to go to Michigan or wherever else for a week or two seemed so incredibly devastating to me.

I have become absolutely disgustingly burnt out on teaching. The struggles that accompany working with these crazy private language schools has just proven too much for me. There are so many ways that they could be better...but honestly, I am not sure that I have the energy left in my to attempt to facilitate any improvements.

I am still working on getting my TEFL certificate, even though I plan on doing everything that I can to avoid having to teach any more. However, knowing my weird, random luck, I want to have it just in case. If nothing else, it could mean a meager living and a way back to Louisville if I get that desperate.

Lately I have been all kinds of torn. I love it here...but I also find myself unhappy. I cannot help but wonder if I will ever find a place that I feel that I actually fit in. Maybe I am just feeling sick for the very familiar things. Maybe I just miss being able to go out by myself and run into people that I know easily. Yes, I always did get rather tired of always going everywhere by myself despite running into people...but if I go out alone here, it is rare that I will run into anyone I know. Chinese people rarely go for the purpose of meeting people. I miss havign my own doctor and not having to go to the hospital and wait in lines, not to mention having to recruit someone who speaks Chinese to go with me any time that something is wrong. I miss being able to go to even Kroger to get something for a cold or pain or allergy attacks..even dealing with a yeast infection isn't so simple for me here.

But here I have a friend call me because a couple of days before they thought that I looked a little down when they saw me. I actually get invited places. If I am hungry after 10pm, I can walk less than a block outside of where I live and get incredible, cheap food made very fast right on the street. I can ride my bicycle most places that I want to go and taxis everywhere else. I do not have to worry about paying for gas or car insurance. I can get all sorts of movies to watch for less than $1 US. I can feel perfectly safe walking around this city at any time of night.

I am just absolutely torn right now. It has been keeping me up at night.

I am supposedly starting a new job the first week of June. I am a little ambivalent about it, but I will have a try... It should be interesting. I am sure that I will learn a great deal in one way or another. It could open some things up to me. I shall see how it goes.

I began my Chinese classes last week. Already they have changed the teache ron me, but I think that it will work out. It is such a crazy language. My teacher says that I have great pronounciation. I do better than I had thought that I would with the tones...but only really on single words...or no more than 3 strung together. I am struggling with the tones when there are 4 or more strung together. But i have only had 3 lessons so far. Hopefully with practice it will become easier. I am also working on writing my first 7 characters. NOT an easy task. Amazing how effortless people make it look.

I am anxious to go back and visit. Anxious to bring back some creature comforts that I ignorantly left behind. I think that how I feel when I visit and when I return here will decide if I am going to make a real,m true serious go of having a long-term life here. It will be damn close to a year and a half at that point.

Part of me cannot help but feel that I will have failed if I go back too soon. Which is so silly and just plain ridiculous. But I do feel like that.

I also have absolutely no idea what I would do if I did move back to Louisville.

Not that I have any real idea of what the bloody hell I am doing here.

While I can appreciate being "unconventional," as Papa puts it...honestly, it sucks. My life is so unreparably twisted up at this point. "I wish that I knew what I know now...when I was younger. I wish that I knew what I know now...when I was stronger." But it isn;t so, and it cannot be. But it really sucks. Sometimes these facts keep me up at night as well.

I am not so sure that I am cut out for life.

It is always the same damn problems...lack of motivation, lack of energy, lack of drive, lack of vision...

Things that I have come to realize that I want...well, the realization was probably too late...and now I have to transition to accepting the fact that they will most likely never happen. Time just ticks away much too quickly.