Living Over Here

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I moved here. I could say it's flown by, and it truly has. I could also say that it feels like I've lived here for a while. I don't know if I'm still just feeling like everything's good and being willing to overlook the hard stuff, or if I'm truly beginning to feel settled in. Sometimes I walk out of my apartment, and find that I'm a little shocked to be living here in this country. Sometimes I can forget that I don't speak the language, that I can't get hardly anywhere on my own, that I am a world away from where I was only 3 weeks ago. It's just too easy to be involved in work and with the process of living (which just takes longer than it did before), to really have much time to sit around and think about it. 

Probably I'm lucky - I feel so thankful to finally be here. I feel like this is what I've been waiting for, what I've been wanting. I think that makes it easy to look past what's hard and keep focused on the adventure of it all. I love that I get to ride my bike everywhere, that I can't always understand what's going on, that people think I'm so weird that they turn around and stop to look at the foreigner riding her bike. I love that the weather has been warm, but mild, that the hallways of our school are all outside. I love that every morning I get to ride past the park and watch the people exercising, playing badminton, doing Ti Chi. I love that there are all these trees that are covered in yellow flowers. I love trying new kinds of noodles to see what I like, and I love that I'm getting the hang of chopsticks. I love that I'm starting to feel ok even when there's tons of traffic, and that I'm realizing when it's ok to pull out into the middle of the intersection when the light is red - and when it's not. I love that it's still so new and interesting, and completely different than anything I've experienced before.

But I'm not at home here, which most of the time is completely obvious. I can't buy anything in the market or on the street or in a small store without help. I can't understand the simplest phrases, and I can't understand when they tell me how much things cost. I can't find my way to new places, because I can't tell one road from the other. I have a hard time finding my way back to places that I've been, because nothing is marked, and most of the time it seems that everything looks the same. I can't order my own food in a restaurant; if my bike breaks, I can't tell them what is wrong. I don't know the culture, or what I should or shouldn't do. I need help for everything. 

And sometimes, I suddenly realize that I can't just get in my car and drive to see my closest friends. I suddenly realize that it's going to be long time until I see them next, and that their lives will have kept on moving and changing, and that I will have missed so much. And that's the hardest thing. Somehow I think it will keep on being just the hardest thing.

I haven't really had that many adventures yet; everything has been so focused on getting school started. Now the first week of school is over - and it went eerily well. I feel like it can't go on continuing this well, that it just has to get more difficult. My students are good - not perfect - but really good. So it makes it easy for me to focus on the teaching part and not worry too much about discipline. I think, so far, that teaching is interesting, because you never really know what the kids will do or say. It's never the same from one day to the other. But I think it would be easy to just give out information and bore them to tears - so I'll have to work hard to avoid that! But now that school is started, and the first week is past, I feel much more comfortable with my role and place here. I even feel (most of the time) like I know what I'm doing... So, I'm looking forward to traveling some in the next few months. I'll keep you posted, should I have any adventures!