Skip to main content

I've got no reason, but that I must

"My young heart's in tatters and I'm sure
that it will be a long time healing"


Life gets mightily confusing sometimes.

I am okay. In fact I'm more than okay. I am happy and so grateful for my life, past and present. But I am also hurting. There is a pain in my heart, a sorrow that can catch me unaware on an otherwise perfectly normal day. Other thoughts crowd me too. Thoughts of home. I daydream about moving back to Bristol, of being near my family and reconnecting with old friends.

Living here is hard work. Learning about cultural differences is fascinating but it is also exhausting. I always have to assume that my actions and reactions are not perceived by those around me in the usual way and that how I perceive the actions and reactions of others will never be accurate. How can we form meaningful relationships with each other if we cannot understand each other? And yet somehow it is possible...

After only 14 weeks here I'm sure these feelings are natural.

As I write this I can hear the chitter-chatter of children at lunch, the rain slapping the ground outside, and the distant drone of the call to prayer. This place is so alive with sound. Colour too. I passed a cemetery the other day and it was such a beautiful sight - crosses and headstones in pastel purples, little-miss-piggy-pinks, baby blues and (if you will excuse me) graveyard green. Not a spooky place in the slightest and it was so refreshing to me, to see a cemetery so visually alive.

In conclusion, life is confusing and painful and beautiful. It must also be confusing for mice, since last night a (massive) one mistook my bedroom for a fun place to mouse around in...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where's your manners?

I've got the back to work blues after a week's holiday. After one hour back at work, I'd counted how many work days are left this year; approximately 87. I know that's actually not much, but right now it feels like a death sentence. I have no motivation to plan for teaching 60 students, or to prepare seminars for 30 teachers, mainly because no-one cares what I'm doing here, or knows how much work goes into creating a course for teachers who get paid so little for the job they do that most of them (quite rightly to be fair) put professional development very low on their list of priorities.  I realise I sound like a grumpy child. That's what arriving at work to find that my desk had been moved did to me. My back is to the window (a window to the hallway), exactly where I didn't want to be, and the previous teacher's junk has been left in a dusty pile on the floor for me to clean up.  If only it was that simple... Wanna know what else is annoyi...
2 comments
Read more

Schtuff

I love getting rid of stuff. I have already donated 7 bin bags of clothes and I'm not done! To use my Mum's terminology (and encouragement), I am taking a brutal approach to deciding what to take with me to Batam. If it's not essential and it doesn't have long-term sentimental value, it's got no chance. My goal is to take just one suitcase with me, so being brutal is the only way!
Post a Comment
Read more

Holidays are coming, holidays are coming...

Two more days of work and then 12 days holiday. I'm more than ready to say goodbye to my desk after three weeks (three weeks!!) of no teaching due to two weeks of exams taking place and one week of....uh, post-exam taking place-stuff? I miss my students. I miss having an active job; a reason to come to work other than admin and research. I did not move to Indonesia for a desk-job. I am looking forward to spending as much of my holiday as possible sitting on a beach, drinking mango juice and learning Indonesian.  Tis the season to be jolly...
2 comments
Read more