And yet... somehow life goes on

These past few days I've found myself awaking in the middle of the night, and stretching out, fulling expecting to get out of my bed and standing in my room again in Berkeley. I'd scratch my back a little, then I'd have the hardest time trying to figure out what classes I'm supposed to attend today.

After wondering why I can't remember, I'd look around my room and suddenly realize once more than I'm currently sleeping in the living room of a Russian family's apartment in Kazakhstan.

Then it becoms clear - this is really my life. I'm sitting in a room, half-way across the world, and I'm speaking Russian and teaching English at a University.

It's amazing, I've been in this country for four months, and only now does the odd, dreamy reality of the situation start to settle in. This isn't to say that I'm regretting my decision at all - I enjoy teaching and the choices that I make, but one can't help but feel this general sense of loneliness that settles in after being here for 4 months (and one month at site. One starts to wonder, "I wonder what so-and-so is up to now?" or "Boy, I haven't heard from so-and-so" in a long time.

In a way, being cut off from the sort of everyday contact that's so easy in the states - 24/7 internet, calls whenever you like, or even being able to drive 5 minutes to see whoever you were interested in seeing - is humbling in a way, because news from back home trickles in once in a long while, and oftentimes the onus is on people back home to keep you posted since the facilities aren't available here. Whether it's by talking to someone for a few minutes by phone or getting an email, you start to realize that yes, even without your presence, people are still living their lives, and life is still going on back in the states. No doubt in two years when I return to the states I'll be even more shocked to see that *gasp* people have gotten jobs, have new boyfriends and girlfriends, have gotten married, have new interests, are attending different schools, have moved across the country, has taken up smoking, etc. etc. etc.

Extending the I-am-the-center-of-the-universe mentality even further, sometimes, in bouts of insanity one begins to get annoyed for little reason other than the fact that I have too much time on my hands - why doesn't he/she email me? Why doesn't he/she call me? Certainly they have the facilities to do so, I don't! Don't they mmmiiisss mee? I misss theeeeeemmmm...

And the like. Being in a different culture so far away from home lends itself to a certain degree of homesickness, which is what I'm guessing i've been experiencing lately. Do people even read this blog? Or is it just some bizarre therapy for me, writing to get my thoughts down but also secretly hope that people are reading, but simply aren't interested enough to leave comments? etc. etc. One wastes time on thoughts like these, you see.

Major news events from back home also tends to be a big part of this realization of being cut off - I'm a little luckier than some of the other volunteers being that I have some degree of internet access, but even I didn't hear about hurricane katrina until a week AFTER it hit. This is a little better, however, than say, some fellow volunteers that were in villages and heard about the hurricane just last week, perhaps 3 weeks or so after the actual event. It's amazing, really - coming from a news-addled 24/7 information system back home in the states to now relying on the occasional Kazakh news television report (that is, if you own a television) and newsweek magazines that come in every few weeks.

Just gotta deal, I guess. Write me an email! leave a comment! Keep in touch, folks.