For some reason I have developed the habit of crying every time I someone else cries. In fact... I haven't cried at all here without the triggering of another's tears! Today was my counterpart's last day teaching the 1st and 2nd years. Monday is her last day overall, and I'm sure there will be a rainstorm of tears then. I've never seen students so attached to a teacher before. They have written her poems, signed petitions, and well... have cried too. Elsona, my counterpart, was really the best counterpart I could've asked for and I could not be any happier with the time we have spent together. She has become a wonderful teacher and a best friend. I am going to miss her a lot, but I know we will still continue to work together. It will be interesting to begin working with my new counterpart on Tuesday. We have never met so I am really clueless as to how Tuesday will go. It kind of feels odd...the idea of walking into school, meeting my new counterpart, and then suddenly co-teaching together in a class mid-school year. I guess we'll see how that goes down.
To keep the topic on feelings, I've decided to put my emotional energy into various things. Along with exercise (and umm...retail therapy), I have decided to begin writing poems... in Albanian. I have also decided to study for the GRE. I don't even know if I want to take the GRE, but I thought studying would be a good idea just in case. What's the harm in becoming a little more academic, right? The biggest outlet I've found seems to be my sense of adventure taking over. I've been all over the place lately...both physically and mentally. Now, this ubiquitous sensation isn't a bad thing as it might sound. It's actually wonderful. I feel like both mentally and physically my wanderlust is being filled, and along with it this giant sense of luck has taken over me. Every time something that I normally would consider bad or unfortunate happens, I just smile because I know that right behind it is something really awesome. It's like receiving a dirty old box as a present only to open it and find your favorite jewelry inside (in my case something tacky and covered in sparkles...likely an animal or plant of some sort...God I have terrible taste). Anyway, it's awesome... and like my hypothetical jewelry, my adventures are cheap, over the top, and they have brought me way more happiness than they should. I like being lucky! Maybe it's my lucky year :)
I dip into feelings of longing and immediately bounce to feelings of excitement and mostly the feeling of "new." I love Spring because Spring is the season of growth and freshness (and my birthday!). After a year in, what better way to begin than by being refreshed. In the winter I spent a lot of time feeling detached from America, and recently I've decided that, well, I don't care about becoming detached anymore. I have a year left. That is not a lot of time. I'd really like for myself to focus on me this year. And my life in Albania. I always say that..although extremely philanthropic, Peace Corps is selfish time. It's my very own experience that nobody else gets to have or fully understand. I bought a diary to document all of the things that are sometimes hard to say out loud, and I am excited to read it one year down the road.
I've got a lot of feelings people! haha... Happy Spring! Enjoy these photos :)
how did you kill the rooster?
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