Sunday 21st June 2009
What IS the purpose in having a blog, I wonder? Is it to rant? To complain? To record the progress of your days/weeks/months in a strange new place. Why DO I write this blog and why, just lately, am I writing less than in the past?
Hehe! Yes, OK, my friends you are right. I'm in a “What To Do?” moment here since I am without my Mobily internet tonight. My choice of Things To Do is either watch David Attenborough, go get some more tea, get an EXTREMELY early night, play (maybe) Sims 3 on my phone (want to play FIFA Manager but it's stuck again and I gotta start afresh!! Ohh and I had SUCH a good team!!).
Or …. do what I enjoy doing. And that is to sit and write. It is something that keeps me going, an outpouring of feelings good (not much) and bad and will form a record of my time here in this strange land long after I return. Maybe it will be worth publishing. I would buy one anyway!
Digress Digress Digress. Should have been my middle name.
Anyway …. after last week's mayhem there is a feeling building up inside me. And it is not a positive one.
I knew, of course, that being here would not be easy. Alone and only having one aim in mind is not the best way to pass 12 months.
I feel things are slipping away from me. Positivity is a small thing here and what I have of it is dwindling.
Imagine if I had no internet. No contact with the outside world, with my friend and family out there.
No No NOOOO!! Better NOT imagine!! For it is THIS and pretty much this ALONE which keeps the wolf from my door. With my internet “life” I have something to look forward to. I have people who are GLAD to see me every day and evening when I log on to my Skype account. They are a VITAL part of what keeps me going. I don't only mean family back in
Online life is a blessing and a curse in one package. Without it we are stuck ONLY in the small environment we live in day to day. It is an 'extension' and, indeed, a compliment to our regular live at work and enhances our social lives. Many people we meet online becomes the best of friends. Even though they are often far away, it is always a pleasure to see them.
As the song from the sitcom “Cheers” used to go, “Sometimes You Want To Go Where Everybody Knows Your Name And They're Always Glad You Came!”. And THAT encompasses life on the web chat lands.
However … of course many of you will say, “Yes, but the internet cannot be a REAL substitute for REAL LIFE! We can get hooked on it and lock the outside world, the REAL world out of sight! It can make us crazy!”
Crazy I would NOT agree with. Of course, every normal person has a life outside the web too. Start chatting with someone new from your town and you EXTEND your social circle, not decrease it.
But then there are those you might talk to who are far away that you have little chance of meeting.
Perhaps you really want to. And THIS is where web chat can frustrate and annoy.
The way I see it is this. I am keeping in touch with people I used to know from
I think I'm babbling a bit here and am now wondering what the hell I'm writing about. So back to my feelings right now.
Loneliness. I've known it plenty these past few years. Coming to a country like
I consider myself fairly easy-going, but in a place like this it is almost impossible to maintain that. Anyone whop has read my blog so far and SURVIVED it can understand me on THAT I hope. Plus in the last few years with events in my personal life going “pear shaped”, it has made me less tolerant and much more unsettled in myself and in where I am and where I want to be.
Yes, I don't like it here. No, I don't keep my mouth shut about it. No, I don't tolerate it. Yes, maybe I SHOULD but I don't feel I can since it is all too new, too foreign and too different. Should I just ACCEPT what I have here (or don't have here) and try and make the best of it?
Well, I can't.
It's the isolation. The fact that we really CAN'T get out of this compound and go easily into town and do the normal things we can back home. Not without the expense and inconvenience of a taxi ride both ways.
Yes, maybe I had it too good where I was before where all I had to do was take a short, straight-line wander into town to enjoy all there. And where at weekends, even when there was little else to do, I could at LEAST take a walk round and explore some new parts of the town. And have a leisurely coffee while I was at it.
It was a hard thing to give up. I did it for one reason only – MONEY! NOT a good reason but I felt I had no choice at that time and I felt I could not go on with the money struggle that was taking over my life.
I HAD to do something and coming here was what I did.
Was it a mistake to make a decision based almost entirely on financial need (and some might even say “greed”)?
I have just got to the 'calendar end' of my third month here. And how SLOWWWWWLY the time has passed, and how LITTLE I have done here. And, I must say, how little I am LIKELY to do here except earn nice money and not spend it.
Many of you, struggling back in Europe under the current recession will say, “Well be THANKFUL you have a job at ALL in these difficult times!”, or, “Why complain about good money?”, or even, “You made a good decision ducking out of Europe at a time like this!”.
My teaching colleague now does his own thing. I have spent the last two weekends doing the weekly shop and drinking coffee and eating cake on my own.
Perhaps he is tired of my negativity and pessimism. Well he and his 'false optimism' is ALSO annoying. He goes on pretending he's having a good time and is not worried about a thing here. He puts on this front for everyone and yet he DOES dislike it here and DOES complain and DOES get frustrated just like most people do. So WHY pretend it isn't happening? Why pretend you're having a good time when nothing IS happening? He knows, as well as I do, that the only weekend entertainment likely is shopping mall based. And yet he said he “enjoyed” it when two weekends ago he spend the WHOLE DAY in the Ikea store.
One thing I do NOT like is false optimism and people who pretend. And then those SAME people try to tell me not to be so negative and that I should relax and take it EASY more.
But EVERY WEEK there is SOMETHING NEW that unsettles me. I try to get into a 'survival routine' here but I cannot because some new thing comes along to disrupt that. This business with the locked gate. Yes, that problem seems to be solved now with the bus that we get. But I didn't WANT or NEED this disruption. The gate was fine, it was useful, many other people used it too so WHY mess things up?
I DO try to keep hold of positives but they keep slipping away. No internet this week – this is YET ONE MORE thing to annoy the HELL OUT OF ME!!
When I think about the summer, it seems like a great oasis. Such a great sense of freedom I will feel when I am on that plane taking off from the airport in either
I will feel like I am back in paradise.
It will be VERY hard to come back in late September. VERY VERY hard!!
Been thinking about that a LOT recently, and especially after all that shit last week.
Why should I HAVE TO suffer all this? I don't WANT TO be in this compound 'prison' for the next nine months (OK, so it's eight if you take away my holiday!). I don't LIKE IT here and I am never GOING TO like it. I want to be where I can ENJOY life again – not SUFFER for my money!
Could I easily get a job in September elsewhere? Hah – now THIS is the question!
In theory the answer is yes because I've done it before.
But ….my CV is the problem here. I already have a gap in teaching work on it. And in addition, I ALSO have a short stay in my LAST job to explain away. And am I really considering ANOTHER early exit from a job??
What about references? And don't forget what that woman said about why SHE would not employ you again so soon (no, not HER! Another one!!)
I NEED to complete a good long-ish stint of teaching work to make my CV look better.
Yes, it IS possible that there are potential employers who would not mind about my recent job history and its breaks. But is it worth the risk? Maybe I should send out some CV's and “test the water”.
But I would be rather restricted to EU jobs where a visa is not needed since, to obtain work visas, I would need to be in my own country. Not practical.
Work-wise there are reasons why I must stay here. But it is really looking like a long haul ahead with very little localised social activity of any kind likely. Not even a coffee and chat in town.
Eight months of THAT?? Not sure I can take it.
Some of you may not think so, but I am a people person. I NEED the company of other people and I NEED places to go and things to do. And yes, this means too that I need money to do these things, and maybe that brings me back to why I am here.
But the only people I meet are those AT work and in the classroom. I see NOBODY now outside working hours at ALL. At least, no “live” people – only those I online chat with. And they come and go and are too far away anyhow.
Silence is deafening. Boredom is destructive. Do I need the money? Yes, but at what cost to MYSELF?
Do I wish I'd stayed where I was before coming here? In many ways yes. Though what I have heard about how things went after I left makes me glad I am not there now since my timetable would have collapsed completely. And that would have made me worry MORE about money.
From a social and living point of view, YES I DO wish I was still there. I had some good private students and would have had plenty more. And I had ….well, let's say another “good thing” developing on the “social” side of being there. Could have been so good! And I threw all that away!!
But when you are pressurized and under stress because of money then a decision HAS TO be made. And I DID make it and it brought me here.
What will the consequences be of that decision? Will I stay the distance?
I cannot say for sure now, though probably the answer is YES. But there is still more shit to come and this “boiled egg” head may yet crack under the strain.
Wish me luck!!
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