I am becoming the laziest girl! Case and point: Last night, after the 5th year graduation and reception ceremonies at EGT, and the weekly “Friday Night Lights” Bible study which I currently live for, after the lovely walk to the lake I took with Liptak because the evening was so pleasant and I just wasn’t ready to be confined to my box yet; I should have sat down at my desk and done some serious work. I need to get out another installment of “These Slovak Lives.” I need to write up my experiences as an ETA for a compilation the Slovak Fulbright ETA’s are putting together. I just cracked open Faulkner’s “A Light in August” for an ambitious re-read. Instead however, I borrowed the Kiara Knightly version of “Pride and Prejudice” from Liptak and proceeded to stay up until midnight watching the film and all the bonus material. Then, this morning I slept in until 9:00 because I only had one class to teach at 12:20.
This isn’t me, this isn’t how I operate. I like to be busy, I like to have stuff going on, and I like a little less alone time. “Stuff going on” doesn’t have to be busy-body mile-a-minute distractions. It can mean anything from having plans to meet up with someone for coffee, a hike or bike ride, to meeting some kind of academic or professional deadline. Heck, it even means breaking down camp and hiking all day. Right now I am drowning in scads of free time but not the good kind, and I’m running out of ideas of how to spend it. I feel like I am stagnating.
Part of this is just life I am sure. I come from a large family, all through college I was on a crew team which means very close and constant quarters with a small group of girls, and I never had less than three other roommates, usually 5. This past summer I lived with a group of 12-13 other humans 24-7 for three weeks at a time, and I saw my co-leader every day from early June through August 10th. Half the time we slept in the same tent. To expect such constant social contact for the rest of my life is unrealistic, especially since I like to travel and jet off to new places. But I think I’ve literally started talking to myself, or maybe not talking to myself but just saying things out loud when there is nobody else around. Like if I’m on an (amazing) solo hike, or I’m sitting in my apartment alone at dusk feeling like I am squandering daylight and life by sitting at home alone.
But what else am I supposed do to? Working out has recently become my main release/ focus. When the rain lets up (or sometimes in the rain) there are great hikes to go on and plenty of loops to be run. I’ve even started using our school gym regularly again. But you can’t hike too far alone here because there have been some pretty fresh sightings of bear tracks (Liptak took some rad photos, maybe posted on her blog?) and I don’t know, when you’re already feeling funk-a-fied it is just so easy to say no if you are the only person holding yourself accountable.
From today I believe I have 38 days left in Slovakia. At once that seems like too much time, and not nearly enough. During the M-F grind where I am barely needed and required to do very little but don’t have time to jump on a bus and go explore somewhere else I wonder if I’ll last that long. In moments like this morning, when I was trapped in un-restful but debilitating sleep until 9:00 in the morning because frankly, what else was I going to do, 38 days feel like eternity. Yet when I count the weekends left, and try to schedule in all of the adventures I still need to have or people and places I need to see, or just realize that July 2nd really is an expiration date and closes the Slovakia chapter of my life (at least for the foreseeable future), I feel like I’m wasting time just looking at a calendar—that’s so soon! I still need to climb a big mountain in the High Tatras, go to the folklore festival in Hel’pa, see some famous caves of Slovakia and make gulas over a fire with my friends and family in Brehy for the last time!
So, instead of boring you with my extended complaining about lacking motivation and inspiration I think I should end it here. But sweet God, if you have any suggestions (or a job for me when I return to Colorado in July…) then let me know! I just have to keep reminding myself that this is an exceptional learning experience, and essentially exactly what I asked for.
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