Tired Sore Confused

I just returned from two three cold days and two frigid nights in the mountains. The youth group I work with (my students who are privileged enough to see a different side of me) had a training in the mountains on "Team Building." This is a good topic since team work is not a well practiced concept in Bulgaria. However, team work really wasn't much of what they worked on. It was more of an exploration into the goals of the organization, which is also a good thing. And, it does help build the team, since it shows them the common goal toward which they are working.

I have mentioned before that there is a conflict between this organizations and the teachers/admin at my school. I foresee a development in this conflict... There will be three different exchanges that the kids will go on. Three different countries. Three different sets of absences. Three times our director will get the raw end of severals teachers' anger. I fear I will be in the middle. We got the opportunity to talk about this problem. While it raised the blood pressure of some to potentially lethal levels, it was a productive and constructive discussion. I hope.

I hope. I may be speaking too soon.

I discovered exactly how fickle I am. At one point in this particular conversation I said to myself, "How can I work in this situation? Stuck between two groups who adamantly refuse to cooperate? That's it, I quit!" Only minutes later when the argument progressed I found myself thinking, "Mmhm, that's right! See, there's some productive thinking! I can't WAIT till we do that!" huh? Fickle!

It turns out spring in Razlog is very much like fall. It's colorful. Very cold at night. Chilly in the mornings and evenings. There are a few quite pleasant hours of warmth when the sunshines. And the thunderstorms are very intense. I love thunderstorms generally. But we had at least one hearty thunderstorm a week at the beginning of the fall, and spring looks about the same. These things get annoying.

At any rate... I spent the weekend with this group of students. I'm exhausted of Bulgarian only. I'm tired of being cold. Most importantly, I'm tired of this teeter-totter where I see the potential of something great and then see it beaten to a pulp, smashed to shreds with a meat tenderizer, or smeared with rot and left in the searing sun to decompose. I try to be realistic- to balance the positive and the negative,- to balance my idealism, pessimism, and optimism. I find this so incredibly tiring. It's a waiting game. It's a roller coaster.

Here's the cycle: I see something fabulously bursting with potential. I find interested parties. It proceeds and dies from one of two deaths: 1) Interested parties loose interest and/or motivation and/or 2) Opposition firmly kills said potential. I then plummet into a pit of frustration and unproductive thoughts (yeah, I know it's unproductive. Isn't that what I just said?). This pit is where I linger until something very happy draws me out. Each time I plummet into the pit, I lose parts of myself. This loss creates a type of lightness which increases the speed with which I ascend and descend out of the pit, making each more difficult and causing me to lose more of myself.

Don't you see? After another year there will be nothing left? I will be nothing more than a shell of me being tossed back and forth like a ping pong ball.

Whatevs, I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Changes in Links
I made a few changes to my links. I took off a couple PCVs who've returned to America. Maybe I'll make an RPCV section after a while. I've added a few links that are interesting to me... three blogs that are concerned with local issues. LaVergne, the town in which my permanant residence is currently located; Smyrna, the town next to that; and Del Norte County, the county in which I was born, which I believe has some of the most beautiful landscapes in North American (not exaggerating - *Redwood National Park*), is home to a large chunk of my extended family, and one of the hardest places to live in California I believe. Just so ya know.