Preparing For The Final Push

I'm looking over some notes made throughout the day of what to write about.  Summers are difficult when it comes to posts-there isn't a work schedule driving specific memories or emerging stories.  Instead, this note is populated by more mundane items: its super hot, its been a productive summer, hiding in my apartment, taking three showers a day.

Glamorous isn't it?

For a TEFL volunteer, August is a time of shifting towards newer projects.  About six months ago I wrote how the end of winter bears witness to an emergence from our cocoon and we begin to involve ourselves in projects and clubs again.  This seasonal phenomena repeats itself in August-first we hide from the extreme cold, now we cower from the extreme heat.  Our projects wane as the temperature falls too low or rises too high.  And currently, its been way too high.

But its now mid-August and I must prepare, both physically and mentally, for this final round of projects in September.  Its not like I need to get in shape for specific trainings-but the very act of getting into the habit again of leaving the house, walking to a meeting, perhaps leaving the house for two reasons even-all this is a rediscovery in a country with no air conditioning (and in a city with no clouds).

For the long summer, I've put off what must be done for September as a season away.  There will be time to select TED videos for our TEDx event, time to advertise our final three teacher trainings, time to develop the training for the new Peer Support Network volunteers.  Well, it turns out that August is halfway through, and that time is now.

This is unfortunate, because the weather is still explicitly summer, the air is still pregnant with humidity, and the movies on my hard drive are still mercifully devoid of required movement.  Frequently these past few months I've wished I had a video game system to play, but realize that would make me sweat too much (I sweat after 20 minutes of still meditation).  What can I say? I'm a sweaty guy.

Still, September comes.  And its good that its coming.  I've had a wonderfully lazy summer all to myself.  And while its been incredibly productive and eye-opening, its also has stirred less-than-pleasant feelings.  I feel bad that I never learned the language well enough to get to know all the people I have met, but I've also lived here long enough to realize there are a lot of people living here that I don't want to speak with much further.

I'm ready for some work to cleanse me of these feelings of guilt and resentment towards host country nationals.  Its nice that I get a couple months of work in before I leave.  Leaving while productive will be a final positive spin on my experience.