Friday, May 11, 2012

The Ups and Downs of PC Life

Obviously life isn't all care bears and rainbows and the last couple of weeks I've had some difficulties. I don't think I'm suffering hormonal problems, but the past couple of weeks my tear ducts have been on overdrive. I think that I'm more than ready to see all you folks at home and am a bit homesick, and without classes for the last couple of weeks I had nothing to keep me busy. I cried for various reasons, for example one day I watched My Girl and I was a complete mess - Why did Thomas J have to step on that bee hive? Other times I've been looking at my photo wall and wondering how different everyone is going to be when I come back and the waterworks begin. Also, my problem is the cyclical/wave process of adjustment. Just as I think, "I've got this! I'm ready for anything that Nicaragua can throw at me." and then the next day I'm like, "Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! Not happening, what am I doing here?!"
I've got a perfect example of just this.... One day last week, there was a giant, ugly beetle trying to crawl into my house without thinking I killed it and tossed it into my backyard. I was pretty proud of myself, well it was pretty short lived because the next day as I was showering I spotted a huge spider (like the size of my hand with legs and all), I was terrified. Being mid-shower there's little I could do, so I whipped off my flip flop and swatted it a few times; not quite sure if it was completely dead I gingerly pushed it towards my shower drain. Mind you my shower drain is a large hole with a diameter of about 3 inches, just as the spider reached the edge of the abyss, a giant frog jumped out and ate the spider. I let out a blood curdling scream and quickly ended my shower. I should be grateful for the frog and grateful that it was a frog coming out of the drain and not my least favorite critter on Earth, the rat; but I still don't appreciate the fact that I've got a giant frog living in my shower drain. I went from being completely fine with the insects that co-exist with me to being terrified of a frog living in my bathroom and wishing that I had an indoor, frog-free bathroom.
So before you feel really sorry for me and think that I'm having a terrible experience. You need to know that it's only some days where I could easily hop on a plane and go home, but there are other days that I love. Like working with my students and teaching them the little that I know about gardening. Or the other day I gave a class on responsible parenting, yes it's part of the science curriculum, a sub-topic of the reproductive system. Well, it came at a perfect time because the week before on of my 5th grade, 12 year old students left with her 20 year old boyfriend; if you're gasping in shock and shaking your head,  I had the same reaction; and unfortunately it's more common here than I would like to think about. My lesson consisted of them brainstorming characteristics and responsibilities of responsible moms and dads. After generating a good list and discussing the differences between the responsibilities of moms and dads and having a conversation that not all families have an equal balance between males and females but for the future fathers they could change that in the future. Luckily, we all agreed (including me) that parenthood is a big responsibility that none of us is ready for, just yet.
Even though I have good days and bad days, I'm having a good time overall and today couldn't get any better since I'm sitting in a coffee shop, listening to 89.3 The Current MPR live stream and enjoying WiFi, coffee and an escape from my cowboy territory that I normally live in.
Hope you're all doing well and have the countdown going with me...62 days!!