Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Turning 27

Note: I wrote most of this sometime in early to mid January, but never got around to publishing it until February 28th, 2008. This is due to a number of factors explained above.

I'm 27 today (January 7th, 2008). In my homeroom class this morning, I tried to lead them in singing "Happy Birthday" to their social studies teacher. The results were less that I had hoped for (they broke out laughing and giggling after the third syllable).

In any event, during my vacation, I spent a lot of time on highway busses rolling across Egypt. With all that free time staring at the passing sand, the new year's resolutions, my birthdays slowly becoming something I don't really want to celebrate, and all the major life changes and adjustments I've been making, I'm not in the best state right now.

I'm not only missing everyone in Japan, but I've got a nagging sense that I've abandoned them somehow. I think of friends and the things going on in their lives and have the strangest sense that I should be there, either to help them or for some other inexpressible purpose. But I'm not there, and it feels wrong somehow.

This is only compounded by the fact that my new job is quite a bit more job than I had anticipated. All my resolutions to not bring my work home, not work overtime unless necessary, and maintain a healthy work-life balance have pretty much all gone out the window. I'm still finding a little time to work out at the gym, but I'm basically counting days until Liberation Week, a weeklong series of holidays in Kuwait marking their independence day and the day of their liberation from Iraq.

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