So, I am looking at my blog page and realising that it has
been over a month since my last post. It is not that I have had a lack of
material, in fact I have three or four ideas for posts currently floating
around in the back of my mind and/or scrawled in notebooks, but lately finding
the time, energy and motivation to sit down and write has been really hard.
When I am writing my blog I am always acutely aware of the fact that other
people (many of whom I have never even met) will be reading my musings and as
an aspiring writer that is really exciting at times, but it can also end up
being something of a stumbling block as I find I am constantly fighting the
urge to sugar coat the experience and only write about the
good experiences whilst pretending the not so great ones never
happened (at least as far as everyone else is concerned).
Whilst many parts of this experience so far have been
absolutely amazing- looking back in years to come I will cherish having had
this opportunity- the reality is that some days this is just plain hard! In
fact the last few weeks, it has been (with perhaps a few notable
exceptions I will tell you all about on another occasion) really not much
fun at all.
Over the past few weeks my placement has been rather
stressful to say the least. For one thing I have been unwell for a few weeks
now, which isn't fun at the best of times and is even less fun when your family
and friends are 7000kms away. On top of this I have recently had a rather large
change in my placement situation (driven by a number of complex reasons) which
means I am now at Le Hong Phong High School by myself and thus the only
Australian in town. Whilst the transition period was a little bumpy at times I
seem to be settling into a new routine and as I am a fairly independent person
I usually don't find being alone too overwhelming... but there have been times
when it is all just too much, when classes are exhausting, when I am nursing a
headache, when I am homesick and when things just aren't quite falling into
place that the idea of packing it in and jumping on a plane back to Australia
really has some appeal. I am yet to actually head to the airport but there has
by now been more than one teary-eyed phone call home (often with awful timing-
aka 3am Australian time... I really have the best Mum ever!), way too many
m&m's eaten and several contemplative walks around Vi Xuyen lake in the
early hours of the evening.
At times I find I try and reassure myself with clichéd
affirmations and by telling myself that things will soon be better, but at
times I find myself struggling to believe my own words. My family back home
constantly support and encourage me and remind me how proud they are, and
knowing they are rooting for me has helped me through days were I have felt
like I would never be able to make it otherwise and I feel so lucky to have
such love and support behind me. As I hang up the phone after our weekly (or
recently more often) chats I find myself simultaneously happier and somewhat
melancholy knowing they are so far away. In the in between times I do my best
to search for joy wherever I can find it such as the bizarre communication
conundrums that emerge almost daily and would be maddening if they weren’t so
funny, or smiles from my students who excitedly greet me each morning or in the
role play activity this week with my English major classes that left everyone
laughing so much it took a good five or ten minutes to get the class under
control again. Moments like these drive me on the days when everything else
seems overwhelming and ultimately these are the moments that I will probably
look back on with the fondest memories once I return to Australia.
As hard as things have been lately it is harder still to
think that I only have a month to go until I finish my time in Nam Dinh and say
goodbye to teachers and students that have had such a wonderful and profound
impact on my life over the past few months. And at the end of the day I
wouldn’t trade this experience for anything, not even the hard parts…
“ Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by
the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain
