I have a bad habit of writing these depressing blogs when I'm feeling down and leaving them even once things get better. Therefore, it frequently happens that the first thing you see when you log into my blog page is a great indication of how I felt at one point, but rarely an indication of how I am feeling when you actually read it. There are two solutions to this problem. One would be for me to blog more often. I can't say much more about that than "I'm working on it." The second is, if you want to know how I'm feeling, drop me a line. I'm much better (although still not what you'd call "great") about responding to emails than I am about blogging.
The period of numbness I described in my previous post turned out to be fairly transitory, lasting from about ten days before that post to a couple of days afterward. I'm still not sure what caused it, but I can tell you what fixed it.
On Friday the 16th, the Amman International Church, which I am attending more often than not, had its annual Thanksgiving potluck dinner. It's a week early, as far as I can figure out, to allow those people whose families are present to celebrate the holiday privately on the correct day. Even aside from the mountains of good thanksgiving food, it was generally a nice time. There is a great deal of overlap between Whitman Academy and AIC, and so a bunch of my students and coworkers were there and I wasn't forced to pretend a false cordiality with a bunch of people I don't really know. In fact, I spent a lovely time sitting at a table with a bunch of people approximately my own age. All of them happened to be female, which elicited the predicted winks, whistles, and cross-room mouthings of "player!" from my 8th-graders, but all of us took it in stride and even managed to slide in some actual conversation between the far more important business of overeating. Afterward, in keeping with tradition, a bunch of us went outside and waddled bloatedly around chasing an American football in unpredictable directions in the dark (it's getting dark pretty early here).
The week was more or less normal. The only hiccup was that my room was TPed. Now, apparently this is traditional at Whitman, happening to a different teacher every year. It was so traditional, in fact, that another teacher actually witnessed the event and allowed it to continue. I didn't know this, and I didn't take it how it was intended, as a harmless prank. In fact, my reaction was to take it as a personal attack. I was wounded, asking myself what I'd done to merit this kind of treatment. The teacher I mentioned, noticing my reaction, actually cried about it afterward, and the students involved felt terrible. Later in the day, one of them bought me flowers, and they all apologized to me, after which I felt better and things continued.
On Thursday, I had my second thanksgiving dinner in 7 days. This one took place at Michelle Griffin's house (another teacher) and was attended by 2 families and a few other singles (all of them older). We played card games, watched a little TV, and just generally relaxed. I stuffed four plates of food in my face, presided over one guest's first piece of thanksgiving turkey EVER (he's Dutch), and felt great.
The following morning (Friday if you're losing track), I got up ridiculously early to get on a bus and go to Petra. I was accompanied by Sara Kim and Brittany Snyder, teachers with me, and a friend of Sara's named Carrie. We rode the bus for two and a half hours, after which it disgorged our bleary-eyed selves on the outskirts of Petra itself. I've been there before, but let me reiterate: this is absolutely one of the most beautiful, awe-inspiring places on earth. Everyone should try to get here at least once in their lifetime. I stayed in a cheap (but clean) hotel, walked up approximately 2,000 stairs (if I'm exaggerating it's not by much) and back down, rode a horse, lost my glasses and found them again, spent a pile of money I didn't really have, ate some pretty good pizza and a really bad cheeseburger, and most importantly, relaxed. I had no responsibilities and I wasn't surrounded by people who judge my entire culture by my behavior. The companionship was good, the weather was close to perfect, and at this moment I'm as content as I've been since I've been in this country despite the dizzying number of blisters on my feet.
I'm glad I'm here. It's always been true, but right now it's very easy to say it and mean it. I'm doing something I believe in, and in the gaps in it there are a lot of idyllic little interludes as just described. I am beginning to consider seriously whether I should come back next year.
That said, I'm also glad to be going home. I'll be arriving at Minneapolis airport on Dec 17th at 8:06 PM and leaving at 6:32 on December 1st. Drop me a line if you're interested in spending some time during this period. I hope I can get everybody in, because I miss you all. A lot. Even in my happiest moments.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Gush
I have reached an interesting state, one which I had sort of forgotten even existed. This is the state in which most events in my life fit in a category called "normal," which means that I generally expect them to happen and know how to deal with them when they do. Occasionally something "unusual" or "strange" or "abnormal" comes along, which requires me to be creative and think about how to deal with it. Sometimes I even succeed. This, I believe, is where most people live their lives. It is good, in a way, to rejoin them. I have a routine, a rhythm, even occasionally a plan. For the last 3-4 months, this has not been the case. I may finally be recovering from a kind of punch-drunkenness caused by having to adapt to so many elements in my life (and the removal of so many familiar ones).
At the same time, for reasons I don't entirely understand, I am withdrawing into myself. I have a perfectly good personality which I exhibit to the world, altering it as necessary in the direction of solemnity or levity, frustration or happiness, conversation or silence, or any of the other moods and demeanors life and work require. However, I increasingly find that this external self does not mirror what I actually feel. Most of the time, I don't feel much.
There was a time, not long ago (I mentioned it to some of you), when I was given to overreaction to whatever happened to me. I especially noticed it in the area of anger. Relatively trivial things would cause outbursts of rage, or rather "inbursts" because nobody ever saw them but me. If you know me well enough, this is not surprising on one level; this is how I get angry. I seethe internally (and usually briefly) rather than displaying my anger. Until recently, the aberration was how often I would get angry, and how angry I would get. Both were way beyond what I'd consider healthy levels, and way beyond the norm for me.
Now, however, the pendulum has swung the other way. I feel like a limb that has fallen asleep from being slept on wrong. Such a limb feels pressure, or even sharp and ordinarily painful blows, as a vague and distant sensation lost in a sort of general deadness. Simultaneously, the limb can't function properly. It loses its ability to sense its own movements. When you try to pick up something and your hand has fallen asleep, you either grip it too tightly or not tightly enough, because you can't really tell how tight your grip is. The equipment that normally gives you that information is malfunctioning.
The analogy is nearly exact. It takes a lot to get through to me these days. I am a person who loves to laugh, and it's taken the people I work with and for very little time to figure that out. Repeatedly over the past week or so, attentive and well-meaning students have been asking me questions like what's wrong, or why I'm so sad or angry. I'm not, particularly, but what's prompting them to ask is that I'm not laughing as much. Things I'd normally enjoy and laugh at are instead being greeted with a blank look or even a disdainful sneer. If a merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance, then what I've just described is certainly the outward expression of this bizarre emotional limpness and attenuation. I still crack wise at the slightest provocation or none at all, I still greet people sunnily as they walk by, I still converse on various topics of people, but it's all at some kind of remove, as if the words are being spoken by somebody else whom I'm trying my best to understand, but it's not working.
I also can't tell how well I'm doing. I teach, and give quizzes, and the students seem to be learning what I'm teaching them. I don't have any serious behavior issues as far as I can tell, and a couple parents told me at the recent parent-teacher conferences that their kid told them one of my classes was their favorite. So as far as I can objectively tell, I'm doing ok, yet I don't have the satisfaction that used to come with doing something well. Maybe it's getting lost in the fog.
There are definitely things that still cause strong reactions one way or the other. Last week, a family from the school was blacklisted by the authorities (the reasons aren't entirely clear), and if nothing has changed in the next 5 days, they will be forced to leave the country. While I wouldn't presume to make any judgments about who has the right to be in this country and who does not, the mere fact that they are being forced to leave, that four young people are having their roots torn up so suddenly and traumatically, that a family's entire livelihood now has to be reestablished in a strange land somewhere, has punctured this weird bubble I'm in to fill me with impotent rage and grief. The oldest girl, one of my students, is a joyful, even bubbly young lady, who for the past few days (since she got the news) has been valiantly trying to keep a smile on her face, but it doesn't reach her eyes. She'll forget, sometimes, for a while, and at those times she fills the space around her with a glorious aura of youth and joy and innocent gladness just to be alive, and then there's a gap in the conversation and she remembers, and the room sort of gets a little colder and darker. To look into her eyes at that moment would melt a heart much harder than mine, if such a thing exists in my current state.
I am richly blessed. I have more than enough money, a great living situation, an important and often rewarding job, good food, good spiritual support, and regular contact with those of you who care about me back home. I have absolutely no reason to be in this state. I can't understand it, but I want it to end. Joy is conspicuously missing from my life right now, and it's affecting my work, my personal relationships, my rest, my psychological health, and my relationship with the source and object of all Joy. This must cease. Humanly speaking, I'm on a burnout pace right now. If burnout is what God has in store for me, then burnout it will be; it's a risk I took, coming here. But I'd like to avoid it, because if I flame out and crash now, I won't just be hurting my insignificant self, I'll be letting down a bunch of sweet kids, a dozen kind and dedicated coworkers, and a lot of self-sacrificing parents. Less importantly (but it's still on my mind) I'll be establishing a pattern of failure that might be hard to shake as life goes on.
This might be one of those things that I reread tomorrow and feel the need to revise. We'll see. I hope so.
At the same time, for reasons I don't entirely understand, I am withdrawing into myself. I have a perfectly good personality which I exhibit to the world, altering it as necessary in the direction of solemnity or levity, frustration or happiness, conversation or silence, or any of the other moods and demeanors life and work require. However, I increasingly find that this external self does not mirror what I actually feel. Most of the time, I don't feel much.
There was a time, not long ago (I mentioned it to some of you), when I was given to overreaction to whatever happened to me. I especially noticed it in the area of anger. Relatively trivial things would cause outbursts of rage, or rather "inbursts" because nobody ever saw them but me. If you know me well enough, this is not surprising on one level; this is how I get angry. I seethe internally (and usually briefly) rather than displaying my anger. Until recently, the aberration was how often I would get angry, and how angry I would get. Both were way beyond what I'd consider healthy levels, and way beyond the norm for me.
Now, however, the pendulum has swung the other way. I feel like a limb that has fallen asleep from being slept on wrong. Such a limb feels pressure, or even sharp and ordinarily painful blows, as a vague and distant sensation lost in a sort of general deadness. Simultaneously, the limb can't function properly. It loses its ability to sense its own movements. When you try to pick up something and your hand has fallen asleep, you either grip it too tightly or not tightly enough, because you can't really tell how tight your grip is. The equipment that normally gives you that information is malfunctioning.
The analogy is nearly exact. It takes a lot to get through to me these days. I am a person who loves to laugh, and it's taken the people I work with and for very little time to figure that out. Repeatedly over the past week or so, attentive and well-meaning students have been asking me questions like what's wrong, or why I'm so sad or angry. I'm not, particularly, but what's prompting them to ask is that I'm not laughing as much. Things I'd normally enjoy and laugh at are instead being greeted with a blank look or even a disdainful sneer. If a merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance, then what I've just described is certainly the outward expression of this bizarre emotional limpness and attenuation. I still crack wise at the slightest provocation or none at all, I still greet people sunnily as they walk by, I still converse on various topics of people, but it's all at some kind of remove, as if the words are being spoken by somebody else whom I'm trying my best to understand, but it's not working.
I also can't tell how well I'm doing. I teach, and give quizzes, and the students seem to be learning what I'm teaching them. I don't have any serious behavior issues as far as I can tell, and a couple parents told me at the recent parent-teacher conferences that their kid told them one of my classes was their favorite. So as far as I can objectively tell, I'm doing ok, yet I don't have the satisfaction that used to come with doing something well. Maybe it's getting lost in the fog.
There are definitely things that still cause strong reactions one way or the other. Last week, a family from the school was blacklisted by the authorities (the reasons aren't entirely clear), and if nothing has changed in the next 5 days, they will be forced to leave the country. While I wouldn't presume to make any judgments about who has the right to be in this country and who does not, the mere fact that they are being forced to leave, that four young people are having their roots torn up so suddenly and traumatically, that a family's entire livelihood now has to be reestablished in a strange land somewhere, has punctured this weird bubble I'm in to fill me with impotent rage and grief. The oldest girl, one of my students, is a joyful, even bubbly young lady, who for the past few days (since she got the news) has been valiantly trying to keep a smile on her face, but it doesn't reach her eyes. She'll forget, sometimes, for a while, and at those times she fills the space around her with a glorious aura of youth and joy and innocent gladness just to be alive, and then there's a gap in the conversation and she remembers, and the room sort of gets a little colder and darker. To look into her eyes at that moment would melt a heart much harder than mine, if such a thing exists in my current state.
I am richly blessed. I have more than enough money, a great living situation, an important and often rewarding job, good food, good spiritual support, and regular contact with those of you who care about me back home. I have absolutely no reason to be in this state. I can't understand it, but I want it to end. Joy is conspicuously missing from my life right now, and it's affecting my work, my personal relationships, my rest, my psychological health, and my relationship with the source and object of all Joy. This must cease. Humanly speaking, I'm on a burnout pace right now. If burnout is what God has in store for me, then burnout it will be; it's a risk I took, coming here. But I'd like to avoid it, because if I flame out and crash now, I won't just be hurting my insignificant self, I'll be letting down a bunch of sweet kids, a dozen kind and dedicated coworkers, and a lot of self-sacrificing parents. Less importantly (but it's still on my mind) I'll be establishing a pattern of failure that might be hard to shake as life goes on.
This might be one of those things that I reread tomorrow and feel the need to revise. We'll see. I hope so.
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