One Week Down...

*leaving the castle



One week down, at language camp that is, and here is what I have come to realize.

I am very glad that I came to the language camp and met several other people that are currently in the same boat, that I'm sailing along in; dealing with the same thoughts, feelings, emotions. However I would have liked to experience this for a couple of days and then to have returned to this new life that I am forming, because this is how I feel....

I feel as though I had one week in which I began to figure things out, I began to settle and adjust and aclimate, if you will, and in being here at this language camp I feel like I have stepped back into America, and I am really ready to dive into the Czech culture the Czech ways, I guess what I'm saying is that I am ready to take hold of the Czech life and run with it.

It is simply the dynamics of the group ( which is good don't get me wrong) but the things that go on within the group, the occurences, happenings, are so very much what home is all about and I'm not at home anymore, and so I expect to be experiencing something very different, which I did for the first week----I'm just ready to go back is all.

I actually miss my host family, which is sort of a strange thought, but I was just starting to really get comfortable with them, to settle, and I picked up and was uprooted.

I am having a very good time here, trying to learn as much Czech as possible, because my goal by the end of this thing, to get mistaken as a Czech native, I want to have submerged myself so far in the culture that I'm talking, dressing, and seeming as though I have been one of them all along.

I have about a week left here at language camp, and I've decided that I'm going all in, I am completely emersing myself in this language, diving in, studying like no other, because until I get this language down, communication will be a struggle, it is funny though how as you go along you are able to understand more and more of conversations----because your vocabulary and skills are improving. I find the process of how languages are learned rather fascinating, when you just jump in the culture and run with it. I hadn't done that since I was younger and went in an English speaker and came out fleunt in Arabic( which I have now promised myself I am going to pick it back up one of these days)

My Birthday is in Nine days, and I have been thinking a lot lately about the past year, about the events, the occurences, but mostly about how I grew throughout the year, how I was simply able to gain from it all the deeper understanding of who I am, that I will surely continue to develop as the years go on. And last year as I'm sure many of you know, at about this time I had decided that my 16th year, was going to be "THE YEAR" and I have to admit it was pretty good, in fact it got me here. However, I am going to say it again, because I do believe that this quite possibly could also be " THE YEAR" because I've just realized that it's in thinking that, that actually makes it "THE YEAR" and so it's going to be. Because I decided, because I choose to put that postive energy out there.

It is rather interesting the way in which I miss home, it doesn't upset me, or cause me to become really sad, I just miss it sometimes, and am okay in missing it. It doesn't so much seem real I guess is what I'm trying to say, like it almost feels as though home and everything connected to it was an entirely different life, and I am able to hold onto distant memories that existed during that time. And in ways in doesn't feel like life is going on there, although I realize that it is, but when you remove yourself this far an in this aspect you feel like you have perhaps entered an entirely different time period, anyways it's just weird the way in which I miss home.

The way I miss people is a bit different, because it's people you miss more than places or things, and there are so many things that go on here that I would love to have people from home beside me to see them, and enjoy them, because I know they would. Like we went on this amazing hike yesterday 7km and it made me think of Yosemite and that HIKE FROM HELL, and the snow and how we were NOT ALLOWED to stop, because some people have OCD and have to be able to say they got to the top( which we didn't by the way). Anyways I just wish you would have been there, it was a setting in which it would have been fitting for you to be along.

Or there will be times when I want to share with someone what just occured, or what just happened and they arn't right there to tell, and I can't just pick up the phone and call, and i don't have immediate access to a computer, and by the time I get to one the moment will have passed and it won't matter anyways.

Its small things like that, that I'm dealing with, but I have to tell you as time passes, and I am here for longer and longer it all is getting a lot better. I start remebering that people arn't here, that they arn't going to be, and that I will be perfectly fine without them for a year. Because although I miss them and enjoy having them in my life and gain so very much from them, this year is not meant to be spent missing, but living.

I hope all is well, wherever you find yourself as you read this
Vancouver, Washington, Ecuador, Coventry, or any of the several other locations in this world
and know that whatever you are going through
it will pass
because all things do
even the good one's
so enjoy things in the "now"
and don't worry about the later.
Missing you--- but living at the same time
Tahani