keeping boredom at bay

When March started I had a realization: I was going to have very little work to do this month. More than a realization, it was a fear. We know that I don't do well when I have too much free time; I've whined about it on this blog before. I wallowed in this suddenly acknowledged fact for a day, knowing that the minor damage would simply be too much wasted time spent on facebook and reading people's blogs but the real cause for anxiety, the over-arching threat that dares to permeate any bad day, was too much time to think about home and the fact that I'm not there. A day was all I needed though; after a little self-pity and a bowl of ice cream I choose the pro-active route, made a list of things to tackle this month, and set out to accomplish it.

The biggest thing on the list was to get invested in learning Vietnamese again. I acknowledged my lack of ability to study on my own and my family, while very well-intentioned, was not the way to go about it either. So after a few conversations, I found myself a language partner. Tú and I now meet three times a week (in theory at least) and it is wonderful!! She is a freshman in college and studying English. We meet in the morning here at the office (thats right, I get to do this during working hours!) then head to a near-by cafe. The goal is to speak half the time in English and half in Vietnamese which so far is going quite well. This morning we went to a cafe close to the office that I've seen since moving here and had yet to go to. It was everything I could have wanted it to be! We sat on pillows on the ground on the 3rd floor in a room with giant windows. Tú brought nail polish because of a conversation we had last week, so my work morning was filled with rich Vietnamese coffee, painting my nails and a great conversation. I feel like I'm slowly rebuilding my confidence in speaking Vietnamese, which for some reason I let myself lose. Not only do I feel productive, but it's a giant step towards busy.

Surprisingly, March is half way over and it has been really good. Due to a combination of having more work than expected and having back-up things to do when I don't, I've felt perfectly occupied. And, if you were curious, I can now spell and remember all 48 countries in Asia--Kyrgyzstan is especially tricky to spell and Qatar is hard from me to remember for some reason. Yeah, lots of things count as productive these days :)