blaaaaarg

The boy has just returned to school, after about a week and a half of being out with the flu. He had some vomiting, then congestion, and now he's doing a lot of wet coughing. I'm worried about him because I have lots of experience with wet coughing, and if you don't get that shit out of your lungs, bronchitis happens, and then possibly pneumonia (which happened to my brother). I used to get bronchitis every summer like clockwork, until I finally understood the warning signs, and started chugging guaifenesin-only (i.e. not psychoactive) cough syrup at the first sign of lung-phlegm.

I was nauseous on Tuesday, but not since, and it seems I've escaped the phlegm stage, being stuck only with the soreness and weakness that seem like the universal calling card of the flu. (I'm pretty sure I've never had the flu until now.) We could tell I was sick for sure because on Tuesday I had a fever! Which is not something my body does, post-childhood. My body temperature always comes in a little low, so a significant fever for me would be 99º.

By the usual measure, my flu shot was a week or two too late to have any effect. Maybe I got lucky, or maybe I will relapse, but I've been steadily getting better. Nothing at work seems to have missed me this week, which is both awesome, and also triggers my Impostor Syndrome. If nobody missed me, am I really useful?

I am, I think, but more on scales of weeks and months, rather than days. That's as it should be. If your teams can't work effectively without you, their manager, you may need to make some different choices.

Absent the energy or need for thought--J watched The Princess Bride without even smiling; as he said, "it's hard to be interested in things"--the days just cruise on past. Even the minimal routine of walking the dog hasn't been on the table.

Luckily I have a whole empty weekend ahead of me, with nothing on the calendar except my violin lesson.

hack hack cough cough hack

I don't do very well at writing these days. I'm so excited to have my brain back that when I have energy, I spend it learning things. Because learning things is what I do, and I'm able to make a living by synthesizing and applying the things I learn, and then learning from the application, in a virtuous cycle that keeps me from having to get a real job.

I've been feeling better enough that I went to aikido twice in a 7-day period, which hasn't happened since I don't know when--mid/early last year, probably. And afterward I felt the way I always used to! (Tired, logy, satisfied.) And I recovered in a normal amount of time! Pharmaceuticals are amazing. Not that we know what they're doing to me, but I'm enjoying life again, so I decided not to care.

Over the course of Tuesday, I developed a cold or flu or something. On Wednesday I worked a full day from home, Thursday I worked a half-day from home, and working today was out of the question. The decline has to do with quality of sleep rather than the sick, though. Briefly, it appears I had a slight fever, although since (a) I haven't had a fever in at least a couple decades, and (b) the awesome skin-reading thermometer gives me ludicrously high results on the first try--I'm pretty sure if I had a 101° fever I wouldn't be casually hanging out in the hallway checking my temperature--I'm skeptical.

Thinking back on my medical history, I've been blessed that before 2010 and what I might call the Great Decline, nearly all of my problems have been glaringly obvious to diagnose. Broken bones, bleeding wounds, concussions. There's no mystery. "I'm not a doctor, but you got washed over a coral reef, so that may be why your back hurts."

The Great Decline was unsettling because it's even hard to describe. Lethargy, absurdly long recovery from exercise, cognitive impairment...all tests normal. As always, on paper I am completely healthy. (I am grateful for a standard-issue no-surprises body.) Numerous rock-star doctors confessed bafflement. Now that there's a medicine that helps...do I take it forever? How can I even experiment, given the consequences? Does it fix the sleep apnea? (Okay, that one I can actually test pretty easily.) It's like a dark shadow out there in the woods, waiting to grab me again.

After months of trying to adjust my work approach to accommodate how my team works, I finally gave up, and I'm switching teams. There's a bunch of stuff around it, but it boils down to working in isolation and not having a use for my talents. Sounds like fun, eh?

I had a long IM chat with my new manager today. None of us are entirely sure whether or how this change will solve the problem, but it's an honest attempt. Plus it's really the only option available! I gather that my experience has generated some organizational turbulence, outside my frustratingly limited field of view. So we'll see how that goes.

At my last job I did the best work of my life, completely turning a team around, as well as its technology, while still delivering new features. The problem with performing up to your potential is that it then becomes really annoying to do anything less.

the end of teaching

I haven't been writing as much, at least compared to a month ago. Fewer things are happening, as my time here winds down. I'm cleaning things up at school and trying to force myself to plan my traveling.

• Tomorrow is my last day at school, with a good-bye party at a teacher's house at 6:30.
• Saturday I go to aikido one last time.
• Saturday night is a barbecue at Heather's in Quilpue.
• Sunday I go north to La Serena and Valle de Elqui.
• Wednesday the 25th is the WorldTeach End-of-Service, which is a 4-hour meeting followed by a party.
• Thursday the 26th is the English Opens Doors closing ceremony, which will probably be boring.
• Then I go south to Castro, Chiloe, and putz around Chiloe for a while.
• Then I go to Puerto Varas.
• Then I go to Santiago for a couple days, then home.

I have no bus tickets or reservations yet. Need to make some calls tonight.

Meantime, I'm saying good-byes to my students.

This is Elizabeth. Every time we worked with the weather cards, she'd get really excited and say she wanted "Pablo Neruda!", the Chilean Nobel Laureate who wore hats and berets like what I drew (which I copied from one of last year's volunteer's lesson plans). Following my custom of giving things to people who want them more than me, I gave her the card.

Only 1-C and 1-J have thrown me parties, which correlates with how well-organized and studious those classes are, and how well we got along. A "party" at school might involve soda, but definitely involves chips and cookies and other snack foods on plastic plates. 1-J also gave me little presents: a pencil case and little box that say "Valparaiso," and a framed print of a Valparaiso scene. They were working really hard to keep me out of the classroom while they got the plates ready: their stall tactic was to insist we needed more photos, so we have lots and lots of photos.

This is my main souvenir from this adventure: it's a sign for the 702, the bus that runs past the house. It turns out the same guy has been making bus signs for Region V for 27 years, he's really nice, and his shop is a shack about a mile from here, downtown. It was about US$22 to get it done, with both sides painted. It's huge and I don't know where it will go in a small apartment, but I'll figure it out.

I really am just mentally exhausted, and I don't know that that's interesting to read about. I'm not sad yet, because with me that comes later. Right now I'm just...done. It's interesting to watch how I am when I have no resources left: less patient with students being obnoxious, but still listening and letting them know I care. The cold a couple weeks ago really knocked me down, and it feels like I'm not physically well enough to bounce back from it.

Tomorrow's my last day at school. 26 days until I'm home.

crawling toward the finish line

I'm down to about 2 weeks left here in Valparaiso, now having lost a week to being sick. I'm feeling about 85-90% since yesterday, but on Saturday I still wasn't up to doing aikido in the heat.

I haven't been sitting this past week, but I started again because first, that's what discipline means, but second because I have a lot of thoughts and emotions going on right now and there's a lot of things worth watching.

• impatience - I have spent all these months not looking forward to being home, but now it's a bit over 5 weeks left, and I'm mentally very tired. It's called "get-home-itis": when Kelly and I did our epic road trip in 2006, we'd planned to hit the coast at San Luis Obispo or Monterey and then head north over a day or two. Dinnertime conversation revealed that after 2800 miles of curvy back roads, we were both done, so we plowed through and got home that night. I don't mind being impatient, as long as I don't neglect what's really happening right now.
• frustration - Really? I'm sick again? Really?
• sadness - I like Chile, and I don't know if or when I'll ever see these people again. Especially my kids: even keeping up with some of them on Facebook, I'll never know what effect I had. Right now, I think they don't know either.
• satisfaction - I made it. I learned a lot. I changed in ways I wanted to change and in ways I still don't understand. I did a useful thing. I learned that working with hordes of people all day is, indeed, probably not what I should do for a living. Certainly not in a Chilean school.
• eagerness - I'm studying to turn myself into a better, shinier software engineer. I love learning new stuff.
• fear - It's daunting to imagine going back to U.S. culture, where the money is all green and prices are familiar and I understand all the conversation around me and holy crap what? Living in a foreign culture leaves you spending a lot of time inside your own head, isolated from the lack of information. It's just shy of overwhelming to think of having all that information again.
• understanding - There's a self-indulgent reassurance in having people miss you when you leave, but it's also scary to realize how much I miss everyone else. The support of our relationships isn't just a matter of what we're used to, although certainly we're all inter-habituated (I like that word). Looking over the gallery of friends, lovers, teachers, my Zen sangha, my aikido dojo, the tutoring kids at the library, they're all communities I'm in because I fit, because I find them nourishing and interesting and (mostly) relaxing. We listen and share and help each other according to what's needed, to what's happening now. I have...almost none of that here.

This round of being sick has knocked me pretty well on my ass, and I'm only getting back up slowly, because I'm not what I consider "healthy" at this point. It's been 8 months of crappy food (the family cooks almost exclusively with soup mix, for example) and minimal exercise. I have a whole constellation of things at home that give me energy and support and it's all been missing here. Today I did two classes' worth of testing, then I taught a simple review class, and while I did that I realized that I'm not so much "running on empty" as I am "coming to a stop as the engine sputters on the last of the fumes." I already drew on my deep reserves, and I don't have any energy left that I can put into teaching. I'm done.

11 more days until the end of school.

durrr, you're sick

I went to a doctor this morning, of all the crazy things, and for being randomly sick, not for something obvious like a broken bone, or a chunk missing out of my lip, or an obvious case of conjunctivitis. Usually, if I can't figure out what's wrong, a doctor can't either. But sweating and chills, plus tactile hyperesthesia, will get my attention, so after a day or two I decided to go pay someone to tell me it wasn't anything serious. Whatever, it's covered by the program insurance.

The people at Clinica Valparaiso are very nice and helpful. The doctor said I have a virus, which is sort of obvious since this started with having a cold. The sweating and chills are "toxins from the virus"; I don't even have a fever. The dizziness/balance issues are because both my ears are seriously obstructed by earwax. (I'm not sure of the mechanism on that, but it seems intuitively possible and the Internet agrees.) She prescribed a particular over-the-counter anti-cold thinger, and next week I go see an ENT doctor about the ears.

In the meantime, I seem to be needing a 1-hour nap for every 3-5 hours of activity, which is lame, although I do feel less awful than yesterday. Hopefully I can go in on Monday to run tests with the kids.

ow.

Crazy enough, I have a fever today, which I haven't had in many many years. I did crawl in to school to run tests with 1-A, but crawled back home again immediately afterward, followed by alternating heat and shivers. And everything hurts, although that's mostly due to some rock-hard back muscles. I think I've been storing up all this crap for the past 8 months and then finally it all just snapped and my body fell to pieces. If I'm not feeling better tomorrow I may see a doctor, but I think I'll be improved.

New pics are up from the past few weeks, though not yet labeled. More cats, of course, and pics of Anna's visit.

Not much going on, frankly. Just a couple of weeks of classes left, so there's a bit of short-timer syndrome, and I'm focused on testing all my classes (tricky with classes being randomly canceled).

Tomorrow will be 39 days until I get home.

not dead, just resting

Anna visited again! In return for chocolate chips, mini-Snickers bars, and a couple of books, there was "conversation" and "spending time together." At home I would have grabbed a beer and told her to go knit me a sweater or make me a sandwich, but living in a foreign country necessarily involves some hardship. And relationships are full of compromise, I suppose. But, hey! Snickers bars!

Now she's gone again, and I have to knit my own sweaters and make my own sandwiches, which is sad. Luckily, I'm coming home in 6 weeks. Six weeks! Not even 2 months. Crazytown. Here's the tentative schedule:

1. End of classes: November 19th. Possibly the 22nd, but I'll try to avoid that.
2. WorldTeach End-of-Service thing: November 25th.
3. English Opens Doors/Ministry of Education End-of-Service thing: November 27th.
4. South to Chiloe and wherever else: November 28th - December 11th.
5. Santiago: December 11-12.
6. Fly out of Santiago: December 13.
7. Land in San Francisco: December 14.

Then you'll get to read about culture shock again, but in reverse.

I'm also sick, which is lame, but not so bad, since I'm sort of mentally exhausted and not feeling an urge to teach that would make me push through the nose-blowing and coughing and repeatedly falling asleep.

41 days until I'm home.

*creak*

I'm on the cusp of getting sick, but at least it's familiar: an out-of-balance post-nasal drip from all the sugar and bread and, lately, more alcohol. The interesting new thing is a bit of vertigo from some clogged in the ears. There's a chance I won't get full-on sick; if I could choose what to eat, I could definitely ward it off. But if I could do that, I probably wouldn't have gotten to this state.

The clock is ticking down: 10 days until Anna visits, 3 weeks more of teaching after that, and then I'm back in the U.S. 3 weeks after that.

I've been watching myself--I'm a Buddhist, it's what we do--and it suddenly struck me yesterday or today that I don't actually like the person I am here. It's hard to stay open-hearted when it doesn't seem to matter; it's hard to listen when people don't seem to listen in return, or notice that you're listening to them. And it's even harder for me to do all that when I'm basically out of energy and stumbling through the end of teaching. And while I will continue to proclaim to disbelieving audiences how miserable Anna makes me, the truth is that with her I can completely relax and really easily be, and time spent with her helps me be open and patient with everyone else.

So here, after all these months, I'm sort of a dried-up, more self-protective version of my usual self. My concentration and attention are diminished, though still recognizably mine; my physical responses, for example in aikido, are a little delayed, a little ragged. My body's energy doesn't last: I can't do much exercise except for aikido. Everything about me is working less smoothly than when I came.

Then again, I'm not sure what I expected. I wanted to stress myself with a completely different kind of challenge and experience, far outside my comfort zone, so in retrospect, it's pretty unreasonable to imagine I could live through that with the same level of grace and openness that I have when I arrange my life just the way I like it.

I will, as Anna puts it, "re-inflate" when I get back to the U.S., and open up into someone different than I was before.

having an off week

Not feeling very good this week: I went to school bright and early in the morning, only to come home before my first class started, unable to face how much energy I was going to need for teaching. I'd woken up at 4am for no discernible reason and didn't really get back to sleep.

The sleep during the day helped a lot, and today I went in and taught my two classes, but aikido class informed me that my lack of energy isn't a mental thing--I think my mental funk is coming from whatever's going on with the rest of my body. That's nice as far as it validates my inability to figure out what I was cranky about.

I am feeling a little unhappy with my teaching, because in some ways I feel like I've taught my kids up to what I know how to do as a teacher, and now they're ready to move past that, and I can't quite figure out how to do it. I found a way to teach vocabulary and dialogue questions that works for them, but now they're about ready for some grammar stuff, and I have no idea how to make it interactive, so they'll be able to practice and internalize it.

It's hard to do difficult things without the skills and training for it.

In the meantime, I'm going to sleep a lot.

just as well

I taught my 8am class today, dry mouth and all--it's surprisingly disruptive, in a language class, to have to drink water, because I do choral repetition:

Chris: "Eraser."

Class: "Eraser."

Chris: "Table."

Class: "Table."

Then I drink some water.

Class: "Agua."

And that's with a well-behaved class.

I left after that class, bailing on the two remaining classes and English Club (which for right now is kind of like another, advanced class). When Oscar got home he said that the teachers' meeting, which was on the calendar for 3pm, had actually started at 12, canceling the second half of the day, so I didn't miss anything and would have had a half-day anyway. (I don't bother with the teachers' meetings, since I'm not a full teacher. It'd be nice to know if a strike is approaching, but I can't understand what they're talking about.)

Tomorrow, though! Tomorrow for sure. Two classes, A and J, teaching material I've now taught several times. It's like a small vacation.

a quiet day at home

I'm feeling quite a bit better today, and the head congestion has fallen off and is trying to move into my chest, as usual. My voice is extremely croaky, but apparently I need to teach at least one class tomorrow to get credit for the day, because to miss more than one day invites complications. In training they said that after the first day we need a licensia from a doctor, which is commonly granted for absurd lengths of time (e.g. 2-3 weeks for a cold). Basically it keeps you from being fired.

"You're feeling better, right?"
"Yeah, but my voice will be gone tomorrow."
"But you can go into work?"
"I feel better, but my voice won't work."
"Can you teach one class, and then take off? So you get the day."
"Oh! Sure."

Sometimes I feel bad that I don't get the nice hints everyone is dropping for me.

Of course, that one class tomorrow is the super-fast section of curso C, so I have to actually design an ambitious lesson for them. That's okay, though, I think I'm getting the hang of what works for me. And if it doesn't work, they get a bad class. They'll live.

Normally when I'm sick I try to get out for a little while, go for a walk or grocery shopping or whatever. That would cause unwanted conflict here, though, and I was a little worried about going nuts staying home all day. It turned out I had plenty of cool crap to read on the Internet, so I managed to fritter away the day doing that, instead of making a couple new signs for the classroom, or doing my Spanish lesson. Oh well.

Mostly I just want the next few days to be done because then Anna will be here. =)

bleargh

My little bit of sick turned into a full-on sick. I made it through the first couple of classes with some croaking and a lot of water, and then I figured I'd power through the afternoon, but Oscar basically sent me home, and I won't be working tomorrow either. I feel bad for the kids, especially since I'm starting to develop a vague idea of what I'm doing, but it's hard to conduct a speaking class (especially a rowdy one) when my voice doesn't work.

I've got nose congestion and an incoming hacking cough. But for now I get to sleep as much as I need.

This opens up a new vista in the family relationship, though, which is them trying to take care of me, and how I respond to that. They have some ideas of what I need to do to get better, and why I got sick: for the former, stay in bed all day, and for the latter, the change of temperature from my classroom to the teachers' lounge (compounded by not wearing a scarf, and if I walked around without shoes, that would also be culpable).

I resist people taking care of me, and I especially resist someone specifically telling me what to do. So that's interesting.

I'm trying to think of how I could teach aikido at the school. The big problem is a surface to fall on, since proper mats are too expensive, but I think some heavy carpets would do reasonably well, maybe with some layers of carpet foam.