personal rant or andy needs a nap

Tonight I am going to bed very tired. It’s like any typical Sunday night I guess but for some reason tonight feels different. I’ve been in a rut all week. I should have been happy. I had a week away from classes, I got to talk with people who speak my language, I got to sleep on a good mattress, and I didn’t even have to cook. But no, for some reason I felt dead. I didn’t want to participate in anything and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was like a walking deadman. Last night, Saturday night, I fell asleep at 9:00 pm and slept in this morning until 9:00 am. I am a lazy slug.
     I think something happened. Maybe it’s being alone so long. Being here in this little town, talking to people at certain (low) level in a hard language, has made me begun to think at this level. I have had to slow down my ability to explain myself to fit into Bulgarian words I know. Even when I speak with Bulgarians who know English, I have to simplify what I say. This starts to wear on you after a while. You don’t see it in your day to day activities. I mean, when you use most of the Bulgarian you know to keep kids from throwing stuff, or running out of class or hitting each other, your inability to form complex, personal narratives really doesn’t bother you. But when you spend a week with people who can understand you, well at least when they are sober, you begin to notice that you have changed.
     Last week and this weekend I felt bad about myself. I felt boring, uncommunicative and wrapped up in myself. And maybe I am normally. But I must find some patience in myself. I am kinda like a cripple here, limping around with my Intermediate High Bulgarian (just got a language test, go me!) trying to be the same ol intense Andy but unable to explain that tonight I feel a “little grouchy.” I am tired of feeling bad about that. Tomorrow I will wake up and go to school and teach kids who have been without English for a week and will probably be bouncing off the walls. And I will get wrapped up in my day to day activities again. And this feeling will pass, I know. But right now I am tired, and I want things to be easier. Times like this it is hard to feel like a warrior.