Dawn Thoughts

Live everyday, solve one problem at a time but have all of them in mind, never forget your friends and family, ignore your enemies and watch them carefully at the same time. And never forget that the only certainty we have is our own and the universe's. Trust, live, enjoy, grow, learn. All the rest will come to an end sooner or later.

 At some point, letting disappointments beat you down won't do any good. If you believe what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, then stronger you shall be. Regardless of the costs.

 

All over the place

So here's the current to do list:

- Present today's micro-teaching
- Plan tomorrow's class
- Write a lesson plan for tomorrow
- Practice tomorrow's micro-teaching
- Write lesson observation reports
- Study for monday's test
- Find a place to live
- Find the reason I'm here in Toronto
- Decide what I want to do with my life
- Buy a new cell phone battery
- Find more skype students so I'll get more money
- Manage my finances
- Look for a job in Toronto

I'm sure there might be other things to be done, but I guess you got the point: my head is full. All these worries keep on coming and going out my head. Add that to the fact that it's only been 2 weeks since I arrived, and this is a complete strange place. And also, did you read the last post on my homestay? Well... I'm all over the place.
Pieces of me are distributed across my worries and time passes by me. Am I doing things the right way? Am I finding what I came here to find? Am I searching? What is going on?
I guess theses are the ties of freedom.
Which ones are you going to keep to you? What is it that you decided to do? Why are you here?
Most people don't know, but I've been crying every single day. Maybe it's homesickness, maybe it's the pressure. I don't know if I wanna stay, but I don't wanna go back home either. I don't wanna meet anyone, but my actions keep on actrating others' attention to myself.
I once told myself I wanted to disappear. Now I wonder what it was I was trying to disappear from. Bad feelings are still here, my past is still here, and I don't know if I feel any different. Can't say I feel much either.
I hoped everyday would be a new experience, every breath would be a new one, and now it just seems like a regular life with no violence and a lot of english in it. People are people, bars are bars, gyms are gyms.
I still feel like a stranger. The only difference is that in a place full of strangers, you mingle. You are the same. What name would you give to a group of strangers?
All I keep repeating in my head is "this isn't it... it's great, but isn't it..." and at the same time it feels like "It" is not far away.
At the same rate and speed of thoughts my bank account goes dry. My cell phone broke, tests will have to be taken, reports written and so one.
Practical life, existencial life. All of this and all of that.
So there it is guys, that's my own definition for the expression:
                                                    I'm all over the place

Making peace with problems to focus on solutions

Ever since day 1 I've been struggling with the whole homestay thing.
I arrive home at 11pm so I'll just take some pills and fall asleep. I had a small argument with my host mother and my home father just annoys me, to say the least (and we've seen each other twice!)
At first, it felt like they were disrespectful, or that once I got here and they got their money for hosting me all the masks fell and there were their true faces.
Not true, any of it. I came to my mind one thing that my host mother said "I have you as my kids, so you can have me as your mother, and mothers tell kids what to do, what not to do, and they don't get offended all the time, do they?"
As much as I might disagree at some level with what she said, I indeed paid for a homestay, with a mother, a father and two brothers. Brothers are cool, parents aren't. And they even try to make you feel as if you were home.
So what is it that feels wrong?
Me! Of course! No, I'm not trying to put the guilt on myself so I' just have to suck it up and live here.
But I knew from the moment I sold my car that I was my own grown man making my own way to whatever it was that my destiny would take me. And that definetly involved getting rid of all kinds of parents' control. So I didn't come here to stay in a homestay, and here I am. So once again I find myself displaced.
What I want right now? Share a place with students. People that are going through their own shit, and just want to share the rent, deal with their own shit and eventually bond. What I want is to live in an Spanish Apartment. Young people looking for themselves that ended up meeting and sharing a place, filling it with their dreams, expectations and cheerful spirits.
If I don't find it, a room would be fine by now... a place to spend at least 2 more months. Which brings to my mind the biggest challenge of them all. How can a Cancer person not have a home? Home... at some point, this is one of the things I'm looking for...
So here it is... problem figured out, solution defined, now it's the time to make it happen. Along with all the tons of things I have to do...
God... I think I had no idea what I was putting myself into but here I am. Thank you and please keep on helping me!

 

The good, the bad and everything in between - so far

No, I haven't been living on a bed of roses and fun and excitment. There has been bad things along the way.

Homestay

First, let's point out that a house is not a home and no family will live up to your own. Secondly, take the fact that you are sharing a house with around 10 people, and there are 2 of them that make the rules. You won't be able to know all the rules from day one, so disagreeing, and some arguments may come along. Feeling insulted by the way people talk to you can be frequent, and the lack of freedom for preparing your own food will definetly be a bad point. Sum that to the fact that you'll mostly be out of home so you'll spend a lot of money - which ends up making a homestay a pretty expensive option. And, to end these bad aspects of the homestay we go back to food. If you were used to a certain diet, be ready to let it go. One day you'll show up at home just to have lunch hoping to fînd some sort of protein and you'll find soup, or you'll be expecting a proper meal for dinner and you'll find pizza.
Of course, it's not a living hell. You'll get to arrive home the time you want, you won't be bothered and there won't be one single chore for you to do. As saving money is more important than saving myself from chores, leaving the homestay seems the best option - finding a place to stay, well, let's leave it for another day.
Also if you are willing to dialogue, you'll learn people can be much more understanding than you ever thought they could, which can be comforting for a while.

School

Let me tell you that these are pretty disappointing aspects of my trip. Can you imagine that I've been here for a week and the people from the exchange company didn't get in touch with me even once to check if everything's ok? How much for post sales or whatever they believe.
But the worst part is the school here in Canada. As I'm not the regular ESL student, I can only rely on myself for information and development of my program. The course I'm taking now is pretty much intense and regardless the criticisims I'd have about it, it's been pretty informative - overwhelming too, I must add. At some point people are helpful, but only at some point which makes you believe that for them you're just an amount of money.
As good aspects, well, people are amazing. I like every single people from my class, and I can see they care about me too. Different experiences, different backgrounds. Unfortunately we're so focused on our subjects that we don't get to share at all, but hopefully there'll be some time for that.
There'll be more, but I'm pretty tired for today... laterz

 ps: this is not the house I live in - just a pic I liked! lol

Foreigner Diaries - an Introduction

Being a foreigner has been so far the most difficult thing in my life. I've learned I'm a control freak - everything I live, everywhere I go, everyone I meet should fit this scenario I've established as a safe environment. I couldn't ever be in a more challenging experience then.
There's absolutely nothing I can control. And don't be mistaken by the fact I know the language: I might understand the words, but the facts, the acts, the people and everything else is just a blur of unknown and I haven't met a single person that knew what I was talking about. It feels lonely, overwhelming and crazy.
You're gonna have to rely on strangers for comfort. A comfort you know will never be enough, but it'll be all you can get and you'll have to be satisfied with it.
People, friends, family will get different definitions and meaning. I wish I could write it all with every single detail, but right now this will do as a good introduction.
An introduction to my foreigner diaries.