* Please note, I began this blog almost a month ago...and then never finished it. I'm trying to be better. I am.*
Hey everyone,
It's been nearly three months and I said I would be better, but it hasn't worked out that way. I've been easily distracted. (Take right now, for example. I'm on the couch at a friend's house, and the man across the way is getting sick in his toilet. And you can see him, apparently. I'm not watching, of course. But Leigh is giving me the blow by blow details of the whole disaster.) See, distractions. Gross.
My friend Ryan recently told me that Americans use. too. many. periods. to. make. a. point. Having written the above paragraph, I now concur.
Now, for real life stories. For. Realz. Yo.
I got to Senegal only to find out that Ita (that's my mom's mom for those of you unaware) had gone into a coma and was essentially brain dead. My family struggled with the decision to let her die or not, and the decision was made to stop feeding her. Ita was a woman who had an extremely difficult life, and she left the world fighting much in the same way. She even came out of her coma for a little while to prove she was a fighter. After a long week, she passed away and once again I did not go home to be with my family. May and June were emotionally draining months for me, to say the least. Being away has not gotten any easier, but I have been reminded many times that living far away does not mean that I have to FEEL distant, even though it often times seems that way.
But on to happier things. Senegal itself was a beautiful, strange, unique, trying learning experience. It would take me days to write it all down, but basically, Senegal is a highly untouristed location...by tourist standards anyway. Jason lives in a humble home with an awesome Senegalese family. Downstairs is the small, independent English school that Jason teachs at a couple of times a week. The family was one of the best parts of Senegal for me because they were so down to earth...not to mention fun and interesting. Awa, Mame, Fari, and Cheik were the family members that I got to know while I was there. Awa is the older sister, but she is like a mother to the other siblings. She has given up a lot to make money to help raise them. Staying in Dakar with Jason for a few days and getting to spend time with the family was just as much a part of my visit as seeing the city itself. Here's a picture of a marketplace in Dakar:

And wrestlers on the beach. Wrestling is kind of the unofficial Senegalese sport:

Then, we went down to the Casamance region in the south. We went down with Ibra (Ibrahim), a friend of Jason's, to visit Ibra's family in Oussouye. He hadn't seen his mother in five years because he hadn't been able to get holiday from work. Such are the realities of the Senegalese. The journey and stay in Oussouye were, to me, the Africa I had imagined/wondered about as long as I have imagined/wondered about Africa. I thought Africa would be difficult, impoverished, wild. It was. But Senegal was also so, so beautiful with some of the most wonderful people I have met in any country, anywhere in the world.
The journey down to Oussouye was the difficult part. 20 hours. Jam packed. 100 degrees. Windows up to keep the dust out. No toilets. Smelly bodies. We brought goats for part of the journey. Yea. Goats. If I hadn't started having what I can only imagine was a panic attack (hyperventilating, freaking OUT), I STILL would have thought it was the hardest, most uncomfortable journey I've ever taken (and hopefully?? will ever take)! It was not beautiful. It was not breath-taking. It was hot and uncomfortable. I whined. I was not at my best as a pro-travel. Jason showed me what a true, calm, go-with-the-flow traveler looks like. It is not me, apparently. I saw the beginning of the end of my "hard traveling" for the very first time.
We got to Oussouye and met one of the most amazing women I think I have ever met--Ibra's mom. She had NOTHING, and she was kind, generous, and full of love for us. The house MAY have been one of the only one's in the village with electricity. Here's the house:

I couldn't really figure out the relationships between everyone who lived/ate/studied at the house, but I think that the neighbourhood students came over every night (possibly because it was one of the few places they could study with light) and Ibra's mom cooked for them and provided them with love and good conversation. She fed us every day that we were there, from large bowls on the concrete floor, as there was hardly any furniture. She never pressured me into eating meat, the way many people do when you travel to their home. We had broken French/English/Jola conversation that was mostly translated through body language, but she was patient with us anyway. There was no husband in the picture, and she had a huge household to keep, but she did so with a smile on her face. She seemed content with the cards life had dealt with her, and I think that makes her a dignified, beautiful woman.
In Ousouye we saw magnificent beaches,

braved the oppressive heat, swam in the ocean, ate lots of vermicelli noodles,
met a king of the region,

stuck out like two white sore thumbs, and read. Senegal was an eye-opening experience that challenged me in many ways, but I also came back relaxed and refreshed.
I came back from Senegal to a job I hate. I never thought I would be that person, who hates their job but goes in every day because it brings in the money. I swore I would never be that person. I became that person this year and I hated her. I have never complained about anything so much in my life. When I came back from Senegal I got this horrible rash all over my body (the doctor thought...bed bugs or SCABIES...pretty funny really), but I thought, "Man, if I get Malaria then I won't have to go to work." I actually thought that! I would rather DIE than keep this job? I was looking for other jobs, but nothing seemed remotely interesting, or enough of an escape from my current job at Petchey Academy, so I turned a fair few things down.
You will have to keep reading this in chronological order to see what happened with the whole job thing later. :)
Right-o. I came back from Senegal. This was now prime World Cup time. The USA was still in it to win it! (Well...they weren't ever really in it to win it..) But, I have never had SO MUCH AMERICAN PRIDE. I had American flags up in my room. I had a redwhiteandblue scarf. Soccer is awesome. The World Cup is awesome. And England is CRAZY for soccer, so that made it SUCH a great experience. Honestly...I've never seen the streets so quiet in London (or any big city for that matter) as when the England games were on. EVERYONE was watching television, and it was a perfect excuse to put off work...just a little bit longer.
June was a crazy month because I went to Senegal, I went to Glastonbury music festival (I'll get to that in a moment), and I had an Irish visitor (remember the Irish boys from hockey tour in Amsterdam?), all whilst being completely swamped with work. Gareth came over to England for my friend Matt's doubles tennis tournament birthday party.

Obviously, noting the picture, we were Popeye and Olive Oyl. The weekend ended up being just another one of life's big disapointments. Surprise, surprise. We had a complete blast, and Gareth is great, but "we just don't live in the same country, and really what's the point." So yea, I was feeling kind of mopey, but that's life, apparently.
Onto bigger and better things. The following weekend was the
Glastonbury Music Festival. 
Honestly, it was one of the most outrageous, insane, sensory overloading thing I have ever experienced. Let's just say you could spend 4 days there, never sleep, and never even SEE a single band. I did, of course, see lots of bands, but you could have avoided them, had you wanted to. I suppose you are wondering what some of the highlights were: Dizzy Rascal (surprise!),

Shakira (BIG surprise), Vampire Weekend (never a surprise), Muse (obviously!), Imogen Heap (girl crush!), Mumford and Sons (check them OUT!), and The National (yes, they ARE as awesome as everyone says they are.) We also saw a ton of other bands, ate a mind-blowing quantity of fried food, felted my own fairy wings!!, and danced till sunrise multiple days in a row. I'm already signed up to receive news about next year. I would say it is an England highlight for sure. PS: If anyone asks, I was very, very sick that weekend....at least that's what my school thinks.
Right about this time I got a new job I could be content with. Jason is leaving England forever (why are people always leaving big cities and making me feel alone and sad?) and his job at a special school was available. I applied and got the job. The job is to transition 6th graders with disabilities into middle school smoothly. I took the job, and promptly told my school I wasn't coming back. I will miss my coworkers, but the ones that matter I will still hopefully continue to see on a regular basis. This isn't the end of the life-evaluation story....so keep on reading.
We are nearing the end folks...hold tight! I went to visit my friend Hanne in Norway (yes, this is why I never have any money). It was not nearly as cold as I had expected. Don't you think of Norway as freeeezing? Well...not in the summer. I went over July 4th weekend and Hanne made me pumpkin pie. Wrong holiday but right idea. America! F-Yea! :) Norway is spectacularly beautiful, and Oslo is so clean! Unfortunately, I got my camera stolen so I don't really have any pictures to document. (And I thought Scandinavians were too rich to stoop to theft!)
And finally....mid-late July happened. I moved out of my house in Manor House. We all did. It is the end of the Manor House era. I moved out with the intention of going to India (you all know I had tickets to India for the entire summer to meet up with Lucasz the Australian boy with whom there was mutual smitten-ness...) and figured that I would get a new place when I got back at the end of the summer/end of August. I stayed on my friend Dan's couch for the week and put all of my things into storage in another friend's basement. It is surprisingly unsettling to be "homeless," even if it's only fake homelessness. I'm still living in limbo (nearly a month later, but again, story for another day). Chris Richter came to London for a few days right before summer vacation.

It is always great to have old friends as visitors here. (Why don't MORE of you come to see me....!!!!????) There was a lot of scrabble playing and a lot of delicious food eating...two of my main sources of entertainment this summer, in fact.
Remember how I got a new job teaching for next year? Well, I ALSO had an interview with a property management company to do something like project managing. It's actually far less boring, but a bit hard to explain. My friend Kerstin's boyfriend is the director for a company called
Camelot. I certainly wouldn't have gotten the interview if it weren't for nepotism...but hey, I've been sending out applications for non-teaching jobs for nearly two years and haven't even gotten one single interview. Halfway through the interview John said, "You know, before I started this company, I was a teacher. I know that you have the skills to do this." It felt SO good to hear that because the reality is, as a teacher, I DO have a million transferable skills, but no one will give me the chance to prove it. John offered me the job, at nearly the same amount of money as I would have been making as a teacher next year, and I took it. Who knows if I will like the desk job atmosphere, but I have never tried it before. I know that teaching in the UK makes me miserable, and I will gladly go back to teaching in The States, but in the meantime (thank you, job freeze), I will not be teaching next year. Of course, I am nervous that I won't get it, or that I won't be good at it. I am nervous that I will die of lack of holidays. I am nervous that I will hate it, though I think it won't possibly be worse than last year. However, I'm also excited to try something new. There are opportunities to move up in the company eventually, and if I'm not going to lie, there is also a branch of Camelot in Ireland...did you think I was going to give up on a dream that easily...???
I doubt most of you made it to here...but if you did, rest assured: I will be making a new blog NEXT week, in the lead-up to the beginning of my new job. I will explain why I am not in India, and what I have done for the summer instead.
I miss you all terribly, but I also think you should make more of an effort to come see ME before I come home at Christmas. It will have been one year away, and it seems like an eternity. Just because I'm living abroad doesn't give you all the excuse to lose touch! (Special mention merit to Nate Smith who has returned from the abyss and sends me emails AND packages, to Andrew Mugler who is moving a hopskipjump away to Holland, to Tiana who writes letters in the mail, to Chris and Emily and Chelsea and Heather who were just here in London during the summer, and to Caufield who comes on exotic travels with me.)
Love you,
Hammer