Reaching the end of month 5 I've officially hit the halfway point of my Fulbright year. Honestly such a mix of emotions about that and so many other things going on right now. It feels like I've been here for 10 years, but also feels like I just started and there's absolutely no way I've made it to this point where I'm counting down the months now. Suddenly the thought of 4ish months left is so scary and short compared to like one month ago when I was freaking out about how long I have left. Hence my word for this past month: Rollercoaster
Don't be fooled by my monthly thumbs up picture - I was seriously unwell in this photo haha. Six days of this month were spent in the Špičák mountains in south western Czechia on a ski trip with my students. Let's just say skiing isn't my hidden talent that I was kinda hoping for. Day 2 and 3 of that trip were spent sick in my hotel room, but not from Covid actually. I managed to like overexert my body or something crazy and it felt like my muscles were decomposing inside of me, giving me full body pains, a fever, and nausea :) So this picture was during a 15 minute walk that I forced myself to do in the midst of pure exhaustion. Got back out skiing for 2 more days but just to be followed by positive cases from students, sending us into quarantine for 5 days. Probably will write a whole recap on that week too, because god so many observations to unpack haha.
I honestly don't know where to start with this month though because SO much has gone down in the past 4 weeks. For starters, the very beginning of this month was spent back in the U.S. for 10 days. That short break also kinda felt like a month in itself, but overall a necessary trip to refuel me a bit. I wrote a whole post about the wild ups and downs of my emotions from this - it was one of the weirdest adjustment phases I've been through and wasn't expecting it at all. It was exhausting, scary, confusing, and quick all at once haha. But I've already tried to unpack all that in my other post and this is just monthly highlights haha so the best of my time in the U.S. was spent seeing the Ravens who I've missed so so much, heading back to Villanova for a couple days which was also weird in itself, and falling back into my home routine which was of course good and bad. I debated giving this month the word "deja vu" because so much of it was filled with these familiar feelings. Even coming back to Czech was filled with some weird reminiscent feelings I had in August trying to figure it all out for the first time. All of that definitely felt like a rollercoaster, and the rest of the month didn't disappoint with the craziness haha.
This month felt like a blur, and a little gray to be honest in terms of my optimism. I think it's just a result of the understandable stressful events that have gone down. But of course there were still highlights to be had:
Okay this ones so simple, but the sun came out. I actually documented it and sent it to family and friends because it had been SO long since we had a full sunny blue sky kinda day. It gave me life. You really underestimate the power of a sunny day, especially living out here in Eastern Europe where it's even more rare than back home, and all I can say was that it was powerful. It immediately boosted my mood and got me ready for the season to start changing a bit.
My first weekend back I took a quick 2 day trip to Plzen to celebrate some other ETAs birthdays! It was a great needed distraction after a hard first week back at school, and was a great time. A couple of us went to this asian market where I found some miso paste and gochujang - small wins but got me excited to get more creative with my dinners.
Also very insignificant but I bought myself this new Zara coat when I got because I was feeling so inspired by European winter fashion and no I haven't worn it yet but picking up a package with ZARA on it just makes my entire week better. Maybe month. It's familiar to me and honestly just makes me happy to do some retail therapy haha.
Impulsively spent a day in Prague with some other ETAs which turned out to be one of the best days I've had in a while. It was just an effortless, unplanned trip where we stumbled upon some Korean BBQ, went into a couple stores, and found new parts of Prague we haven't seen yet. Usually meet-ups with other ETAs include a bit of unavoidable stress just because there's usually many people involved from all over Czechia and we have to figure out transportation/reservations/hostels etc. But this time we were all pretty local and didn't have any plans at all so wandering turned out to be the best!
Briefly mentioned the ski trip which definitely had it's elements of stress haha but I don't regret going AT ALL. Although I was the most beginner of beginners at the entire place, my students were so cute helping me learn and cheering me on. It was surprising to see some girls come out of their shell in a non-academic environment and I got to speak with some girls who never speak in class. It was a great experience on the slopes and back in the hotel as well, where they found it so fun to teach me new Czech games and of course test me on my horrible Czech pronunciation. Hey if it get's them laughing and engaged, I'll make a fool of myself all day haha.
A little less positive highlight, but this month was filled with feeling a little under the weather. I had a cold when I came back from Christmas, got hit with this weird thing on the ski trip, still didn't really recover digestively for a couple days since being back, and now trying to hold out in quarantine. I've been taking countless COVID tests, all negative, so fingers crossed.
This month felt so fast and so long at the same time, but hey we made it through! I think I've been in my own head more this month than ever, which is a dangerous thing for an over-thinker like me. I've just been focusing on things that haven't really hit me in months prior, and not sure if it's just a phase of adjustment or something, or it's here to stay. I feel really confident in saying the weather is playing a huge role in this too haha. It's so gray and so cold and so. gray. So give me more of these sunny days please!!!
Rose: One of the most wholesome moments happened when I came back from the U.S. and had my first English club back with a group of my senior girls. I asked them before I left if they wanted anything in particular from the U.S. thinking they'd say some candy or souvenir. One of the girls said she's always wanted to try spray cheese and asked if I could bring it for her haha. The most random request but of course I brought it back and when I gave it to her, her face lit up with so much joy and she hugged me so hard saying thank you a million times. It was like I found her lost puppy or something haha. She messaged me a little later asking how to use it, what to eat it with, and gave reviews from her friends. It was so innocent and reminded me that the littlest things can really bring so much joy. The next day I had her class at 9am and there she was sitting front row with her bottle of spray cheese and crackers eating it so casually because it's her new favorite snack :)
Thorn: Ugh I really hate to bring it back into this discussion but COVID has been such a thorn for me recently. I think I'll spare the negativity for this post and write more in a COVID update, but I've felt like I've had to sacrifice so many of my standards living here during a pandemic. There's such a different perspective on this and standing alone in your beliefs isn't super effective when you need a group effort. I've been doing my best but it's definitely taking a toll on my mental health and feeding in to the lack of optimism I mentioned earlier. Hoping that this current wave passes soon PLEASE
Bud: One way I've tried to help myself with this readjustment thing is give myself these checkpoints to get me through the tougher weeks/months. So I've forced myself to look forward to certain things and consider them a success when I've reached them! So I'm genuinely excited for our Fulbright mid-year conference next week which was a huge checkpoint for me. It's taking place a little more than halfway through our grant, but will be 5 days back at the same place we had orientation with everyone together again. Next checkpoint is family coming in end of February so definitely excited for that too!!
So maybe you can tell in the fluctuation of my writing and emotions how much of a rollercoaster this month has been. I've been happy, sad, sick, confused, sentimental, and exhausted all at the same time. And those are just some of the words that come to mind now haha. It's been a wild ride, these past 5 months, but truly believe the best is yet to come!! Sooo here's my photo dump from month 5:
