insider

my head hurts. whose bright idea was it for me to become a teacher? 5 days to go before lights, camera & action. my chances of escape are fast disappearing. profitable day all round though ... went for ridiculously short run after work, then proceded to break the hot water tap and subsequently the whole system. was obliged to go and introduce myself to the neighbours and ask for help. even that wasn't enough. boy, am i in trouble. tonight was long talk re graduate life for christians - nothing new - followed by coffee with bj, who i think i have missed whilst being at home. his explanation for hating the Brits - they're the only lot of people you can genuinely dislike in the US without getting sued by someone or other - actually made sense. i have been back here too long.
tomorrow is friday. apart from waiting for the plumber to call, i have no real plans. kind of hoping someone will rescue me from an evening with Proust. a movie would be nice.
i think i'm going to start some sort of reading or study group for me and girlie friends. so as to have an excuse for saturday brunches. still lonely.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 5:49 AM

another beautiful day in a2, yet it still feels very unreal. like the first time i got here, when i spent whole days imagining i was on the set of some glamorous american movie ... it's not that i think the people around me are acting - it's me - i'm the one who shouldn't be here. though it often seems that no one can see me, which accentuates the impression. i'm still drifting. i spoke to c this morning and it was like i never really knew him. all i wanted to do was run away and deny the whole thing ever happened, yet the gaping hole in my life means i can't do that. it would be a joke to even try. but the cruel thing about life is that it does continue, at the pace of forever, and with the same disregard for anything but time. it leaves me wondering whether time itself is something of value, or whether it is just a facilitator. no matter. i'm back in the world where time is scarce, and i feel overwhelmed by the prospect of having to fit my 'real' life in around the edges of this frenzy i've been presented with.
if i was any kind of mature or strong person right now, i'd sit myself down and make a concerted effort to think about all the good things that are part of my day to day life. but i'm a coward - no two ways about it - and i know that i'm running from a thousand realities. c is a much better and wiser person than me - he can confront his weaknesses and will admit to them. but i spend so much time imagining things that i no longer know what is real, and what i have invented. and the strange thing is that what i have created myself is the worst of it all. if i could only abandon that, i would be ok. if i could only shake this cynicism and dig up some of the idealism i buried long ago, things would be less bleak. and it is wrong to wander round a beautiful town all day when all you can see is the bleakness you feel inside.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 10:27 PM

culture shock takes over. 4 months in the UK and I come back to the midwest feeling more like an alien than ever. things couldn't be easier in one sense ... friends, work and study to come back to. and yet i am left floundering, wondering why nothing here seems real. my life feels like a game, or something i'm observing through a pane of glass. everything looks good, but i can't really get to any of it. but perhaps all of this can be put down to jet-leg. i hope so. i can't stand feeling that i'm just playing at life and not really living it at all.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 3:45 AM