Wednesday, November 20, 2013

kill the radio, listen to the rain fall

maybe i should take my own advice once in a while.

last week i had a nice discussion with my class about society and how people of different cultures go about their day by day lives.  in turkey people work an awful lot.  the average person will be working either five and a half or six days of the week and a day can stretch about nine hours on average, sometimes ten or twelve hours.  they usually have sundays off however it is not uncommon to work on saturdays.  it sounds like a bit too much really.  i can't think of how people could ever squeeze in some family time along with time to pursue their own interests.  when you are teaching this becomes a problem for conversation sometimes because you are trying to get your student to practice speaking and all they tell you about their free time is 'work/sleep'.

on the other hand there are places like spain or argentina where you work essentially as much as a person from the united states however your day can be dramatically cut in half by a siesta.  this lifestyle is quite similar to that of an english teacher abroad because schedules like mine have a five hour gap in the middle.  for years now i've been doing this practice of staying up all night and sleeping in the gap between classes.  i find that i really have two days in one and sometimes my dreams or moods vary dramatically between the two half-days.

right now it is raining.  a good rain.  it started about seventeen seconds after i safely arrived at my front door.  i don't have to wake up early and i'm home alone.  these are the nicest of times, a rare break from the crowded city i live in.  as far as i know there isn't another person for miles from here.

a student told me recently that my blog has been monotone.  i like that.  i like that he is reading it more perhaps.  i'm working right now and it seems like i'm often talking about work even when i'm not working.  i've become consumed but it's good for me to experience this once in a while.  i've been spoiled with traveling and i'm planning a big trip for next year so for now it is very nice to turn that part of my head off for a while.  i always say that traveling using the instinct part of your brain and teaching uses the intellectual side, both of them get foggy after a while if not used for a long time.  i'm in that healthy bridge between the both right now i suppose.

patience.  learning patience is good.  i don't own anything (a few things).  a long long time ago a friend told me to never underestimate the power of simplicity.  she's rooted deeply in my head and so are her words.  after all this time living a simple life i've truly begun to see the benefits of this small piece of advice.

be simple and patient and learn always.