Delayed

Well, it seems as if I'm not to great at keeping this thing updated. I will not promise to do better, as both you and I know that promise will likely be broken quite soon. But I may try to think of these posts as less daunting than I have been. I have never been great at talking about the things I do. When people ask me what I've been up do I usually draw a blank, not for the life of me being able to remember anything I've ever done. It's a weird quirk of my brain which makes small talk difficult sometimes and blog posts often downright impossible. But I will try to drag my memories out of myself and write them down here.

I feel it's time to be more honest with you, my dedicated eight followers; I am currently not working. In fact, I have not been working during my time here. I did attempt teaching English for about a week and found that it just wasn't for me. There was a lot to this decision, and the most important factor was a sense of exhaustion I had been feeling since last spring. My work with Open Circle, while incredibly rewarding and something I will never regret, was taking a toll on me that I was largely unaware of. By the time I was finished there I was finished emotionally and spiritually. I had a span of one day between ending my work with Open Circle, packing my house in Winnipeg, doing my share of the cleaning, moving to Winkler and leaving on a family trip to New York. Once in New York our pace was frantic, and while I had an amazing time it was not what one would call restful. After we got back there were a hundred little things to do in the week and a half I had before I left for these mighty East meets West shores. With all of that I found the little energy I had left drained.

As I obtained a job here I was still living under the delusion that I was fine and would be able to handle anything. I was informed that I would be teaching my first class about twelve hours before it was to take place, not giving much time for preparation, or to finish my training. It did not go well and after attempting this for a few classes I had a sort of nervous breakdown. I reached a point where I just could no longer force myself to do things I was not adequately prepared for. I was exhausted and I knew that I needed to rest myself. So, against my accountant's judgement (just kidding, I don't have an accountant), I quite my job and have been taking the time since to rest and relax, to try and recuperate.

I have not been doing nothing, in fact it has been a wonderful time. I spend my days writing, reading, going for long walks, watching movies, seeing the sights and mostly indulging myself in those things that I love. I have been working on some short stories and poems I'm becoming really proud of. I've never had real time to dedicate to my writing before. It was always more of something I'd do in my spare time when I had the energy for it. As I try to give writing a real go I've found it incredibly difficult and boundlessly rewarding and terrifying in equal measure. Perhaps once I get some things up to snuff I'll post them here.

As I begin to feel more like myself again I am now faced with a dilemma; what do I do for work? To be honest I really do not like teaching, and I find it not something I can fake easily. And as it was the trigger of my breakdown I'm not really interested in going back to it. But after much searching there isn't really any other work for someone who does not speak Turkish (I asked a fellow ex-pat how long it took him to learn Turkish, he said about a year and a half). So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, with a dwindling bank account. I do not for a second regret my choice to take some time to heal, but it has landed me up in a rather difficult financial situation, and I'm not as of yet sure what I'm going to do. I have a few options I'm looking into, and as those hopefully become more real I'll relay them here. But until then I ask for your prayers (and if anyone has any ideas of what I should do, please let me know). I know God brought me to this place for a reason, now, the trick is figuring out what that is.