A Year Ago

A year ago....

It seems like another lifetime ago. Another world. A different person. But that's the way all my sentences seem to start this week.

Can you believe a year ago...?
Seems like it was just a year ago...
Where were you a year ago?

After a year in the Philippines (August 17th we landed I think) I've done a lot of new and fun things, met some amazing people, and done enough work for people to think I'm effective. I think at this time last year I was at my going away party drinking way too much and saying goodbyes to my old friends.

Time has been such a strange thing since I went abroad. In terms of Peace Corps I don't feel like I've been here that long. Every month there has been something new to keep me moving forward. In my work I feel like I've only just begun to be effective and doing the kind of things that I came here for. But a year is also long enough to start talking about America as "the old life" that I lived with "my old friends".

I don't know how I feel about this. On the one hand I see another year ahead in which I can accomplish so much more. I've got a calendar full of both work and play lined up all the way to December. At the same time I've got a year away the "old times". I think that one challenge maybe all volunteers feel is the feeling that for every step we take towards our new cultures and families abroad it takes us one step away from what we left behind. Its not fair to either group though to remain stationary for two years.

I hope that in the coming months I can keep the balance between old and new, America and Philippines, and work and play balanced.