A New Year

For some reason I've been avoiding having to write this blog entry for the past few weeks.  It kept nagging at me, every time I saw it on my "to do" lists that I keep on my computer screen and in the notebook that is always by my side.  But I kept pushing it onto the next day's tasks, having absolutely no desire and no motivation to write.  I suppose I can accredit my procrastination to several things: feeling as though I am not giving my readers an accurate illustration of the life that I lead in this strange land, always turning towards one scoop of Swiss chocolate ice cream at Movenpick that help resist the tears which seem to fall relentlessly recently, coming home after work, exhausted and not wanting to do anything but just sleep until the sun comes back up.  

In the time between my last entry and this one, a new year has come, along with a new president even.  My trip back home seemed to pass in one instant, and I now find myself back in my apartment in Dhaka, as if it were all just a dream.  It was something I had been looking forward to since October, marked on my calendar with pretty foil stars.  Now I have a craving for something to look forward to, something so I can get out of the routine of waking up to my phone alarm at 6:00 in the morning, waiting for my bus to pick me up at 8:05, leaving work at 5:15...even for just a moment.  Yet there is nothing, no blue or gold stars on the upcoming months of my calendar; instead, they are starkly bare.  And perhaps that is another reason for my lack of motivation.

I even had a great list of New Year's Resolutions: do crunches every morning, look presentable when leaving the apartment, be less sarcastic, work on having healthier relationships, plan my future post-Fulbright life.  Within less than two weeks into the new year, I had already failed at all of these goals to which I was so committed.  The only one that I have been semi-successful at is reading more, and now I am grateful that I dragged a mini library half way across the world in one of the two big suitcases.  Camille, if you are reading this...sorry, but no progress on The Post-Birthday World.

Those people who are close to me know that I can not stay unmotivated for too long.  So perhaps my writing this entry in a sign that something inside me has ignited, giving me the energy to keep on going for the second half of my time here in Dhaka.  Maybe.  We'll see.