Moving back into the right direction

I have to admit last week I was in a bit of a funk, if you couldn't tell from my last entry. It has been more difficult than I expected re-adjusting to life at site. Everything seemed harder than it used to be. And when I start to feel down about things here, I begin to wonder why I'm here. Those are all normal thoughts, but it's not fun being down and out.

I decided to let myself just feel it until this week. I told myself that if I wanted to stay in my house and avoid Thai people all day, then that's what I should do, but that starting this week, I need to get back into the swing of things. I think it's important to let yourself just feel whatever you are feeling, knowing that you will have to pull yourself up whether you want to or not.

This weekend was really good. Beau and I hung out and biked to Roi Et (the city about 30km from me). In total, I ended up biking over 85km (about 53 miles) this weekend. We went to a really cool temple with an enormous standing Buddah statue and we went to a Target type store and I bought broccoli. For those of you who know me well, broccoli is all I need to be happy. The bike ride home was slightly brutal since we were biking against the wind, but it felt really good to push myself and just do it.

And then today (Monday) came and I told myself it was time to get myself out of the funk. The governor from my province came to visit my village, which is a really big deal. There were preparations all morning and then a big ceremony this afternoon. The ceremony itself was pretty boring, but there were some cool performances as well. The video I attached is of the senior citizens dance/exericise group. I don't know why, but it made me so happy. There I sat in the hot, hot sun watching old people dressed in ridiculous clothes dance around the street to Thai music and everyone was cheering and clapping and it just made me smile.

And then I realized the pieces that had fallen out of place started to slowly slide back into place. I'm still not back into the mind set I was in, but I can at least see a glimpse of it. Life here isn't so bad afterall.