It's the final countdown

The count down has begun until I will return to America. Although not particularly because I am anxious to be back in America nor because I am excited to leave Moldova. It is merely because I feel like I have no choice but to acknowledge my future departure because most of the other volunteers have started their job search and/or are sending in applications to graduate schools. So every Facebook update seems to remind me of the reality that my days in Moldova are numbered.  In addition I have heard from many teachers and students questions and comments related to this being my last year and what I plan on doing after. Which only works to reiterate the fact that I have approximately 10 months left until I will leave Moldova and began a new adventure somewhere else. This has had a big effect on my life recently as I feel the need to plan and prepare for returning to America. And one thing I have learned amazingly well in Moldova is that the old adage, “out of sight, out of mind” could not be more true. The more I spend time researching job opportunities and graduate school options the more my mind is forced to think about my life and the things I am missing and the things I will be leaving behind, so much so that it has been difficult to think about something else or to focus on the now rather then the future.

My newest addiction has been cyber window-shopping on Amazon or Best Buys websites. Which is even more disheartening than normal window shopping because in addition to not having money, I couldn’t buy any of it even if I did. Luckily for my newfound addiction I have tons of time to indulge my habit now that I only have 16 teaching hours at school though I still spend an average of 30 hours at school. And since I created most of the PowerPoint’s, tests, lesson plans, etc. last year I have less to work on once I get home. Which only leaves me with more time to torture myself with things I can’t have. I fear that if I ever get to the point of downloading restaurant menus from off the web I might be forced to early terminate my Peace Corps service. Hopefully in the future I can look forward to more teaching hours and restarting my English Club soon so that should help but I fear the damage has been done.

The most concrete way that this has affected my life on a day-to-day basis is my language skills. It is no secret that I never studied as seriously as I should have, and my language skills have had ups and downs as I have mentioned before. But after my Ukraine trip and my language skills declined I expected them to make recovery as I returned to hearing and speaking Romanian everyday. However, it seems my brain has recently decided that since I am now counting down the days to when I won’t need Romanian anymore it is ok to start the process of forgetting everything I’ve learned and has made it harder for me to retain anything new I might pick up.

Though in the end I have little to actually complain about and only good things to look forward to, so my new goal for this year is going to be to try and live in the moment rather then focusing on the future and to pay attention to all the little things that I’ve become accustomed to that I won’t be able to experience for much longer.