Time, time, time. Or: I need some more of it, please.

Hello, friends. This has been a crazy week, and I have not had a chance to sit down and write the update I've been very much wanting to write. I keep trying to write it when I get home from work, but I've been so tired the last few days that the writing has been more miserable than its usual miserableness, and I have scrapped it. Here are some of the themes I wanted to write about:

1) More about Chokhatauri and Guria in general, with the help of Wikipedia. Perhaps this will, indeed, be better saved for slightly later, because yesterday some men came into the office and offered to show me around a castle that is apparently sitting in a village near here. I had not known about this castle, but it was sweet how these men couched the actual reason for their visit - a request for me to teach them English that I felt sad to have to rebuff - in an offer to show me a historical site. The Georgians are nothing if not hospitable. It is probably the coolest thing about this place.

2) Monday, when I almost went apeshit at my office, and actually did stomp out of it, due to pent up frustrations and the weight of a really important presentation I wanted to give. Everyone in the office thought I was homesick and/or needed more friends, neither of which was true, and it was very embarrassing but ultimately probably a good thing. I very much want to describe this to you, because it relates to

3) which is the previously mentioned discussion about how I found out, during my three week lockdown, that I like it in Chokhatauri much more than I could possibly have predicted when I first found out that I'd be sent here. See, I had - and continue to have - no problems on the personal side of things, here. The not-big-city-ness of it has not bothered me, and I have a couple people with whom I can speak English some during the week, and enough people with whom I can make smalltalk in Georgian. But work continues to be a challenge, when interaction is necessary on a more complicated level, and when it is required (the majority of my work at this point is of my own initiative) it can be frustrating to butt my head against the language barrier without an ever-present translator. And it all sort of came to a head on Monday, when I had an important presentation I wanted to give, and kept running into these problems, and I just sort of snapped. It was an interesting afternoon, and I still ended up giving the presentation after it. Interesting day, and an illuminating look at what can often happen during Peace Corps service; I just haven't been able to write about it adequately yet. Also,

4) I almost set myself on fire without even realizing it, yesterday. So THAT was fun.

All these things and a long weekend's full of merriment (tomorrow is Giorgoba, the Georgian holiday of St. George's Day) in Ozurgeti, Kutaisi, and Tbilisi -- look for it, here, next week! Huzzah!