Every day I consider not getting back on a plane once I arrive in Grand Rapids for Christmas. Every day I think about e-mailing my principal, to sit down and have a talk, to tell her that I just wanted to give her enough warning to find a replacement English teacher for the second half of the year. Every day I dabble with the idea of just buying a ticket from TGU to GRR ($620.10 leaving tomorrow at 12:25, arriving in GR 10:21pm...that's Michigan in 34 hours from now.)

I keep trying to have fun down here. I keep doing things with people. I keep turning sullen midway through the experience. I keep pushing people away. I keep streaming radio stations from Grand Rapids over the Internet, so I can feel like it's coming through my car radio or my alarm clock. I keep thinking of things I need to rummage up from one of my sundry moving-boxes in my dad's basement...only to remember that I won't be "stopping by" there any time soon.

This weekend we took a trip to Lago de Yojoa, a large lake in the middle of the western third of the country. The first quarter had ended, the final final had been taken by 11:30 on Friday, and at 1:15, a group of 20 teachers piled in the bus for a trip that should maybe take 4 hours. Thanks to Honduran construction that's even worse than Michigan construction in the summer (thanks in large part to lack of alternate routes or extra lanes onto which to divert traffic), and the SECOND TRAFFIC ACCIDENT involving IST teachers in 7 days (no one was hurt, the other guys were drunk, and the bus suffered hardly any cosmetic damage, let alone other damage), we didn't arrive to our hotel until after 7:00. We had dinner, I climbed a couple trees with some others, and then I went to bed. I woke up on Saturday at 9am, had breakfast, took about 7 pictures before my battery died, then realized we were trying to leave the hotel (which was quite nice and certainly in a pretty location) by 10:00. We didn't leave until 10:30, but still we had very little time there on a trip that was supposed to be relaxing. I didn't realize until we got back to Tegus that I had left my umbrella in the hotel room.

We went to this waterfall, which was rather large, quite pretty, and nice to look at. Then we went on this guided expedition INTO the waterfall. Climbing over rocks, jumping into pools at the bottom of the cascade, then clambering right into the deluge - it was a truly powerful stream of water - overbearing, in fact. I hated the experience. Nearly everyone else thought it was outstanding. I hated it. Consequently, I was in a lousy mood for the entire trip home, which thankfully went more quickly.

All I could think about was how much work I should have been doing. I'd been so diligent for about three days, and I really needed all the time I could get to finish all my grading, and feel confident for the coming week and the whole next quarter, and I'd have been fine with taking the time off if I were able to actually feel relaxed, but it turned out to be a 30 hour trip with 8 hours taken up by sleep and 14 hours spent on the bus, putting me in a bad mood and once again removing my ganas to work today, when I actually have the time. I might not sleep tonight, but any other time I've let that be a possibility, my eyes have gotten so heavy I have to go to bed at 11:00 at latest.

So now I'm listening to A Prairie Home Companion on Michigan Radio over the Internet, drinking coffee and trying to work up the desire to actually work. And trying to quell my feelings of homesickness and nostalgia.