2003-11-20 - 1:51 p.m.

I don't know if I'm being honest. I don't know if I'm feeling sorry for myself... I don't know if I'm caught up in "one of those moods" that I'm so famous for inside my head.

But I feel like I'm being overlooked here- like I'm letting myself get overlooked- and I don't exactly know what to do about it.

My "boss", who is supposed to be my mentor, is this impossible woman who is short in the sense of rude whenever she is busy- and she's almost always busy. I go to talk to her and she brushes me off. I've been locked out my art supply closet, and my art class is the only thing that is really happening right now. I don't know how to get back into it. If I can't find someone to unlock it for me today, I'm going to try to pick the lock again, but this time I won't give up until I have my colored pencils! My one writing student said he's going to stop coming if no one else shows up, which is fair, I think. But he also told me he wants me to counsel him, so I know that it really isn't me- he's just sick of being the only one. I still haven't been trained for Project Hope, but will do in two weeks (wow, only THREE months after getting here). Working with the students from the alternative school isn't happening yet, and won't be until an undetermined time in the future because they can't get the computers set up properly. Michael's leaving for Georgia tomorrow to protest the School of the Americas, and he won't be back until Tuesday. I sit in the computer lab most of the day and it is nice to have so much free time, but it also sucks because I didn't come here for free time, damn it. I came here to help people, and it's not happening like I want it to.

I don't really know what to do about it. I feel like I"m on the cusp of something truly wonderful. The young adults I work with are opening up to me. The Therapist/Case Manager people are referring teens who really need an outlet to my classes. They will get the computers set up someday. But for now, I've been here three months now, and it still hasn't come together.

And on top of that, I really miss my friends. I have people here that I am friendly with, but that's just not the same. Who can I go get coffee with at midnight? Who is going to find an open mike with me and drink beer and write esquisite corpses about alien love children and gods getting drunk off tequila? Who can I argue politics and religion with for hours at a time? Who is going to put art on my door when I'm in a bad mood? Who is going to make me pecan waffles? Who can I talk to about being a pagan?

This is the hard part of being a volunteer away from home. Giving up the stuff we had was nothing. Giving up the people was far more difficult.

And being away from my friends I had kept up with makes me miss the people I hadn't kept up with.

Fabian was playing U2 in the background at chapel last week, and this one song came on and I was holding back tears. It's on the tape that Hans and Paul made for me years back. They dubbed REM's Up for me because it "was a shame that I no longer owned all the REM albums." But there was space at the end, and they taped a few extra songs, and I miss them so much.

And I wear Kevin's ring that I keep for him until I get back, but he never emailed me and I don't have his email address, and he moved back in with his mom and her number is unlisted. And Cory would probably like to work on the zine with us, but I don't even know his last name. And some people are too busy to answer emails and it makes me wonder if I said something wrong.

How did I get so far from home?

Or, maybe more importantly, how did I ever let Murfreesboro become home?

I miss the people in my circle, and I miss the people I went to school with, and I miss the people I work with, and I miss the other people I met along the way.

I guess I am just feeling sorry for myself. But it is nice to get it out.

THINGS ARE NOT PERFECT HERE! I WILL NEVER AGAIN PRETEND THINGS ARE PERFECT WHEN THEY ARE NOT!!

Screw perfection. This is life..

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