Visitors and Counting Down

Today marks the beginning of my final 30 days in Bulgaria.

There are no words to describe all of the experiences I've had this year, and just how much they've impacted my life and my person, but in the next few weeks, I'm going to give it a try, so stay tuned for that.

The overarching narrative of this past week has again been--you guessed it--the inexorable march towards completing my thesis. Having passed 100 pages and 8 sections completed today, I'm now 2/3 finished with my first draft, and still sort of on schedule, give or take a day. That said, this has been the week it has stopped being fun, and begun, in unpleasant earnest, to be a slog towards the finish line. I have ceased writing; I am now doing battle.

For that, I feel like I owe this place and my experience here an abstract apology of sorts. None of this year was supposed to be killed time or compulsory effort in service of something else, not even the final dregs of it. But, I suppose, this happens quite often during the penultimate stages in the completion of something major; maybe it's just human nature to want the end of something when that end--especially when it's a goal to be achieved--is in sight.

And, in my defense, this has been one of the toughest weeks I've had in a long time, with which the details thereof I'll furnish you should you feel compelled to ask me. To keep things vague and concise, the hour-long episode I experienced of getting caught in a torrential downpour on Sunday night when I was out running for the first time with my new iPod was a fitting metaphor for the content of my life during the last week and a half.

Senioritis--or its equivalent to whatever-role-in-life-it-is-I-am-presently-filling--has been afflicting me for a couple months, but this has been the week that has vaulted me over the final wall of disenchantment separating my consciousness from the desire to just go home already. Not that I want to sound ungrateful, or unhappy, or fed up, because I'm not. Really. I'm still happy where I am, I'm still having a nominal modicum of fun, I'm still so grateful to be here and to be doing this, because this has been, and continues to be, an awesome experience in a whole mess of ways. But the honest, earnest facts are that it is late May, it's been raining here for a month straight, I have been spending the last 3 1/2 weeks sitting on my fat stores typing on this same loathsome machine, and I'm ready for a change of scenery. My only regret is that I'm afraid that all this will prevent me from enjoying this place and honoring this opportunity to the extent that I should be for my final month here. To put it more simply, I'm over this, and I feel bad about that.

But - 

30 days remain here, and no matter what has built up to this moment, the onus is on me to use those days to the fullest extent and to try to squeeze every last remaining drop of significance out of this year that I can. So, though I'm beginning my 30-day countdown, I'm still going to put my fun face on when I put both feet on the floor every morning and just do the best that I can. That's all any of us can do anyway.

All of that said, it's not like my life has been one festering hollow of despair lately. This weekend I had some visitors (as I have had almost non-stop since returning from Vienna), including my very own father, as well as Macedonian Fulbrighter Cassidy, whom I met in Thessaloniki last month.

My dad, who had been in Israel for the week-and-change prior to this past weekend, was supposed to come in late on Friday night, giving him roughly a day and a half to check out the true face and not just the fairytale I had been feeding him of my life here. For reasons stemming from the silly nature of air travel, he ended up having to fly from Tel Aviv to Vienna before coming back down thisaway, and unwisely chose Austrian Airlines to ferry him thus, as I could have advised him against. Lo and behold, this sham of a company delayed his flight out of Tel Aviv, causing him to miss his connection in Vienna, meaning he didn't get into Sofia until noon on Saturday, a mere 20 hours before he had to leave again.

So. We got to spend a little time touring the city (me giving my now-routine Eastern Half Tour) and hanging out, which was nice after going such a long time without us having done so. We played some music, went out to eat, went to the bar, etc. It was too short of a time to spend with him, but I'm going to be home in two months, so there's a silver lining in the inadequacy of that period of time.

While we were out seeing the city on Saturday, the oddest assortment of things kept happening. Cars kept driving by and honking, balloons flying from their antennae, and windows, and, seemingly, every other attachment point possible, people leaning out of those same windows and waving, screaming, and pointing. And at the Cathedral, I saw something I'd never seen before: Hundreds upon hundreds of Bulgarian kids, all decked out in the most ridiculous of dresses, suits, and tuxedos (Click this for a no-BS look at what we were seeing), all yelling, having what appeared to be a rager, bottles and all, in the middle of the day.

What we were witnessing, as it turns out, was graduation season in Bulgaria, these kids all graduating high school students heading to their proms and graduation banquets. As I later heard, it happens every year, and there is nothing else like it, as I will henceforth attest.

On the heels of my dad's exit came the entrance of temporary Skopje resident Cassidy. Her stay here was mostly uneventful, as I--will this sound familiar?--had work to do, though we did meet up with Georgi, who took us to a traditional Bulgarian restaurant, albeit one with questionable service (well, they did give us free brandy at the end of the night to make up for it). And we did get serenaded by a folk band in a manner broadly similar to the experience I had in Istanbul in January. But the next morning, she, too disappeared like a puff of smoke in the wind, and I was left solitary once more.

However, old Friend of the Fulbright Program Sanja, and her boyfriend, Adrian, were in town from Berlin, so last night, I ventured out of the battlefield that my apartment has become to go meet them for coffee and drinks and dinner. It was really terrific to catch up with them - they moved from Sofia a few months ago and I hadn't seen them since. Next year, though, they are moving to the Toronto area, and so are going to have the distinction of being the most local Foreigners I've Met This Year to me next year, presenting some interesting opportunities.

So -

It has not been the most fun week I've ever had, but there have mercifully been things to keep me going. Now it's time for me to go. I've been staring at this screen for--no lie--13 straight hours today, and my eyes hurt. But we'll be back together soon enough. So for now, enjoy everything that life throws you.