Four breakthroughs

Last weekend, I turned a corner.

Sorry this blog is so short on work-related musing, but I am purposely trying to keep it vague so as not to attract attention of anyone but my loyal readership. So back to my weekend warrior post...

There were four things that began to come together last weekend after a month on the job: friends, language, transport, and yoga. Up until that point it's been dark and cold, work-home, work-home.

We had our second language lesson and went to the produce market with our teacher to practice saying "May I have...carrots, green peppers, apples..." and we're learning numbers. It's small but it opens doors. And our teacher showed us how to take the bus to the market.

It turns out that only five minutes from our house, just across the creek full of plastic bags, is a bus stand. For $.12 OW I can go from my house to downtown in 15-20 minutes. Before it was an hour walk. Hour-long walks may be good for me, but to all-of-the-sudden be able to go downtown after work to the supermarket with good cheese, and make it home before dark means so much!

Friend-wise, I followed up with someone I'd met the weekend before. She's an expat stay-at-home mom with an 11-month old. This week we went for a walk (a "stroll," as she called it, with the stroller) and it turns out she's a treasure trove of local trivia tidbits (my favorite) and has made some study of Socialist Realism - the kind of idealistic/propaganda art from the Soviet era that we can still find in this town. We've only hung out twice but I invited her to yoga, so I hope the friendship can grow. I also met a lady from Couchsurfing, just for a coffee as I have my own couch here in this town.  She's a sister and an answer to my hopes for fellowship.

And lastly yoga. In the spirit of following-up every little tip, I connected to a twice-weekly yoga class.  It's taught by a Hungarian woman whose main job here is to train the local police. I don't know if it goes without saying, but she's not the "be gracious to yourself" type. We are encouraged not to be lazy, and the method is quite rigorous. But as I meet her twice more each week, and my body makes slow but steady progress in strength and flexibility, I see she is kind-hearted and providing a community and health benefit to us all with no compensation to herself.

In news from half-a-world away, my nephew's swim team won the state championship yesterday, a friend's husband had his second film premier, another friend had a job interview for her dream professorship after 11 years of higher education, my dad is on his last week of his first term as a state legislator, and my sister-in-law Tara turns 30 today!