on the move, again

Another month, another place to live. It seems to have become the norm that we stay no more than a few months in any one place.

We're leaving my parents' house and heading north into the city to house-sit for my friend Sparrow while her family visits Grandma in California. I'm grateful for the place to crash, especially since it will cut our commute from 1+hour to about 15 minutes. Lovely. We'll be there for a week and a half before packing up again and heading back to my parents for a couple of days. The next 3 weeks will be pretty crazy with the living situation; inconsistent is the perfect description, it seems.

The trusty, enormous, lime green suitcase was pulled from the garage and we're using it once again to pack everything into (along with a few other bags). Some of the pockets hadn't been emptied and it was fun to come across receipts, drawings, etc. that I hadn't seen since our return. My 'monkey purse' was on the bottom shelf and I needed to pack that away, too. All my business cards that I collected during our months in Vietnam are tucked in there, so I wanted to get them and put them with my "building the website" box for later use. Anything else? Oh yes, tucked into the corner of the bag was the pin from Mr. Hoan. It's from Dai Hoc Hong Duc... my alma mater, in a way. I'm not sure what it was about that pin, but somehow the sight of it brought tears anew.

I have a tremendous amount of guilt for leaving my students there. Things have gone from bad to worse for them, with several teachers coming through (and leaving) and the number of students that attend has dropped from nearly 50 to less than a dozen in the months since I left. The TOEFL test is quickly approaching and I can't help but feel so bad that I let them down. Yet, I know that leaving was best for the kids. I wish there was something i could do to help 'em out, but I've yet to figure out what.

Clearly, I'm not over this "break-up." I miss that place so much. I miss the people even more. But there's no time to continue crying over spilt milk. I have to get the car loaded.