of badminton and New Years

ahhh Christmas vacation. Things have been quiet here at the orphanage the last couple weeks. It has gotten so cold that the kids stay in their rooms, playing around the space heaters. With no school in session, Brittni and I have been assigned to the storage room. Mrs.Waid had cabinets put in that go all the way up to the ceiling and now all the clothes that were previously shoved randomly into bags have to be organized into 0-3months, 3-6months.... and so on... Oh what fun. I did that for about half a day and frankly got kinda bored. lol Brittni's the trooper that's been in there the whole time.

Instead of storage, I was in charge of labeling. I labeled the storage bins and cupboards in Handicrafts, and all the cabinets and drawers in the storage room. It sounds easy enough but somehow nothing ever is quite easy in Bangladesh. The protagonist? The laminating machine. Still. It ate two sheets of paper. Nonetheless, fighting with the laminating machine was better than sorting little girls dresses so I got it done. I've also been spending quite a bit of time colouring Bangla books that Mrs.Waid wants to use for Class 2 starting in a couple weeks. There aren't enough books to go around so she had each book copied and enlarged--but only in black and white. I've gone through with Elle's set of Sharpies and coloured just the important things: a t-shirt, vase, plate, etc. Slow going but again, at least I'm not in the storage room.

I've also started to play badminton at night. Surprisingly enough, there are a lot of people on campus who are really good at the game--one of which is Mr.Waid! The man may be 80years old but he puts me to shame with how quickly he can return that birdie. I try not to get too competitive with the game but have started to play because I know it's good exercise for my otherwise mundane day. I'm actually not bad though! I think it was all those years Jenny and I had to knock the birdie around, hoping one day Uncle Jon and Uncle Brad would let us play. I think I could give them a run for their money now :D lol

...and that's the extent of my exciting life right now. As I write this, I'm only about four hours away from 2010. Wow. 2010. I remember where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing when 2000 came. Does anyone reading this remember what they were doing January 31, 1999 a few seconds before midnight?

Honestly, I'm feeling really lonely. Brittni hasn't been feeling very well lately so she is going to bed early. Mr. and Mrs.Waid are going to bed because they don't feel the need to stay up til midnight lol. So I'm all by myself again--just like Christmas. I can help but feel so sad that I'm not home right now, playing games, laughing, singing. I just wish I could be with all the people I love most in the world. And I wonder, what am I supposed to learn from times like this? How to be okay with being completely alone? I don't plan on being alone for the holidays like this again. At the very least I'll have family, if not friends, to celebrate with.

I am going to try to make the best of it. I'm going to try to stay up, even if it's by myself, watch movies, each some junk food (New Year's diet starts tomorrow lol), and try to be happy. But right now, all I want to do is go to bed and just hope for a better New Year's celebration next year. Which plan I'm going to do... Well I don't know yet. I just know that I miss home, my parents, my family, my boyfriend, my friends--everything familiar--like crazy right now. I can only describe it as helpless loneliness...

I hope you all have a much better New Year's than I'm having. Say a little prayer for me, but then get RIGHT back to celebrating life and love.

Happy New Years,
ami tomake bhalobashi