Down Time

Today, after a staff meeting, a 2+ hour student appointment, a coffee appointment with a teammate, a team-leader powwow by phone, several emails, numerous text messages back and forth arranging ticket delivery for our banquet on Wednesday, as well as various other work-related odds and ends, it was time for some normal-life non-work work. I went to the grocery store, dropped off a movie at the video rental place, and bought some toilet paper and paper towels at another small market.

About a minute after arriving home, the phone rang. This was the Vonage line from the states, and it was Sunny’s Uncle Ted calling from Minneapolis. I’ve never met Ted, but we ended up having a good, solid half-hour conversation during his lunch break. We covered many topics: where I grew up, the relative benefits of volunteering to help others learn English in Seattle or Minneapolis, European coffee, and whether or not Sunny has been to Greece. Unfortunately he ran out of time and didn’t get to talk to her himself, but at least we bonded.

A bit later it was time for our weekly apartment cleaning extravaganza. I was on floor duty, mopping and vacuuming away, when Taylor called me in for a consult.

*Graphic, unnecessary details to follow*

Taylor was cleaning the bathroom, but when she got to the toilet she ran into an obstacle – literally. There was a stubborn log of poo at the bottom of the toilet basin that refused to be flushed. Believe me, we tried. Many times. And it just sat there, swaying a little in the flow, but never leaving.

We entered the experimental phase and employed copious amounts of baking soda and vinegar hoping the reactionary activity would break things down, so to speak. Still no dice.

*End bathroom-oriented content*

I left her alone and went back to the floors. It was almost 10pm at this point, but swimsuit season is basically here, so no slacking with the exercise can be tolerated. Sunny and I donned our smelly workout gear and headed out. While running around a nearby soccer field, Sunny was targeted by a high-powered and frighteningly accurate laser pointer. We dodged and hid behind a large tree- partly laughing and partly terrified that she was about to be annihilated by a sniper. A few minutes later a random old guy started running around the same track so we felt a little safer and resumed our activities.

We arrived home and were greeted by Josip, a student we just met last Wednesday. He was stopping by to get a ticket to the banquet and decided to hang out for a while. Once we got there he probably felt a little outnumbered, because he invited two more friends to join us. The seven of us talked for quite a while and covered an impressive array of conversational subjects over apple juice and cookies. I think they are some of our new favorite friends.

Around 12:30 Sunny and I looked at one another and gave up on the remaining business we had planned to cover tonight. There’s always tomorrow, right?

Seriously, though. People ask us what a typical day is like. There is no typical day. Random stuff happens all the time. All the time. And it’s great, it just takes getting used to. And I will miss it.