Nine and a half weeks

I knew that headline would grab your attention but sadly, no tales in that respect. Ha. Nine and a half weeks really means, that’s exactly how long I’ve been in Bangladesh today. It’s so weird thinking about it. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been here five minutes; when I don’t know what the hell someone’s saying, or directions somewhere, or when I'm seeing things so completely foreign and different from home, sometimes I stop and think, where the hell am I and what am I doing here? And then other times, I feel like I’m getting it; when I’m eating rice and daal with my hand and drinking tea from a tea stall, when I’m bumping along in a CNG or rickshaw through the chaos of Dhaka and actually know where I‘m going, when I’m buying things from the market for a good price… my old life seems so far away. It’s truly a strange thing. In another three weeks I’ll have been here for three months, that means a quarter of my placement will be over already, and time seems to be running through my fingers like sand.


I’ve also been looking at my blog that I’m using to document this journey and its thirteen posts. Thirteen posts. Thirteen posts of what? Are these really my thoughts? Is this really capturing everything I’ve seen, tasted, touched, and what I think or have experienced? Or is it just a load of crap that I’m writing? I read a few previous blogs on my site and some of them are okay but some of them are just plain shit. I’ve never had a blog before, only a diary when I was about twelve years old and that was BEYOND shit. Am I managing to evoke my personality through my writing in this so-called blog? Sometimes it feels a bit like a series of mediocre high school essays, not a story, my story. Sometimes I don’t know. I clicked on a few other ‘Bangla’ blogs this morning and feel a bit of blog envy. God, I hate admitting that. Blog envy. Ewww. I know it’s not a popularity contest but the other blogs seem funnier, more interesting. My flat mate’s had over a thousand hits on her blog. A thousand hits!? I have no idea how many people have read this but I think I need to shape up a bit more in my writing, try and make it a bit more witty, risque, grittier… SOMETHING! I’m making no promises but as of today, I will try and make bangininthedesh more ‘Lisa’ as of now. Right now. Yep, I’ll write something today, something great. Mmmm, um, ok… I guess I’d better go write something…