There is very little to say about this week, because I basically went from work to my bed.
No, I am not suffering from depression (I don’t think). I got my first Greek cold. Waa waa. It wasn’t all that bad, since I just…slept constantly, but it does mean that I have very little to talk about here!
Let’s see. I publicly announced that I will be staying in Athens for another year, which is pretty exciting! I thought I would stay more than a year before I even came here, and by March I knew I wanted to extend at least through December 2017. Granted, there was a month or so where I was super homesick and culture shock-y and I just wanted to go home nooooow, but that was expected. Anyway, it feels good! I’ve been here seven months now, and it still feels so much like I’m settling in. There’s so much more I have to do to make this place my home, and I don’t want to leave before I get to experience that.
Plus my work at HD just keeps growing and growing, and new challenges pop up literally every other day. It’s a perfect job for me: enough routine to make me feel safe, and enough fires to put out that I feel animated and challenged. It’s so fun to be a part of a new organization where everyone is doing three jobs at once.
But…I’m super not a workaholic, no matter how that last bit sounded. And having a cold this week highlighted what a great working environment I have. My coworkers made me a list of Greek cold medicines to get from the pharmacy. My boss brought me vitamins. Everyone told me to stay home one day (I didn’t, but we were having a party lunch, so I couldn’t miss that), and everyone was very supportive of my daily “I did nothing last night besides read and sleep” updates.
Oh, I did do one thing this week! On Thursday we all went to the beach. Dina leaves this weekend for a six-week trip to do fundraising in the States with her husband, so we (the staff, participants, and volunteers) of HD went to the beach for aqua-Pilates and relaxation. George, Luciana’s husband, assured me that swimming in the sea was good for colds. “Uh huh,” I said, mentally rolling my eyes at the most Greek advice I’d ever heard. But when I waded into the sea (I can’t swim), MY COLD WENT AWAY. What kind of Greek witchcraft!? I mean, I assume it has something to do with salt and exercise, but also magic.
Today I’m feeling MUCH better, which is probably obvious from the chipper tone of this blog post. And look at that, I wrote 500 words about how I didn’t have anything to say about this week.
It Is Trish 