"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows."

It's always easier to share happiness and shiny stuff with others, at least to me. You can proudly say you achieved something or you're just having a great day without a reason. Everyone loves a happy person anyway.

But I'm not always happy (well, let's say most of the time) and it's totally OK.

This post will be all about my heartbreaks. All about the things I don't want to talk about. But I believe I should.

Well, let's face them:)

The first one:

On-arrival training

All Evs volunteers attend this 5-day training once or after their projects start. Ours was held in Murcia on my third week here. We stayed at a dormitory-like hostel near the sea. Bugs and dirty sheets! But that's not the problem. The weather was nice, nice enough to sunbathe during breaks:) And the trainers were really cool and fun.

yeah this was happening :D

                                               a very different kind of "henna night" :)

BUT I felt really bad about myself most of the time because nearly everyone spoke Spanish very well. I guess I was expecting to see more volunteers like me. Even though the training was mostly in English, we had Q&A sessions in Spanish and the trainers were translating everything just for two or three people. And one of them was me! To be honest I felt so uncomfortable and just wanted to go home and by home I mean Illescas. The first time I realized that I called it "home"!

The second one:

My first and last bachata class

Note to self:  Don't underestimate bachata!

I've been always interested in taking up dance classes. So perfect place, perfect time? Also, my au pair friend Sinje (I met her on my first day here. We're lucky that we became really good friends:) was interested. So we ended up in a class full of people who were already taking the classes. Well it seemed so... It was definitely not for beginners. While they were learning new moves the teacher was showing me the first steps. I was so convinced that I couldn't dance, I kept forgetting the steps. Well it's typical of me. There's a switch off button right in my head. And I often activate it with my super powerful negative thoughts.

The teacher's complaining about how difficult it is for him to work with different levels at the same time didn't help either. It was like "You ruined the class, you sons of beginners!!!1"

Well, listen to me you son of teachers. That's not how you treat someone who has no idea what she's doing. Once I had a student who didn't know how to read and write and I was supposed to help her (along with 9-10 other students) with their homework. She was crying all the time. Imagine a worksheet covered with tears of an 8-year-old. She was the only one who couldn't read and write. I had moments where I felt like holding her arms and shouting at her "Please don't cry anymore! Once you stop it, you'll start learning." But I didn't. I kept telling her she was doing great even when she invented her own alphabet and I had no idea what she wrote. At the end? She did it! And I didn't lose anything by telling her lies about how great she was. The look on her face when she was saying "I can do it!" was priceless. And that's all I need.

I feel you, Aslı. And I'm proud of you.

Note to self: Don't underestimate yourself!