A year since I was in Paraguay and the end of Fall Semester

It is the end of the semester and I have spent the past two days in bed watching terrible movies, tv shows on netflix. In fact, I chose bad movies on purpose because anything that I got too involved in seemed like I am stressing, expending energy rather than zoning out completely. It as tho my brain has been triggered to hit the off button. I am also getting over being sick, I feel my body was on overdrive these past weeks....
take that back, i feel i have been on overdrive these past few months. Since August life has been crazy, adjusting to fort collins, the people, working in groups, trying to improve myself, work, school, etc has been a ton to handle. Honestly i feel i have handled it well, besides those moments in which i find myself in small talk mode or complaining about something dumb. I realized that i did not lose my cool to my stress but in another way I became someone sometimes i did not like. I wonder if i recognize this after spending so much time in paraguay being someone else, chiller, and more peaceful than i am now. I never complained much then, and now when a few words escape my mouth about not liking fort collins, i want to take those words back. because this is an adjustment, and i am going through a culture shock and in fact, i am becoming more used to it and feel more comfortable here and i am being to like it here! This is a wonderful place for those people that want to settle down and start a family. I do like fort collins and recognize that my stresses have nothing to do with Fort Collins but with my life right now and other stresses. I hope this winter i can embrace the cold, instead of complaining about it, and enjoy being here. I still feel extremely lucky to have my job and be in this program. Right now tho, i feel as i got hit by a truck... i think it is my body recognizing i can wind down now. I do not think i have ever been so busy with such a fluctuating schedule/ I think that is what made me soo tired is the non continuity of my daily, weekly life.  I loved all the field trips i went on this semester but they were exhausting. i love my job but it took so much patience and adjustment to my bosses emails and a position in which i am not actually sure what i do besides being an assistant. thus, this as well had no continuity, always last minute emails with a never ending inbox. but the problem that i recognize was me separating work from my life. it absorbed me because i enjoyed and looked up to the men i work with. i felt i am learning so much and given a lot of information on the field in protected areas. honestly in some ways i felt i had to give back to them, to thank them for my summer course work and for taking me on. I honestly felt at times i was working harder than i ever had in my life, because i pushed myself through tasks at speeds that led to mistakes but were done in an incredible timely fashion. i have to recognize to slow down.
now i see that most my stress from this semester came from work. ive talked about it much more than the school work. I am happy that this next semester my hours are cut to eight a week since i went over my hours this semester. i felt i was working a ton more than 10 but that is because i became absorbed with work and never relaxed like at my other jobs. when i worked 40 hours a week, i could take my time, slowly go through my tasks, make to do lists, etc. Sometimes i feel what i accomplish in 10 hours with this job i would in 40 at my job at the sanitary district or someone else i have worked, it is all because i really admire the folks i work with and admire what they are doing. in fact it hurts me when i mess up more than it should or when i am feeling off and in a weird mood because i feel it reflects badly on myself and any trust they have put in me. i have to keep telling myself it is just a job and not my lifeline to a career.
School was awesome, some classes were a bore and worthless and others i felt i needed so many more hours in. i feel that our Leadership class was too much fluff but it did have some worthy self assessments (very!) and it made me read the seven habits which was very worthwhile.  Our group work sometimes drives me to an area between not wanting to cooperate and wanting to be in charge and fluctuates often and every moment. it is important for my growth in this field, in life, but it is horrible to have to be forced into group work as often we are, although very valuable.
I feel that i can not separate school and work from my life here and i dislike that. A LOT. it is really hard to relax when you spent a ton of time with you classmates to spend time with them on the weekends as well. And I feel tired of my bosses as well, i imagine that is normal when someone places folks on a pedestal only to recognize everyone is human. i hope that i learn to separate my life here more. It was so comforting to be in new york and have leah and heather and lauren here to make me feel real again and remember who i am and not just the person my cohort or bosses see. I like having Lalo and Michele as friends, they bring me away from this life of stress and pettyness and sterility and into a different zone completely. I hate to say it but I think everyone feels the same in our cohort, we are all tired of spending so much time with each other. The same conversations come out, the same complaints and i do not like who i am when i am that way. So then we decide to drink and then even stupider comments come out.  I wish we would mix up the booze with something else because i am tired of drinking and nights out. at my age i feel i am not the partier that i want to be, but a wash out claiming to want more adventure when all i want is some alone time. I guess that is why i am home tonight instead of at avos with some of my favorite people in my cohort. I reached my limit with socializing and stress and am shutting down. i am so happy i have tomorrow to do nothing as well. i maybe bored, but i feel i Need it. i have recognize my instability this last month, perhaps the transition into winter, but i felt different, not myself, and i feel i only can gain that back with leaving fort collins or restarting my brain with meditation, yoga and trying to balance myself.
my body feels sick, like i said, like i was hit.
last week my legs hurt. it reminded me of that time in paraguay when my legs hurt soo much when i had an unknown virus, it was not that bad. hopefully this sickness is contributing to my mood, and perhaps for a while now my body has been on overdrive and thus has been pushing back the sickness until now.i feel like doing nothing. i feel like not feeling, hence the stupid netflix movies, the duller the better. no comedy, no drama, no romance, just action. interestingly i did watch a sad movie, normally i hate those but it seemed almost cathartic. i turned it off once but then put it on again.  why now do i want to watch a sad movie?
Its been a long four and a half months. it feels a lot longer than it was, and i felt i grew a lot, gratefully, i would not change anything. but now i am at a loss. Graduate school is not necessarily healthy for my body nor soul but it is a commitment in which i am taking for my long term goals and growth. it is similar to paraguay that way. i never wanted to have a simple easy life right now but one in which i learned and grew. i have a feeling that part of me will want to change soon. the searching i hope does not come to an end but slows down every once in a while for a lasting stability and warmth of a peaceful existence. I guess that is when i will think of love, and settling down. Hache made a good point, she says i am contributing to my instability and ideas of not wanting to settled down in very harsh ways and that i need to be careful about men i pick right now. i feel that i am this way because there was no time for me to settle down. i moved here on August 1 and started work more than 40 hours a week on August 3, then i started school. at this point i am at a loss to find things that make this feel like home. Yoga class, soccer,  art folks.. seem like a hazy cloud in which i will not be able to reach. its too late, with four months to go here it seems like such a small amount of time. and then off again to latin america. where i think ill be happier, but who knows. i loved san cristobal when i was there last, so long ago, after the heat of Palenque and Belize, Maudi and i were so happy to land there. Some part of me wants to feel more settled there than here. i love people from different cultures, truly different than mine. i hopefully will find that. Hopefully i will embrace my cohort at times and leave it behind for the time i need to be by myself.