Well, it has been some time hasn't it? Suffice it to say, July 2010 was perhaps the most...interesting month of my time here thus far. There were great highs: seeing my students get a picnic going all on their own, participating in an art camp led and taught by young Azerbaijanis, leading three students to their first summer camp away from home, and seeing my family all together for the first time in 19 years.
    And yet, there were also great lows: seeing my sitemate return to America, an impromptu visit from my landlords at 5 am, a door that wouldn't lock and wouldn't be fixed, and a bag that refused to leave Turkey.
    Looking at those events in sentences, I realize it's hard for you to imagine the epic struggle I've had with chaos.
    There was a time my sophomore year in college where I was merely a zombie, grazing by with my head phones eternally playing Modest Mouse. It was not a great time in my life, by far. I must have played one song over a million times, desperately trying to remind myself that there were important things in the world that needed my attention. I still believed then that my situation was under my control.
    I left the following year for a term abroad, where I learned to either let go or lose myself.
    July brought me back in time, to a place where I still tried to flip switches and turn cranks to manipulate the universe. Luckily for me, my vacation time with the family that had not been on the same continent in 19 years was in the same country that taught me to accept my ability to change with the chaos. Relearning lessons is arguably harder than learning them the first time.
    In some ways, what I do is easy. I hang out in my village hut for 2 years, start one or two-hopefully-useful things, and go on my merry way. I basically point the way and leave the journey-the work-to others. Not a crowd, not a group, if I'm lucky, a few brave enough to step into the unknown.
    As I sat in a taxi with 3 teenage girls who had never been out of their village on their own, I was a little sad, knowing that they too would have to face chaos, many times more, alone. As I left them, I became immensely proud to know them.
    So, let's just pretend that the lessons, like ripples, cancel each other out. All that's left is a month where I sat back, watching the future take form.