Routines are good for the soul or something (OTA)
Getting back into the swing of things in the village had not been particularly easy. It may have only been a week that he was gone from the point of view of those here, but it had been months for him and more than a little had happened. His whole world-view was twisted up again, his view of himself, of his family, of right and wrong and where he stood in the midst of it all.
It would have been easy to just sit around and brood about it, but he'd done enough of that back home, and though he'd spent his first week back pretty much feeling like a ghost, he knew that wouldn't work for long.
He was here. Perhaps he had a new lesson to learn. Perhaps he'd never learned the first. But it was a life, and he was adaptable, and the best way he knew to get past the things that had happened was to throw himself back into his work.
The nice weather was, at least, soothing, and he had picked back up with teaching his classes. At the moment, he had a stack of exams to grade, and rather than sulking in his room, he'd taken himself down to the cafe to work. He had tea and a nice table and a red pen (nevermind what modern pedagogy said about the psychologically scarring effects of red ink spilled across a page--it was nonsense). Sometimes he wanted to strangle his students for their mangling of language and history, but most of them were eager to learn (they were going to school when they didn't necessarily have to) and it wasn't that much of a chore. In fact, the very mundane nature of it was soothing, and he was smiling a little to himself as he read over their essays.
It would have been easy to just sit around and brood about it, but he'd done enough of that back home, and though he'd spent his first week back pretty much feeling like a ghost, he knew that wouldn't work for long.
He was here. Perhaps he had a new lesson to learn. Perhaps he'd never learned the first. But it was a life, and he was adaptable, and the best way he knew to get past the things that had happened was to throw himself back into his work.
The nice weather was, at least, soothing, and he had picked back up with teaching his classes. At the moment, he had a stack of exams to grade, and rather than sulking in his room, he'd taken himself down to the cafe to work. He had tea and a nice table and a red pen (nevermind what modern pedagogy said about the psychologically scarring effects of red ink spilled across a page--it was nonsense). Sometimes he wanted to strangle his students for their mangling of language and history, but most of them were eager to learn (they were going to school when they didn't necessarily have to) and it wasn't that much of a chore. In fact, the very mundane nature of it was soothing, and he was smiling a little to himself as he read over their essays.