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[morrigun]

So, yet again, my mom is in the hospital. A few months ago she broke her other ankle while white water rafting... She had a few months to recover, but she recovered pretty well. She broke her ribs a few months ago and now she's fractured her tibia and ripped muscle from the bone. I wish I was there. I want to help but there's not a lot I could

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[anandimide]

PS, about food... I've often had a lot of problems eating here; so much of the street food is fat-laden & unfamiliar & I can't always cope with it, & can't waste money on expensive Western food... I have a favorite food stall now where I can get heaps of steamed vegetables along with my rice & fish, so that helps. But sometimes I can't even eat that, which is when I start picking up snacks from the vendors around the bus station. They have these delicious sweet potatoes with light purple skin, & hard-boiled eggs & miniature bananas, & I've made a lot of meals off those! Or else I'd buy rice noodles, tofu, bok choy, seaweed, & various flavorings (chili paste, soy sauce, instant vegetable broth pellets) & put them all in a big bowl & pour boiling water over them; it got boring after a while, but it was cheap & much healthier than street noodles. (Of course you need an electric kettle, but they aren't too expensive & if you use them wisely you can save money on food pretty quickly.)

BTW: it might possibly make you feel a bit better to know that I've always been a bit of a neurotic mess... Was in the mental hospital before I entered high school, then struggled with self-injury & a sort of half-assed eating disorder for a long time. The latter was never at all serious, but the former was somewhat worse. And then in college I had something of a major mental/physical breakdown in my junior year, & after graduation my grandmother was so worried about me that she forced me to see a therapist again. So I didn't come to VN with huge reserves of mental well-being! And honestly, I still really struggle sometimes. But after the first few hard months, suddenly I realized that this huge mental weight had been lifted from me... I've now spent over a year feeling more balanced & grounded, more confident, & more secure in myself than I ever have before. I'd had periods of relative well-being before this one, but they never lasted more than a couple months--& were never as intense as this one (if you can call feeling balanced "intense!").

I guess what I'm saying is: don't give up. I mean, I don't think you will! It might look dark now, but you have to keep going. There's so much to be gained.

Have you thought of volunteering? I know ILA has connections with various charities... Not sure how that works, though. Might be something to look into--might make you feel useless or better about yourself or less fixated on your own woes. (That last bit sounds patronizing, but I don't mean it to be!--that's just how depression is. You get mired up in yourself, & when you recognize how pathetically self-obsessed you're being it just makes you more depressed & self-critical & obsessed with your feelings of guilt & failure.)

Anyway, sorry to blabber on like this! Hope it's somewhat helpful, or at least doesn't make things worse. Remember: you'll probably find teaching at ILA a lot easier in the near future, but even if you don't, it gives you time to look for other possibilities. The international schools (such as my own) might suit you, & there are occasional openings during the middle of the school year... And even though it seems like the only (paid) jobs here are EFL teaching, that isn't completely true. For instance, the teacher I replaced when I started my current job had actually quit in favor of a graphic design position with an HCMC company, if I remember correctly!