Frazzled

Oy. If you can't tell, the picture is the remains of my expensive ceramic hair straightener, may she rest in piece. I plugged it in along with my 2000 watt, $50 converter, and 2 minutes later smelled something funny. Run into my room and the plates have melted off the plastic, sizzling and leaving my wood floor with two "scars."

And what a fitting day for this to happen. Today is the first day I have been completely overwhelmed, with homesickness and loneliness. Everytime I read my friends' away messages, and read that they are together, or shopping, or out drinking, my stomach wrenches with loneliness. Everyday I receive the most delightful, descriptive emails from my mom about every walk at stony creek, every bike ride, every shopping trip to costco for milk, every episode of Bill Maher and the Colbert Report..... This in no way means that I don't want to be hearing about everything going on back home, but it leaves me with a gnawing ache for the familiar. I'm worn down- I have the children for 11-12 hours a day, and am not really "off duty" till after they are go to bed (8:30is). I am always "on," and I am losing my energy and enthousiasm.

I am also dealing with a feeling of complete inertia. For the past four years I have always had a class to go to, a paper to BS, an exam to study for.......or at least a bar to go to and friends to go there with to procrastinate all the aforementioned items. I'm so used to have something to be achieved (good grades, a diploma, a decent buzz) that I don't know what to make of just looking after children and cooking their meals. Obviously I don't intend to become a professional Nanny.... add to that the fact that I don't even get to speak French very much (the main reason for wanting to be an au pair) and the only question that comes into my head is: what am I doing here??

My mom's famous advice is just to enjoy the small things each day- flowers, conversations, walks, etc, and that everything will be mundane and boring if you let it. But right now, just being, and not working towards something that will help me achieve in the future seems just off.
I feel at a standstill while everyone I know is moving forward.