tedious exposition scenes
So ... you went to the other side of the Earth to discover a land of vast steppes and mountains, closed to the world for 150 years and even now somewhat shrouded in mystery. Unpacked your big red bag, found your way to the local supermarket, met your new colleagues, and began the inevitable months of settling in, adjusting and acclimatising.
As winter closed its grip on your new home, you perservered through the -20C nights, walking home from work along icy, sometimes unlit streets and wrapping up to compensate for the dodgy heating in your less-than-functional Soviet-era flat. You survived uni exams, power cuts, a confrontation with angry street dogs, and numerous deathrides in rattle-trap cars with half-crazed boy racers at the wheel, as well as spending Christmas Day as an illegal immigrant. Not even trying on clothes in an outdoor market in -15C killed you.
Finally, you reached the point where people in the street began mistaking you for a local – not all the time, but often enough to be noticeable. You crossed a threshold, on the far side of which you spend more time giving directions than asking for them. And just quietly, you're really pleased with yourself.
Not to a deluded extent, mind you – I mean, there's never any doubt that you're still an Absolute Outsider and that, if you want this feeling to go away, you've got years of work ahead of you yet (and even then it might not). But still, you've seen other ex-pats get on a plane and run back to the apron strings of the Motherland when things get tough, and so far you've avoided doing so. Instead, you've dug in and shown your sternest stuff. Now you're seeing the first (albeit very minor) signs that it's beginning to pay off.
So imagine how disappointed you'll be when subsequent events prove that, in actual fact, you're still the same pathetic schmo* you've always been. I mean, logically you know it's going to happen, right? Things can't possibly be going this smoothly ... or if they are, it must be a sign that Fate is about to intervene and rip out your heart through your ribcage, stretch it across a chopping block and flatten it like a tender steak under the nasty, pointy veal mallet of life. And yes, score one for the pessimist – it is that time, and Fate does step in. Result: you get cruelled.
Thanks, Fate.
I'm not going to tell you who or what brought my "Everything's more or less on track" feeling to an end last week. It was a combination of things, really. What I am going to tell you is this: when the Big Smackdown happens in a far-flung foreign land, it's even more difficult than usual to know how you should handle it. The usual dark, reverberating well of self-pity is deepened by the fact that no-one here really 'gets' you yet, so whatever your problem, empathetic shoulders are in short supply. Plus there's the whole "I've just met these people – I don't want them to know how pathetic I am!" issue, which tends to make you a little nervous about exposing your vulnerabilities.
(And yet, here I am writing about this on my blog. Silly man!)
Anyway, at a certain point you realise that the saddest thing isn't so much that bad stuff has happened, but rather that you've been affected so much by it. All the progress you made seems to have evaporated, and you start wondering if you could possibly be any less resilient, resourceful, self-reliant etc. (all the qualities you were congratulating yourself on not so long ago). Suddenly you're thinking the most suitable lifestyle choice might be to move to a new, uninhabited city, set yourself up as Mayor there, and name it "Schmotown".
So what – other than the Mayoral option – can you do? Well, if you can forgive me for using one of the most overwrought literary devices in the galaxy, I'll tell you in just a little while, because this entry is
... to be continued
(hehe)
(* For those who haven't seen it before, "schmo" is New York Jewish English. It means sth like "loser".)
So ... you went to the other side of the Earth to discover a land of vast steppes and mountains, closed to the world for 150 years and even now somewhat shrouded in mystery. Unpacked your big red bag, found your way to the local supermarket, met your new colleagues, and began the inevitable months of settling in, adjusting and acclimatising.
As winter closed its grip on your new home, you perservered through the -20C nights, walking home from work along icy, sometimes unlit streets and wrapping up to compensate for the dodgy heating in your less-than-functional Soviet-era flat. You survived uni exams, power cuts, a confrontation with angry street dogs, and numerous deathrides in rattle-trap cars with half-crazed boy racers at the wheel, as well as spending Christmas Day as an illegal immigrant. Not even trying on clothes in an outdoor market in -15C killed you.
Finally, you reached the point where people in the street began mistaking you for a local – not all the time, but often enough to be noticeable. You crossed a threshold, on the far side of which you spend more time giving directions than asking for them. And just quietly, you're really pleased with yourself.
Not to a deluded extent, mind you – I mean, there's never any doubt that you're still an Absolute Outsider and that, if you want this feeling to go away, you've got years of work ahead of you yet (and even then it might not). But still, you've seen other ex-pats get on a plane and run back to the apron strings of the Motherland when things get tough, and so far you've avoided doing so. Instead, you've dug in and shown your sternest stuff. Now you're seeing the first (albeit very minor) signs that it's beginning to pay off.
So imagine how disappointed you'll be when subsequent events prove that, in actual fact, you're still the same pathetic schmo* you've always been. I mean, logically you know it's going to happen, right? Things can't possibly be going this smoothly ... or if they are, it must be a sign that Fate is about to intervene and rip out your heart through your ribcage, stretch it across a chopping block and flatten it like a tender steak under the nasty, pointy veal mallet of life. And yes, score one for the pessimist – it is that time, and Fate does step in. Result: you get cruelled.
Thanks, Fate.
I'm not going to tell you who or what brought my "Everything's more or less on track" feeling to an end last week. It was a combination of things, really. What I am going to tell you is this: when the Big Smackdown happens in a far-flung foreign land, it's even more difficult than usual to know how you should handle it. The usual dark, reverberating well of self-pity is deepened by the fact that no-one here really 'gets' you yet, so whatever your problem, empathetic shoulders are in short supply. Plus there's the whole "I've just met these people – I don't want them to know how pathetic I am!" issue, which tends to make you a little nervous about exposing your vulnerabilities.
(And yet, here I am writing about this on my blog. Silly man!)
Anyway, at a certain point you realise that the saddest thing isn't so much that bad stuff has happened, but rather that you've been affected so much by it. All the progress you made seems to have evaporated, and you start wondering if you could possibly be any less resilient, resourceful, self-reliant etc. (all the qualities you were congratulating yourself on not so long ago). Suddenly you're thinking the most suitable lifestyle choice might be to move to a new, uninhabited city, set yourself up as Mayor there, and name it "Schmotown".
So what – other than the Mayoral option – can you do? Well, if you can forgive me for using one of the most overwrought literary devices in the galaxy, I'll tell you in just a little while, because this entry is
... to be continued
(hehe)
(* For those who haven't seen it before, "schmo" is New York Jewish English. It means sth like "loser".)
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