A year ago today, I wrote my most popular blog post of all time. To date, none has even come close to my post <a href="http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/things-i-dont-understand/">Things I Don't Understand</a>.  I wrote it on a whim. I was having a bad day.  School was frustrating, my students were restless, my colleagues seemed unhelpful, the sidewalks were especially uneven that day and traffic was horrific.

By the time I'd gotten home, I'd written most of the post in my head channeling my anger and frustration into something more productive than the post I really wanted to write. Which was this: I hate blackboards. I hate that students never turn in their work on time and talk during class. I hate feeling like I never know what's going on. I hate not knowing the language. I hate the sidewalks I am walking on. All of this would have culminated in: I hate this country. And: What the *fill-in-with-an-expletive-of-your-choice* am I doing here?

But somehow after walking the length of Shishman on my way home, instead of writing the ranting post I'd originally been dreaming of, I'd managed to turn everything around.  That's the thing about living in a foreign country either you can let it get to or you can figure out how to live with the challenges you've been presented with. It's much easier to say: this is not home and as such, not as good but in doing so you eliminate all of the nuance, the difference and the confusion and in my mind, that is what makes living in a foreign country so interesting.<!--more-->

My post became a list of things I don't understand in Bulgaria and things I don't understand and love. Here's the reader's condensed version:
<ul>
	<li>How can it be that I always go to the post office stand in line for  at least 10 minutes and then when it’s my turn to buy stamps there’s not  a single person in line behind me?</li>
	<li>I have no idea how streets or rooms in buildings are numbered.  I  am not sure who numbered the streets but I can’t help wondering if he’d  been drinking rakia the night he started numbering.</li>
	<li>Why don’t Bulgarians recycle?</li>
	<li>What’s going on with the Bulgarian red?  How can every woman go to  the hair dresser and come out with the same color of hair? Does she say:  “oh give me what you just gave her” and point? Also, if I went to the  salon how would I look in that color?</li>
	<li>How can it be that I never know the work schedule and why doens’t  anyone tell me what’s going on? It’s happened more than once that the  government will give us the day off and then have us make the days off  up on a Saturday. This is not a day off.</li>
	<li>Why isn’t the Cyrillic alphabet cool? This also goes for the  Bulgarian language.  I’d love to have a planner that had the months and  days of the week in Bulgarian but after a 3 month search no luck.   Shouldn’t this be some hipster-cool thing? Alas, it’s not.</li>
	<li> How this country can frustrate me to no end sometimes and still I  am trying to figure out to extend this year into a second one.</li>
</ul>
This list is pretty representative of how I was feeling that day.  Rereading it even today, I still remember how frustrated I was with, um, everything. I wrote my anger into a loosely veiled post to vent but also in an attempt to be productive and the ultimate irony? This is the post that explodes and in one day nearly 5,000 people read it. Needless to say, I was glad I didn't write the post I was originally considering.

The part that stands out to me the most is the very last line.  This country can frustrate me to no end sometimes and still I  am trying  to figure out to extend this year into a second one. Yep, a year ago I was busy trying to figure out how to extend my stay.  How to transition from being a Fulbright scholar into, well, anything that would allow me to stay in Bulgaria.  And, look at me. I am still here.

So why am I here? The easy answer is because: I can be and  I wanted an adventure. The more difficult answer? Well, I guess that probably has to do with the fact that I am not very interested in doing the easy thing.  I gave up a good job, a retirement plan and a life I'd built for myself in Washington DC for five years for this. For Bulgaria. But don't get me wrong, I would never say that it was a sacrifice.

I guess that it should come as no surprise then that Bulgarians ask me all of the time if I "feel alright in Bulgaria." And truth be told, I have an impossibly hard time answering the question. Yes is not enough but I don't know how to qualify the yes.  Sometimes it's a yes, and. Other times, it's a yes, but.  And more and more rarely these days, it's a no, but.  I like this place. I just don't always know how to put it into words.

Maybe I don't even need to. Maybe I don't need to worry about not feeling like I can't put this thing into words. Maybe that's why I write this blog each day. In some ways, this blog is my answer to all of this. Each day, I am able to capture a little bit about what I think, how I feel and what I experience here in Bulgaria.  It's an imperfect science but it's probably better that way.

Bulgaria, Bulgaria. You're not the easiest country to live in. Half of the time I don't know what's going on. The other half of the time I can hardly believe that I am actually living here.  We're an unlikely pair, you and me.

This said, I can't think of a better time to share my good news: I've signed a contract for a second year of teaching at ACS. So you're going to be stuck with me for a third year.