time to escape paradise

I tried to make an escape today, but the lackadaisical atmosphere sucked me. I wanted to leave mid-afternoon but they were just going to make me pay for another night if I did that, so it goes.

I've been on vacation now for 2 1/2 weeks and I think I've just about reached my threshold. Money issues aside, it's just difficult for me not to be working. I just seem to do better when my time is occupied and my free time subsequently more valuable leading to me using it better. I've always accredited my having better grades to when I'm working one or more jobs on top of school. Well, I've got about two weeks left roughly. I'll make it back to Bangkok and try not to spend very much money, the following day I'll catch up on laundry and then get a cap in the late evening to the airport. I'm not entirely sure how long my flight will be to Greece with the time zones and all that. I'm estimating about 11 hours so I'm hoping to stay awake the first few, drink the free drinks and then try to crash out. As it's a late night plane, and I've yet to meet a single Greek here, I might get lucky and there might not be too many people on the plane.

We've run into people who have been here for months. Sleeping through life in this tropical environment likely forgetting about the world and what goes on entirely. I hesitate to think that they may not have even heard about the Tsunami, Bush's re-election, Arafat's death or anything of semi-importance. They seem too wrapped up in mastering their fire-dancing and shagging (damn the Brits and their influence!) the newcomers, enjoying those temporary relationships that can only happen when on holiday no matter how long that holiday may be. I shouldn't fault them though. There are young Israeli men who have just finished their mandatory military service who are trying to escape the hell that they have had to endure for two years. Lots of kids enjoying a few weeks or months of abandonment before being pushed into the mediocrity of the modern working world who will revel in their memories of this place that are tattooed on their bodies for years to come. Then there are the surviving hippy minded people, clad in braids, dreads, and piercings with bronzed bodies who have given up entirely on the rest of the world and have etched out their own simple existence here which leaves little to be desired and caused harm to no one. I guess it's a mixture of admiration and resentment that I've been guilty of just about everywhere in my life every time I paused to look out a window or down the street. At one point I want to be the person who finds something simple in life and digs deep inside to find that soft place, usually in the company of someone else and returns to the world only on occasions to smile and express how they have this little piece of heaven just to themselves. I think those people are rather few, but most people passing through the streets like to think that is what they are after. I'd probably get lost trying to find that if I tried. In fact, what I just said is a little misleading, I guess what I was trying to get at was a "simple-life" and somehow it changed into some mixture that maybe I am really looking for. The other half of me though, thinks that I will be an utter failure unless I do at least one thing that at least resembles greatness. This is probably the biggest source of fear in my life. What could that be and is either attainable (for me) or really important? Or, am I capable of doing something great, whatever that might be, but the fear of failure simply prevents me from trying? I have to admit that this has been the case in the past, but at the same time I made it here and survived, no conquered, my first year of teaching abroad. Time will tell.

I just want to say, the Iron and Wine has been my savior this evening. For those of you who know, awesome, for those of you who don't, well, get with it.

Next time from Greece I hope.