Not here, not now

The lethargy and sense of despairing pointlessness I have recently been experiencing came to a head today. In my internship I am neither earning money, nor am I receiving a grade, nor am I improving my German by writing all day in English. The work I do goes in the same category as the work I don't do: unnoticed.

With this view, it has been difficult to get myself to do any work at all. I do the work of course, but my heart is not in it. At the end of the day I am so introverted and full of English, I can hardly get myself to get out and socialize in German at all. I no longer feel like doing the things I used to do. When I do pry myself out of my dark cave, I am like a mole blinking in the sunlight, unable to navigate, blundering around blindly. Social situations have become comically, predictably awkward. When I engage in conversation, something seems to be terribly off, as if I am an actor reading from the wrong script. What can I say? Working alone in silence every day turns me weird.

I heave a great emotional sigh whenever someone asks where I'm from. I don't want to talk about it anymore. And if one more person tells me how amazing my German is, I am going to personally tear my own head off and eat it. Sometimes people tell me how good it is without me even having to mention that I am not from Germany! Something about that doesn't add up.

I don't really know what I'm doing in Erfurt anymore. I want a real job so bad it hurts, but I can't make that a reality here. I want more than anything to work for a magazine. (I am hilariously bad at most things, but writing is not one of them.) But when and where do I get to use my talent? Not now, not here.