Time zone tortures

I'm 5 hours behind my family. And I'm 5 hours behind the love of my life.

I'm here. I've been here for a couple of days. Not bad - kind of enjoying it... 'cept for the time zone differences...

Evenings are the worst. I miss my loved ones the most when the sun starts setting. By then they are all asleep, leaving me with no one to talk to.

At least I have you, dear Reader...

It's just not the same...

Today I packed...

... I packed my bags to leave for a country with more murders per year than the country I live in. Which is actually a great feat, since I live in a country with one of the worst crime problems on the planet. I think we still beat them with murders-per-capita, though. If I'm not mistaken, we're ranked #1 in the world with that one... Not really a statistic you can be proud of.

Anyway, I've packed. I'm leaving tomorrow. I'll be gone for 3 months.

It'll be the first time I live on my own. It'll be the first time I'm overseas. It'll be the longest I've ever been away from home. It'll be the first time where speaking English yields blank stares on people's faces... The other language that I speak will help me even less...

Like I've said... toughest year of my life!

Call me Joe...

... and this is my blog on why 2008 has been - and still is - one of the toughest years of my life.

Of course Joe is not my real name. None of the names that I'll be using when telling my stories will be real. I don't have any real reason for this...

Although this year has been tough so far - nothing I did really requires me to hide my identity; nothing I did was illegal, immoral or unethical... Hmm...? So why am I using an alias then...?

Good question. Answer: I don't know. Let's just say I'm doing it to protect the identities of the innocent. Bad answer, but anyway...

Call me Joe.