Last night, I woke up around 3:30 am. I'm assuming it's because my wine-induced haze wore off, and I hadn't taken any sleeping pills. I had hoped that the wine would last me through the night. Lesson learned...techno trumps three glasses of wine. I tried to go back to sleep, I really did. But I couldn't stop thinking about how much I didn't want to go to my internship today. And suddenly, it was 8:00, and I had barely slept.
I was up for 4.5 hours, stressing out about how much I didn't want to go and how the whole situation put me into a panic. Tossing and turning. By the time I got up out of bed, I felt sick. I had literally made myself sick thinking about going to the outskirts of town to sit in a room with a guy who didn't speak English. I don't want to spend another day talking to him via Google Translate and then going to have a beer with him. I really don't want to have a beer with him afterwards, because we literally won't be able to speak to one another. And he didn't seem to understand the concept of just one beer last week when he first suggested it.
If there was one other person in the office, it might be ok. But it's just me and him. And it stresses me out. I feel like a pansy for saying it, but I was raised to be cautious of situations exactly like that. When I first mentioned it to my dad, his response was 'I wish you had taken those self-defense courses in Denver like we had talked about'. It's not even that I feel threatened by this guy. He seems perfectly nice (except when he starts to tell me that I'm cute...then I get uncomfortable). It is just not a positive work environment for me.
I really don't want to go back in. I want to tell my director that I'm just going to go to the Genocide Institute. When they get back this afternoon, I'm sure that I'll have to explain what happened today. I predict she responds with something along the lines of 'you just have to give it a chance. it could surprise you.' Unless he learns English in record speed, I'm not sure that will happen. And I know I sound like an ignorant American, saying that people should know English. But dammit, everyone else is at an internship where their supervisor at least has some handle on the language, and they can communicate without the aid of a computer. Just as an example, when I sent him the e-mail this morning, saying that I wasn't coming in, this was the response I got: "The problem is not just you do not heal and a cold beer :) It's too hot, because it harms :) see you on Wednesday". Google Translate, ftw.
I really don't know how to proceed. I want to keep helping the organization, but I really don't want to go back out there. Maybe he could e-mail me the documents that he wants me to translate? Somehow I doubt that would fly, given the emphasis on relationships here. And then I'd be 'missing out' on the true experience. What experience is that, director? The one where I sit on the couch, awkwardly, while he and another Bosnian have a conversation that I can't understand for shit? I don't think Korbel would have a problem with it, if I explained that there was far more to do at the Genocide Institute, which doesn't seem to be a lie. When I sit here and think about having to go to that place twice a week, for the rest of the time that I'm here, I feel ill. Physically ill. I can't decide if it's worth the resume booster to be miserable for another 6 weeks, or to just run with the Genocide Institute. Ugh.
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