She Laughs at the Days

Sometimes I want to quit. Pack it in. Go home. Sometimes I feel like all our work, all my efforts, are just a drop in a bucket or worse, completely futile. A class I had organized is on hold because the participants are afraid to be seen gathering in public due to the Thai military junta's crackdown on immigration issues. The work we planned for a community that we invested in, brought education to, and were creating a customized program to help them gain financial independence has stalled because one of the landowners already "helping them" prefers to keep them dependent. He gets more in foreign donations that way. We aren't just giving money away, so now we're getting the cold shoulder. A teenage boy we tried to protect drowned because his friends talked him into doing something stupid and it turned out to be a fatal mistake. People we work with are all on edge, waiting to see what will happen to them with the changing politics and meeting between t

I probably shouldn't have tried to go to the mall after art class yesterday. (Hooray, homeschool co-op has an art teacher now!) Dek was doing that early stages of fussy thing he does when he needs a nap, and I was already feeling that rising internal pressure that happens when I'm tired and just want to be by myself for a while. But it had been weeks since I took the kids to the store. Aaron keeps using the car for things like work, and meetings and stuff. I keep using the car, when I have it, to get to the office, and meetings, and stuff. The kids get a little restless sometimes when their entire existence is simply the circuit between our house, home school co op classes, and the little village up the hill. So restless that they beg to come when I go grocery shopping. Also, this particular store/mall/movie theater has a Dairy Queen. Sometimes a 25 cent ice cream cone is exactly what you want, even if you know that it's probably devoid of milk or cream altogether and is mo