Halfway through the summer course now.

The only thing that is really a 'serious' issue at the moment is the sense of isolation I'm feeling, mostly from certain long term friends back home and to an extent Lama. On the one hand I'm glad I am more or less self sufficient in terms of practice and I therefore do not need excessive hand holding, yet at the same time I sort of miss having a more communicative relationship. I guess on some level it's better than falling into the common Western trap of meeting some Lama and then due to getting on well thinking "Oh this is my tsawe lama etc" and then building a relationship based primarily on emotional projections with no basis in reality.