Little Piggies, a discussion with my 7a class

Miss Jessica! What year were you born in?

Yes, but what year? Cow? Mouse? Dog?

Pig?! PIG!! WE are too! We are all pigs! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!

I don't think they've been more excited about anything else I've ever told them.

The Legend of Zelda and other embarrassing things

It turns out we do get a lot of free time in the Peace Corps, especially on school breaks. So Volunteers wind up doing really stupid things to keep themselves entertained. What sort of things you ask? Like, watching special features on dvds, including the second disk that comes with the new version of Aladdin. And I mean all of it, the music videos for "Proud of your boy" with Clay Aiken and "A whole new world" The versions by the original R&B singers and the more recent version by Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. So yeah, just really embarrassing things.

So I've been playing the Legend of Zelda. And I got all the pendants, and I got to the bad guy’s layer and then he made Princess Zelda disappear before my very eyes. Does that mean I lost? He disappeared too. I've been wondering since the beginning if I am actually the "Chosen one" anyway. Maybe I really did fail her. I know that these are problems a 12 year old should muddle over, but I never had Super Nintendo, so now at the tender age of 25 I am worrying about Princess Zelda. Is she still alive? Do I go after her? Where do I go? These are the embarrassing worries I have.

Numbers

The Kaz-19 group is about to celebrate its first year anniversary as being official (sworn-in) volunteers and I can’t think of a better way to commemorate it than by giving some cold hard facts. We all had to fill out these forms at the end of last year giving numbers of students we taught, the number of kids in our clubs and so forth. Instead of those numbers, here are some that seem more significant to me.

Sheep Heads I’ve helped eat – 4
Pigs I’ve seen slaughtered – 1 (I was visiting a Russian village, this would not be a sight to see in my town)
Children I’ve made stand in a corner – 1
Showers taken (since November 9th, 2007) – less than 20 (most of those were during my trip to America)
Banyas taken – less than 50 (If I smell, I don’t notice it)
Books read cover to cover – 36 (That is probably more than I actually read cover to cover in college, sad, but true)
Times I’ve moved – 3
Marriage proposals – 1 (serious one)
Times I’ve watched Arrested Development, the entire series – 4
Fan-mail letters I’ve written only to find that celebrities don’t put their addresses on the internet for the world to see* - 2
Russian grammar books I’ve used – 3
Time it takes to get to the outhouse from the front door – 20 seconds
That wouldn’t be that big a deal if it weren’t for…
The coldest it’s been so far - -48 Degrees Celsius
Haircuts received – 2
Haircuts given – 4

In addition to these numbers, I present to you a mood graph I made during my first six months at site. Peace Corps told us that we would go through a “rollercoaster of emotions” so I made my rollercoaster as scientific as possible. Every night before I went to sleep I rated my day on a scale of 0-10. There are a couple days where I cheated and put in a “range” for that day, but for the most part, it is accurate and may give you some insight into how I felt from November 2007 – May 2008.

My mood was rated on the following scale:

10 – So good!
9 – Wow!
8 – Good day and food!
7 – Good day, bad food…
6 – Bad day, but good food.
5 – I don’t even know how I feel about today (avoided this one)
4 – Tomorrow will be better?
3 – At least my mother still loves me/ I cry over stupid things
2 – I really messed that one up/ This sucks
1 – Wow, that was bad.
0 – So bad. The worst day of my life.


On the side of this was written “Remember! Complete honesty = a must!” So this is a very honest graph.











I think it’s good to note that I stayed mostly in the positive area and never did I have a “zero” day. I realize that this sort of project makes me seem a little crazy, but I’m a happy crazy, see?


*anyone with any idea as to how to get my fan mail to any celebrity and not just to some service that would send me back a picture with their signature on it, let me know. I have written some really heartfelt (creepy?) things to my favorite actresses and actors and they will never know how I feel about them.