Wrapping it up

I know everyone says this, but there is no other way to say it; I am shocked at how quickly time has gone by. And now we are getting down to the last WEEKS of my service here, hours go by like days and then suddenly a month has passed. This week is “language week,” which began at my school on Tuesday with a huge culture competition. About 12 different classes chose and presented on a different nationality, which included singing songs, presenting baked goods, and dancing. And during this huge (3-hour-long) pageant I suddenly realized that I would really miss all of this. Yes, working here is frustrating, yes, some people are very impatient and upsetting, yes, I dream about America (inaccurately, as my mind has turned it into this magical land where problems don't exist) almost every day. But there are traditions and people here that I will miss. All of this sentimental feeling was balanced out Wednesday when I had to teach a doubled-up class on my own for a while. The class sat, some sharing seats because there weren't enough chairs, one student complained that he didn't feel like learning today. The rest of the class agreed and proceeded to ask me questions about American cell-phone services, my close, personal friends Britney Spears and 50 Cent, and translations to some Pit Bull lyrics until my counterpart finally came into the room and whipped them into shape.

America! Land of burritos! Home of convenience! Free Wi-Fi with purchase of coffee! It's going to be so familiar and strange all at once. I'm going back to an America with a new president, an America recovering (? They say it's “over”) from a recession, an America without Scrubs or T.R. Knight on Grey's. An America that is obsessed with Vampires all of a sudden (I just got another load of magazines in the mail and am astonished at the amount of Vampire stuff that's come out. What's with all the Vampires guys?) America! Where something like Lady Gaga is possible! ANYTHING is possible!

I'm excited.



Prediction Post - November 30, 2009

Job-hunting sucks. America is loud, I'm sick from eating burritos three times a day for the past three weeks, and I have a nervous twitch in my left eye from drinking too much coffee.

After a couple years

I know about 6 months ago I said I would write more often, and this summer I failed miserably... This was due to a combination of travel, camps and the sad fact that the internet cafe in my village closed. Mid-July I walked by it only to find the door padlocked shut. So I asked the woman working at the shashlik stand next to it "Do you know when it will be open?"

"Probably never"
"What?"
"They took away the computers."

At least we had it for 11 months. This news was not as bad for me, but horrible for my sitemate who is trying to apply for grad schools from here... Anyway the reason I can make this post now is because school is back in session! Yesterday I attended my last first bell ceremony and received flowers from a hand-full of students who were just so grateful I haven't ditched them for America yet.

During the first lesson a couple girls kept asking me questions: "Do you think there will be ice cream after school today?", "Did you go home this summer?", "When will you go home?!"

I told them November. "When will you come back?!" I said maybe after a couple years... "YEARS?! We will be so big then! You won't even know us!"

I've been gone a couple years. When I get back, maybe I'll be so big you won't even know me! Probably not, but you get what I mean.