It’s been one full year; 365 days since I stepped out of my house in Plainsboro, New Jersey. 52 weeks since I stepped into my father’s light-blue, 2004 Toyota Prius and crossed the Delaware River to Philadelphia. Today marks my one-year mark as a member of Peace Corps. Has it felt like a full year? Sometimes when I look back I wonder where all the time went. Then I remember the majority of winter was spent cuddled in my sleeping bag; or reading in the room with the wooden stove (that I managed to try to light myself on fire with; that’s another story). Most of last summer and PST is a bit more fuzzy, because I certainly don’t see things in the same way that I did then. I hadn’t started teaching yet, my language skills weren’t nearly as good, and I wasn’t that lonely.
In today’s Peace Corps Georgia, my life is definitely very different, but I’m not completely cut off from the rest of the world. Loneliness, and thoughts of home was something I expected to encounter, but I didn’t expect to be in such reliable contact with the outside world. While I am writing this I have one tab open on nytimes.com, one on my Gmail account. On top of that, I have angry birds going on in another window (yes, even I got into Angry Birds, it reminds me of the Snood craze), and a SPA grant in another. Basically, not only am I multi-tasking, but I’m multi-tasking in almost the exact same way as I did in the States.
The new Trainees arrive tomorrow, and I am headed to Tbilisi to help do some presentations at Orientation. It’ll be interesting, because I remember showing up, jetlagged, excited, but also somewhat dumbfounded and seeing the G9s. They seemed so confident in Georgia, and they almost seemed like our older brothers and sisters telling us about life in high school (despite many of them being younger than us). It’ll be interesting to see the G11s. I will be doing a few things at Orientation. First, since I’m on the Safety and Security Council I am giving a presentation, with some other members, on some basic safety and security concerns in Georgia. Second, I’ll be working with the Medical Unit to discuss our favorite Peace Corps topic: diarrhea (they call it Food and Water Safety). Finally, I’m doing some stuff on alcohol awareness and how to avoid pooping your pants out of drunkenness at a supra. All in all, should be a good time.
I come back on Saturday, but will then spend Sunday in Batumi giving a lesson at an English teaching center. The purpose is to help teachers develop new teaching strategies. I am pretty excited about it, but from what I can gather the students will be pretty knowledgeable already. You may say, “Hey, great, less for you to do!” Well, I’ve never actually seen them before, and I’ve never had to do a lesson with advanced students. So I have no idea what lesson to do.
On top of that, I am trying to find a secondary project. I think I found one in the sports area of Keda. Basically I want to put in a fitness center and do some healthy lifestyles training and workout trainings for members of the community. I can get the training things done fairly easily, but the equipment for a fitness center will be a lot more trouble. I’d love some free weights (benches, leg presses, squat, dumbbells, etc…), but I’m afraid they’d be too expensive to ship, and I can’t find a good place in Georgia to buy anything. The prices themselves aren’t going to be that bad, but the shipping is going to kill us. Then I need to do the training, and I’m not completely sure how I’m going to go about that either. I could conceivably do some training, and then have those I trained train others, but I’d rather bring a professional, or at least someone with more experience to do the training (but that’s money).
I promised some discussions before, but at this point I really don’t feel like getting into politics. If you must know, I’m pretty disappointed in the US political system; especially when I have to watch Colbert and Stewart for the real news. It reminds me of Cleon, and the demagogues of old. Don’t get me wrong, demagoguery is not new, but the Athenians got rid of Cleon by putting him up against the Spartan Brasdias. Cleon was killed. So in short, send our modern day demagogues to do our fighting, and let the sane people to the real talking. Do people not realize the Electoral College was made to separate people from the selection of a President. I hope that if a crazy person is elected, the Electoral College will stop it. The problem, I fear, is that the Electoral College is probably filled with even crazier people. Sigh… the sane just cannot win.
Oh, and 90% of Planned Parenthood money goes to abortion. Oh wait, that’s not meant as a factual statement. Ugh. Or that Obama isn’t an American. There are people that believe this? It’s on both sides of the aisle, and I’m just sick of it, and I wish there was something we could do. I would love to see some real progress politically and economically in America. Plus, this desperate grab at what the Founding Fathers would do needs to end. They created a system of government that allows for change and growth. First and foremost, it must start with the individual. I make $150/month, another $150 goes to my host family. If I go out every weekend I’d easily lose all my money (Tbilisi costs a lot, and Batumi is even worse) in two weeks. No, instead I forgo a lot of the things I want NOW, for the chance (and money) to take a trip to Istanbul and Kiev in the summer. It’s the idea of delayed gratification, and living within your means.
This goes for the country as well. Don’t demand to keep all your little benefits (yes, including Planned Parenthood) and not expect to pay higher taxes. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and until Americans learn this simple fact we will always have trouble. Still, I believe in this country’s ability to overcome great challenges, but people forget it wasn’t without sacrifice. Our parents were so wealthy that Americans (including myself for a long time) didn’t think we had to work as hard. I half-assed my way through college, and then got worried when I realized that the world is very different (and that my parents weren’t going to let me be lazy). Peace Corps has certainly changed my perspective on work, and although ADD still takes a toll, I at least recognize what I must do.
That was much longer than I anticipated.
I’ve been really excited for spring, but spring won’t come without first raining on us for 2 weeks straight. I’m serious. I haven’t seen the sun in 2 weeks. So to keep myself occupied I’ve read Lord of the Rings. I’ve always meant to read them ever since my older sister, Mary became somewhat obsessed with them. Then in my senior year old college and into my graduate study year my then girlfriend was obsessed with the movies. We used to sit there watching Lord of the Rings, and the special features writing our respective papers. Basically, I’ve been surrounded by it, but never picked up the books. So I found them on Project Gutenberg and started reading. It was slow at first, especially reading the Hobbit (which is a children’s book). And I told another PCV who loves LOTR that I was getting a little fed up with it. I quickly finished The Hobbit and was unable to put down LOTR. I think my host family thought I hated them as I threw myself into the world. Great movies, great books. Wish they had them in Georgian, I’d give them to my students.
As for Easter I had an interesting experience. My host mother and I had a cold, and therefore did not attend mass at an ungodly hour (host sisters came home at 4am). We did do a few traditions. So one similar tradition is to dye eggs, but in Georgian they only dye eggs red to represent the blood of Christ. Then two people hit the eggs together, and whichever egg loses you eat. Well so far I am 5-0 in the egg banging contest. There is a great video of my host sister, Nino and I performing this tradition, and my victory dance afterwards. Then my tutor and I did it as well, and I won twice. Basically this is my main success in Georgia in the past two weeks. Yes, winning at egg banging is my main victory (I know how that sounds, and I don’t care).
But I also had a hard time with the whole fasting thing. My host sisters were fasting, but I kept offering them the chocolate that my parents sent me in the mail. Not a good idea… US chocolate it much better than Russian [fasting] chocolate.
This has been a sufficient entry for all of you 10 people that actually read my blog (my parents, Vasav, Erin, Lora, and maybe 7 more PCVs who have nothing else to do). Later gators.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
[Insert Title Here, I'm to lazy too think of one]
Hello all,
I promised a blog entry (and I owe many of you e-mails), and I hope this one is nice and long, but I’m tired and I’d rather enjoy the warm, spring weather we’ve been having. Well, I guess that’s a lie, because it’s pushing 6pm, and it’s cooler, so I’m probably just lazy. So I’ll put on some Family Guy, continue my Gmail conversation with Erin, and write this blog. Basically I’ll watch Family Guy, ignore Erin, and write jlkkkkk re ally bbaadddllly. So I promised to talk about a lot, but I’ll focus this one on teaching, because it’s what I’ve been thinking about the most. But first, I want to talk about what I’ve been up to.
So our conference in Kobuleti was really interesting. My counterpart didn’t stick around for the whole thing, but I learned a lot of new and interesting information about writing grants and coming up with a secondary project. That was cool, but the best part was the hotel we were staying at. It was called the Georgia Palace Hotel and all our rooms faced the beach, which gave us some awesome sunset pictures. Our rooms were large; we had our own slippers and bath-robes. It was hard to leave, but I knew I’d be heading to Kiev, so it was okay.
On the 19th I got up nice and early (2am) for the driver to take us to the airport. In the car I met the two Teacher-Assistants (FLEX alumnae) who I’d be working with. We got to the airport nice and early and I thought, “Okay, cool. We have plenty of time.” So we played some cards and listened to music. Well, we didn’t have time. Our plane was supposed to board at 4:30, but then at 4:15 the two girls (who know English, Georgian, and Russian) heard the announcers say in Russian something about last call. We hadn’t even gotten through the security check (which is at every gate). Basically we jetted as fast as we could and made the little bus that takes us to our plane. I can’t really tell you about the plane ride, because I was sleeping, or in a deep snore at least with Radiohead on my iPod.
We got into Kiev around 5am, and drove to the American Councils office in Tbilisi. An interesting car ride, as I sat in the front seat trying to sleep, while the driver and the two girls argued about something. As we got out of the car one of them goes “you were pretty quiet”, to which I responded something to the effect “Well, I was TRYING to sleep, but instead you guys decided to have a verbal wrestlemania in the car.” Still, it was 7am at this point, and I hadn’t slept in 48-hours, but we decided to walk around Kiev a bit.
Well, nothing was open, and we had no money anyway for coffee, and it was cold. Nonetheless, our walking brought us all around Kiev (but not to the churches I would have liked). By the time we got money and some food in our stomachs I was forced to walk from one clothing store to another. I didn’t buy anything, but it did give me a good opportunity to people watch. I didn’t understand anything people were saying, but being in those stores was like being in one in the USA. There was even a mall! Basically, I got to see a ton of clothes, but no churches. Eh.
We met the rest of our group around 3pm (yes, 6 hours of shopping), packed up the cars, piled into buses and headed out. The first night I was exhausted and didn’t do much except sleep. The next day we had presentations and learned a little about what was expected from us during the TOT. For those of you who don’t know this was a Training of Teachers. In the summer we will host Pre-departure orientations for students accepted to go to the United States in the exchange program, FLEX. And our training was set up in the same way we’d run our PDO. We were split into different groups and then each Teacher and Teacher-Assistant had to come up activities and a creative approach to the predesigned lessons. Because I had two TA’s, and the other Teacher didn’t come (he went last year), I had two lessons to teach. Busy, busy me. I think the actual lessons went okay. They weren’t the best I’ve ever done, plus I don’t usually work well working as a team with another teacher (something I’ve learned since being here). I tend to try and hog all the talking, and then end up missing something I wanted to discuss. But we got through it, and I met a lot new and cool people. There’s a video of me and a TA from Moldova singing Opera style. It’s a little ridiculous and more than embarrassing, but I think I have a career path now.
Anyway, I’ve been writing this for too long and I’m bored. Plus, I haven’t lesson planned for next week yet (Bingo here we come). Oh, if anyone would like to help out my community with a small donation of a laptop computer, please contact me!
Now for your viewing pleasure…
I promised a blog entry (and I owe many of you e-mails), and I hope this one is nice and long, but I’m tired and I’d rather enjoy the warm, spring weather we’ve been having. Well, I guess that’s a lie, because it’s pushing 6pm, and it’s cooler, so I’m probably just lazy. So I’ll put on some Family Guy, continue my Gmail conversation with Erin, and write this blog. Basically I’ll watch Family Guy, ignore Erin, and write jlkkkkk re ally bbaadddllly. So I promised to talk about a lot, but I’ll focus this one on teaching, because it’s what I’ve been thinking about the most. But first, I want to talk about what I’ve been up to.
So our conference in Kobuleti was really interesting. My counterpart didn’t stick around for the whole thing, but I learned a lot of new and interesting information about writing grants and coming up with a secondary project. That was cool, but the best part was the hotel we were staying at. It was called the Georgia Palace Hotel and all our rooms faced the beach, which gave us some awesome sunset pictures. Our rooms were large; we had our own slippers and bath-robes. It was hard to leave, but I knew I’d be heading to Kiev, so it was okay.
On the 19th I got up nice and early (2am) for the driver to take us to the airport. In the car I met the two Teacher-Assistants (FLEX alumnae) who I’d be working with. We got to the airport nice and early and I thought, “Okay, cool. We have plenty of time.” So we played some cards and listened to music. Well, we didn’t have time. Our plane was supposed to board at 4:30, but then at 4:15 the two girls (who know English, Georgian, and Russian) heard the announcers say in Russian something about last call. We hadn’t even gotten through the security check (which is at every gate). Basically we jetted as fast as we could and made the little bus that takes us to our plane. I can’t really tell you about the plane ride, because I was sleeping, or in a deep snore at least with Radiohead on my iPod.
We got into Kiev around 5am, and drove to the American Councils office in Tbilisi. An interesting car ride, as I sat in the front seat trying to sleep, while the driver and the two girls argued about something. As we got out of the car one of them goes “you were pretty quiet”, to which I responded something to the effect “Well, I was TRYING to sleep, but instead you guys decided to have a verbal wrestlemania in the car.” Still, it was 7am at this point, and I hadn’t slept in 48-hours, but we decided to walk around Kiev a bit.
Well, nothing was open, and we had no money anyway for coffee, and it was cold. Nonetheless, our walking brought us all around Kiev (but not to the churches I would have liked). By the time we got money and some food in our stomachs I was forced to walk from one clothing store to another. I didn’t buy anything, but it did give me a good opportunity to people watch. I didn’t understand anything people were saying, but being in those stores was like being in one in the USA. There was even a mall! Basically, I got to see a ton of clothes, but no churches. Eh.
We met the rest of our group around 3pm (yes, 6 hours of shopping), packed up the cars, piled into buses and headed out. The first night I was exhausted and didn’t do much except sleep. The next day we had presentations and learned a little about what was expected from us during the TOT. For those of you who don’t know this was a Training of Teachers. In the summer we will host Pre-departure orientations for students accepted to go to the United States in the exchange program, FLEX. And our training was set up in the same way we’d run our PDO. We were split into different groups and then each Teacher and Teacher-Assistant had to come up activities and a creative approach to the predesigned lessons. Because I had two TA’s, and the other Teacher didn’t come (he went last year), I had two lessons to teach. Busy, busy me. I think the actual lessons went okay. They weren’t the best I’ve ever done, plus I don’t usually work well working as a team with another teacher (something I’ve learned since being here). I tend to try and hog all the talking, and then end up missing something I wanted to discuss. But we got through it, and I met a lot new and cool people. There’s a video of me and a TA from Moldova singing Opera style. It’s a little ridiculous and more than embarrassing, but I think I have a career path now.
Anyway, I’ve been writing this for too long and I’m bored. Plus, I haven’t lesson planned for next week yet (Bingo here we come). Oh, if anyone would like to help out my community with a small donation of a laptop computer, please contact me!
Now for your viewing pleasure…
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