a small pochievka for me!

I'm am going to have to take a break from blogging until Thursday in order to get ready for the 4th of July celebration on the 29th of July.  Things are slowly coming together!  Until then, love and hugs and have a good week!

"ready, set, stop!"

Well I'm back for a short time before I go celebrate the 4th of July with some volunteers and then go have our mid-service conference.  This summer just keeps getting busier and busier!  Forget about the Black Sea!  I'm not going to have any time to go to the Sea with all the traveling that coming up!  I can't guarantee how often I will get a chance to blog next week with all my thoughts going to the potato salad and ground beef and cookies for the 4th!  This is something you may find interesting and to tell the truth just figured out myself about a month ago.  Say you're driving down the road in the states and see the green light change to yellow.  Depending on where the car is in relation to the yellow light generally you slow down and prepare to stop.  Yellow means "slow down."  Yellow here means "get ready" to put your foot on the gas and go!  In the states we go from red to green to yellow and repeat the process.  Here they go from red to yellow to green.  A little different!  Anyway this last conference I attended was about teaching issues relating to sexual health to young people.  My counterpart and I are hoping to have a (several) day camp about these issues in the next several months but have a lot to do yet!  Sex is more of a taboo topic here and because of that STIs and infertility are common problems.   Only 4% of women use the birth contro pill and condoms and the IUD are the most popular forms of birth control.  So we're going to try to get some healthy messages out to our students!  It is pretty near the 90s in the afternoons here and the bus rides back here yesterday were a little on the stuffy side!!  I just have to share some news.  While in another town yesterday I found and bought an American football!!  That made me happier than I thought!!   Love and hugs!!

mish mash2

What to write about today??  First off let me say this will be my last blog until next Thurs or Friday.  I will be at a continuation of a training and will be traveling starting tomorrow.  Secondly, I went in to school today and read my B tutor my "book report" since the teacher who picked the story for me to read and understand was in class.  She told me I had it more or less right.  Let me tell you my dictionary got a workout last night and this morning!!!  I have decided to have a 4th of July party before school is over; the last school day is the 30th and the party is the 29th.  I'm going to make potato salad, hamburgers, and cookies.  Of course I will have plenty of help!!!  Come to think about it, this might actually be my last blog for awhile.  While my counterpart and I were asking the school director for permission to have the party I overheard him say "maybe she can put something on the bulletin board" about the 4th.  When the director suggests something like that it's more of an "she should put something on the bulletin board" than a suggestion.  So I sarted thinking of things and surprisingly an idea came right to mind (it usually takes awhile of stewing over the situation before anything comes to mind).  I spelled out the words "Independence Day" and thought of something for each letter starting with that  letter.  I was having trouble after the routine word such as "patriotic" and "In 1776" so I went to the computer and googled "Independence Day" and do you know I actually learned several new things about July 4th??  For instance, I never realized that there was a dispute over when the "Declaration of Independence" was signed!  Come to find out that historians now think it was signed on August 2, 1776 instead of when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams said,  July 4, 1776.  Also, every year on July 4th since the year 1916 New York has a hotdog eating contest.  I guess in 1916 4 immigrants to America thought that the person eating the most hotdogs had the most patriotism.  Things that make you go hmmmmm!  That's where I'm going to stop for now.  To my family in New York; I hope you have a great time this next week and I will be with you in spirit and possibly see you on the webcam!!  Love and hugs!!

wanna bet?!??

First of all I have taken public transportation in the states; thanks for correcting me Steph!!  That was such a fun time but I have to say I would have enjoyed the show more if we had realized it was the same night instead of thinking it was the next night and had to rush around trying to get ready.  For Christmas one time my parents got my sister and I tickets to a play in Chicago and after we got to our hotel we relaxed and were ready to just stay in the hotel until we looked at the tickets and the play we thought was the next night was THAT night...in like 30 minutes!!  I think I fell asleep during the play I was so tired from the trip and all!!  Now that that is out of the way the rest of this blog is going to be very quick!  Some of you know me well enough to know that if you tell me I can't do something that's all the more reason I want to do it and, kind of, take it as a personal attack (so to speak).  My B tutor was looking at the B book I bought the other day, and really planned on reading, and I overheard another teacher say something like "the stories are too long; she won't be able to understand" or something to that effect.   So I took the book back in to work today and told the teacher to pick out a story not more then 1-2 pages with no Turkish words.  Tomorrow I will go  to school and tell her about the story, using only my dictionary and not asking anyone for help unless I can't find a word in the dictionary.  So needless to say I have some reading to do!   Love and hugs!!!

some answers, again

So yesterday I got a package from my aunt and she had some questions for me that I thought I'd turn into a blog.  She asked me what exactly I do with the students, what is my "work."  When I don't go to classes with the English teachers to speak or read to the students I try to encourage them to use English in other ways.  One of my goals for this next year is to be more active with the students.  More specifically I want to have an activity in the hostel stol, cafeteria, once a week.  We've previously had a game night, worked on the flashcard project 2 different nights, and had a pretty successful study night; students actually showed up much to my surprise!  I go on walks with the students and have hosted them in my apartment.  Again, next year I will do a better job of visiting the students in the hostel.  We play games, UNO is popular, or I help with homework if they ask.  Pretty much the reason I am here is for them; the young people and I do things for and with them, mostly with them.  My aunt asked me about the people and the friends I've made.  The people here couldn't be nicer to me!!  Of course I hear different things from different people but I have to say what I have experienced has been nothing but kindness and niceness!  I have lots of friends, or who I would call my friends, outside of the students and where I work.  Ok maybe not lots because the people I just described make up a big part of this place.  As it is becoming more and more summer and school is almost out I look forward to sitting with my neighbors at night, and the dogs who love me now, talking, making compot and conserve (canning), drinking tea and coffee, and most importantly trying to understand and improve my B!  She asked about the weekends and I have to say I am usually a hermit on the weekends and that is something that WILL change.  Usually I watch some English t.v. (weekends are for E tv), talk to my family, and finish up (or continue) projects.  Right now my favorite E show that I watch pretty much every Saturday morning is Gilmore Girls.  There was a show on called Army Wives that I was hooked on but I think it is over for the season, or over period I really don't know!  I have found Criminal Minds, THE favorite, on at a time when I am still awake and watch some but that's in B.  About whether B's like Americans?  I have written blogs about this and have to say from my experience, yes.  When I was in PST (1st 10 weeks here in B for those who are new or just don't know) the Peace Corps told all 87 of us in my group that on the whole B's like foriegners.  I paid attention but really brushed it aside.  Now that I've been here a year I have to say I whole heartedly agree with that statement.  I have had numerous times where someone has gone out of their way to help me because, well, I looked like I needed it!  I can't really speak from experience about other nationalities but if it's anything like how I have been accepted then I would have to say they would be just as accepted!  About President Obama.  He is mentioned a lot here and everyone knows him.  About what they think of him?  I really don't know and I stay as far from that as I can.  I can say usually he is spoken about with a positive tone.  One thing about how America is thought of I don't like is the fact that on the whole it is thought America is it, life is so much better in America, so much money, America is where it's at!  And please understand this is just my opinion.  I love my country!  We do have more money and opportunities there, I will admit.  But the idea that "the grass is always greener", everything would be better if only..., America is so much better is the attitude I really don't like.  Every country has it's problems and that includes America.  Life isn't easy there either.  Easier, maybe because of opportunities.  I will admit this is coming from a woman who grew up in America, not Bulgaria, so I really have no idea about life here.  However, the grass may be greener but it also may not be.  Wherever you go you have to work for things, they don't just appear overnight.  Anyway I think that's about enough of that!  If you want something bad enough no matter where you are and you work for it It might happen!  But if you don't work, chances of it happening are so much less!  It all starts with a dream!  (I just thought about how that sounds and I didn't mean for it to sound like I was trying to be MLK so please forgive me)!   Love and hugs!!