New Site

This blog has been moved to my website at http://www.freewebs.com/andreapc

Enjoy!

New Friends

This whole Yahoo group thing has got me very excited, I feel as if I have a bunch of new friends! This will most certainly help when I am experiencing loss over old friends. I posted this link on the yahoo group site, so I am assuming people will come on over and check me out soon enough, as I did to them when they posted their blog links. So, that being said, Hello new friends! haha, please realize I am being corny, lame and possibly even funny...perhaps that wont shine through until you actually meet me. The sadness of internet communication.

Well, welcome to my blog. It is only about Peace Corps...I have another one which is about other things, if you are interested in checking it out, let me know.

I think that was almost everything I had to say, just know that I'm around to talk and talk and talk whenever the urge strikes you. Have a good one compadres!

E-mail Addresses

Today I got the list of e-mail addresses of the other volunteers who are going to Ukraine with me! I was so excited to get this, I have been waiting for it, to see which names would come up, if anyone was from Colorado, if other people are as extremely stressed out as I am!?! Well, I jumped on the boat as quickly as possible and joined the newly formed Yahoo group that was almost instantaneously formed upon getting this list! It was pretty cool, turns out there is someone living in Denver. I will most certainly be meeting up with her before we leave.

As the time gets closer to leave I become more and more stressed out and having nightmares on a pretty regular basis. I am very excited to go, but I think I am more nervous or scared than I let myself think. I have traveled before, lived out of the country and even been to Eastern Europe...I loved it! I think my concerns stem from the fear of leaving everyone I know to go forth to be with nothing I am familiar with. In past travels I was either with friends, meeting family or could speak the language. This time around everything is going to me new. It is so nervewracking! I am so excited, and there are times where I can hardly contain my excitement to learn Russian (hopefully) live in a very foreign country (living in Chile wasn't too foreign as I had visited there before and was familiar with customs and food, etc) and travel around the world. I am now very happy that I was able to save some cash that I will use to travel around on my vacations and my time after the Corps (although there is no guarantee as to what will happen after service is done).

Another thing I learned was that a million and a half people who are in the PC have blogs, and a lot of them have some really awesome things to say about it. I think that taking my laptop will be a really good idea (hopefully, cinsidering that I just dropped some cash for a new laptop that doesn't overheat, and is a bit lighter and brighter!) I see that a lot of people use their laptops as an everything machine, and I doubt it will be any different for me! I love my computer, and I love watching movies...bad combo, but I'm sure it will help get me through some lonely nights where for some reason a corny JLo flick will help cheer me up...I can't believe I even admitted to that! So, I have spent a large part of my day reading other people's blogs, and reading about their experiences. I see it as such: people in the PC are the same as real world people. This sounds so common sense, but it is a difficult concept for people to grasp. People make assumptions that all Peace Corps people are awesome and cool and nice and listen to good music (I might have added that in myself). My dad told me this a million years ago, but I finally see it for myself. There are people who go in with negative attitudes, bitchy tendencies, pessimistic attitudes and aren't easy to get along with. The good news is that I am easy to get along with and will surely seek out those who feel the same way. I am not being negative (or weird) here, but it is something that a lot of people don't think about...PC people are people too! haha.

Anyway, in MYYYY group, I have found that a lot of the people who have signed up in the group seem pretty cool and have positive outlooks on life. On gal's blog talked about how some friends and family were ebing hard on her, saying that the PC was a poor decision to make. This made me want to cry! It also made me realize how lucky I am to have friends and family who support my choice 100%, and my dad who has supported this decision since before I was born in '82, yet never for a SECOND pressured me to make the choice I made (but oh golly is he ever glad I am going!). So that is my 2 cents for now. I know that nobody is reading this blog now, but I think this will be something people would like to read as time goes on.

Thanks everyone for your support, you keep a smile on my face!

A New Departure Date

The only news I have now is that I iwll be leaving on February 27th instead of February 28th. This means I am leaving one day earlier...DUH! But it also means that I will be out of here one day earlier, really out of here. This has made me a bit nervous as the date is approaching with each day. It is difficult to know that I am leaving everything behind me and changing my life in every way possible, but I am also excited. I am ready to leave Denver and my life of nannying and just getting by paying bills and wasting time watching tv! So, that is my only update for now, but I can only imagine how cold it is beginning to get there! Ahhh!

Facing the Beef

I had my first Ukranian experience the other day. I realize that I have never been to Ukraine, but I did have my first Peace Corps experience abroad. I tutor a Russian speaking refugee at her home. Normally the home has a few little boys running around and mama babushka sitting on the couch rubbing her feet. This time in I was greeted by about 10 Russian speaking women in traditional dress and a table so full of food that I could hardly find a spot to place my keys. They don't speak English, I don't speak Russian. My student, Nasiba, walked over to a large pot and put a huge amount of rice and chicken on my plate. Uhoh. I don't eat chicken, I am a vegetarian and have been for over half my life. I knew that one of my main concerns when moving to Eastern Europe would be avoiding the constant push of meat onto me. I didn't expect it to come so soon, I wasn't prepared! Honestly, I was a bit scared. I ate as much of the rice as I could without eating the chicken, they were talking about me, I just know it. I think they thought I did not like the food. So I did my best to ask to take some home. So I ended up getting a large grocery bag full of various goodies. I probably looked like such an idiot overcompensating for the fact that I didn't eat the rice, but I did my best to make it seem like I had just eaten and wanted the food for home. It was a challenge. I will make sure that some of the first things I will learn to say is that I do not eat meat, that it makes me feel ill.

The good thing about this bag was that it was full of some delicious vegetarian options, flaky bread, more solid bread, chocolate candy, fruit (and one piece that I had never seen before, it looked like a dark yellow flat tomato). It got me really excited once again to go to Ukraine and enjoy all these new experiences. I know that there will be difficulties with the food situation, but also great joys that accompany it.

Aspiration and Motivation

I must have been kidding myself big time when I thought the work was over once I got the information packet in! Right now I am working on getting a few things into the Peace Corps country desk (Ukraine, obviously). They want an aspiration statement that outlines your motivation as well as how you are going to deal with challenges once you arrive in country. This will be sent straight out to the Ukranian government for them to review to place me in a location that they feel will be appropriate. I am supposed to send this in very soon, I just want to make sure the grammar, spelling and ideas are put forth in the manner that I see appropriate.

Outside of this I need to get passport pictures taken. Ok, I do admit that I could easily get my butt over to kinkos and get the pictures taken for 8 bucks, but being the thrifty lady that I am I know I could make my own prints and just cut them out and pay 30 cents for two. So, I have spent the past 2 weeks hanging out trying to find a good background and someone to take my picture...hehe, I think this is called procrastination! However, they say that the longest it takes to process is 6 weeks, and I don't need it until staging, so I am not worried about that getting in absolutely immediately. I have also been recieving e-mails and letters about Ukraine from various people at the Peace Corps. I now know that I am a part of group 30 into Ukraine and that we should be aware that people there can be extremely ad openly racist and that you should be aware of that. Well, considering that when I lived in Chile if you look Chinese they basically call you "Chinaman" etc, etc. This is true, but really, is mentioned for its humorus value...if you are allowed to find such things humorus.

So, outside of that I have been doing a lot of reading about Ukraine and it's values and history, etc. I feel as if I have learned a lot about Ukraine so far. I now know a lot more about the history, and how the Protestant Reformation never reached Ukraine and they therefore have more of a collectivist attitude towards life than other European countries. This is an idea I hadn't thought much about before, but it all makes sense. I also learned that the weather will be so slippery in the winter that I'll need clamp-ons for my shoes! Clamp-ons! All I can picture in my head is my dad when he used to go on these little ice climbing expeditions...however, I will just be walking on my way to work. I also learned that the Ukranian people are overall educated but VERY supersticious. They have the equivilant of the boogeyman, but it attacks you when you are outside. They say that he comes witht he wind and makes you freeze on the inside. I thought this was hilarious (eventhough this might not be funny when I am sitting on a hot bus and wishing someone would open up a damn window but nobody will because they fear the boogeyman breeze). I just thought that was an interesting tidbit to know, and it only happens to Ukrainian people! Turns out they bundle their babies too much and they do not learn how to control their body temperature, and when a cool breeze rushes into them their muscles can cramp up and temporarily give them so much pain that they are unable to move. How crazy is that? I am glad we don't have that kind of boogeyman, I prefer the one I can confirm it's absence with a quick look under the bed!

More updates to come as they come

Calling In To Be Official

I called the Peace Corps Office today to tell them that I would like to accept the invitation to serve in Ukraine. I got an answering machine! I thought that was pretty funny, I am hoping they will call me back tomorrow, if not, no big deal, I'll just call again. It is exciting (and a little nerve wracking!) for everything to be this official.

I learned my first Ukrainian word yesterday too! It is pronounced fKOOsney, and means "tasty" which I think will help me when I have to decline meat-based food, but can recover by saying that the (blank) was very tasty. hehe, although I am assuming that I will know a little more Ukrainian or Russian (yeah, still don't know which one!) by the time I am eating with my host family. Hopefully!

More updates to come here as they come to me!