Plus, when I talked with the Country Director today about the possibility of extending service, he suggested I write in my blog, as I haven't for a long while.
And it's true. I've been here, there and everywhere, and no amount of me sitting in one place has inspired me to write a blog entry.
Among the things I've been busy with:
Teacher Technology Training,
aka Trying to Make Lightning Strike the Same Place Twice
Trying to get the second wave of the Technology Training underway. It's tough when A) My right-hand woman-and-translator's no longer participating, B) My other right-hand (left-hand??) woman is a little flakier and not as proficient in English, C) I lost motivation because the teacher-trainees lost motivation. But there's the seed of desire in the star pupil from the last group. I orchestrated a meeting with her and my left-hand woman finally last week, and it came to a stalemate over who should be in the next group, teachers or doctors who expressed interest. We'll see.
Daily Work as Assistant to the ICT Manager
Speaking of Technology, general computer maintenance/fixing/IT girl-being... I have burned ISO images to CDs, messed with partitions, reinstalled Windows, swept away a squintillion viruses from every computer and then again, and learned Ana's secret method of cleaning memory (pencil erasers?!) in the lab at school. She needs to ask the computer guy in Kwareli if we have permission to actually reinstall Windows, because one computer suddenly started saying something about no monitor driver for Windows, and another shuts off with no notice every once in a while.
I'm Ms. Fix-it?
Yesterday I was also Rich American In-Village IT Girl and Obligatory Food Repository for one of the teachers. She held me captive in her kitchen for day-after-birthday-feast food and coffee, even after telling her I had just eaten before coming to her house (which was the case). THEN I spent a few hours installing an antivirus, Georgian fonts, and OpenOffice on her computer (all in Russian; that was fun) and attempted to teach her how to use them in Georgian. If she actually listened to me, she should now understand, but we'll see how that goes.
As Far As Laptops Go, 5 Years Ain't No Spring Katami...
My own computer's been on the fritz, as well. The stupid magti modem's been a thorn in my computer for some time now, mainly because (I hypothesize) it's USB based, and I tried to install a program to block USB devices from automatically opening (because they've all got friggen viruses here!). Since that turned out to be more of an annoyance than a help, I uninstalled the program. It was still acting weird, so I tried to fix up stuff on the registry myself and with a free registry cleaner. Three or so days ago Trent gave me a blue screen of death. I took it to the neighbors' and he opened it up (I can't use a screwdriver because I'm a girl) and we cleaned out surprisingly little dust. I then did Windows recovery, am back to Service Pack 1, and am currently trying to sort through my stuff and back it up on 10 lari's worth of double sided DVDs (as I lack an external). Then I can hopefully just do a clean swipe and reinstall SP3. Though I fear Trent is is danger of Fading Out soon, so I may or may not be scanning the Interwebs for an investment I didn't want to make until I got readjusment allowance.
Conference Time!
Backtracking and changing topics, I also attended the All Volunteer conference in a center outside of Tbilisi. Every PCV in Georgia was there, the noobs for Language a few days before us old hands arrived. Then, the real party began as we went over safety and security policies, held committee elections, and taught each other cool stuff with volunteer-led session day. I held a yoga session with a fellow Iowan (w00t!) and, though very different from my usual style of "strike-a-pose-and-hold-it-for-like-2-minutes", went okay. Then we had our early Thanksgiving feast, with all volunteers, staff, and the Ambassador. He's such a cool guy. He walked in with our Country Director, came over and greeted me with, "Hi, Paula! How've you been?" Me: "Ehhh.. okay." Him: "Spend too long in the village?" More like lack of sleep, but you'll have that. Also, I was stressed because I was supposed to arrange the G9s' contributions to the Thanksgiving feast, but I really didn't do all that much, and I'm pretty sure one of the G10s in charge was POed at me because I forgot to buy aluminum foil. Well, what are you gonna do? Some people just don't like me, and that's all there is to that. All in all, it was good to see people again and chat with the PC Response (short-term assignment after service) Volunteers, but it was exhausting.
Birthday Bash or Banya? Both!
And a birthday the day after the conference didn't help much. Luckily I stayed with an awesome couple doing some research for Fulbright and English teaching, and managed to avoid the detrimental chaos that ensued. I got the best of both worlds: watching the ridiculous beer pong 9 game winning streak, then heading out to the banya to relax when the party moved to the wild and crazy club scene. I sorta returned the favor playing hostess this weekend; they were guests here, and I had fun showing them around the village and meeting my friends and coworkers and such.
Things that annoy me:
- My camera won't turn on.
- A creepy 50-some-year old Georgian man who noticed a young American girl stuck in the backseat of the marshutka, just trying to read A Clockwork Orange, and continually harassed her and asked for her phone number and was generally impertinent.
- No one on this marshutka, from my village, spoke up, even though I was yelling and freaking out, all in Georgian. Seriously.
- After All Vol, someone unknown has what was formerly my cinnamon, ranch packets, and curry powder. Life without spices is a life not worth living.
- I got Intermediate High on my Georgian LPI. Haven't I wasted more of my life than that on learning this ridiculously difficult language?
- Private students from 3-10 every day makes it hard to plan even with the most motivated of partner teachers. And planning with two counterparts basically means I'm never at home, because planning is NEVER at my place, and half of planning time consists of eating and/or watching them do other things.
Things that are kinda cool:
- Teaching my 8th graders "Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?" for Past Simple and making them write alibis in Past Continuous and get witnesses to sign for them.
- Some planning with Ana. It's half and half.
- Working on both Appropriate Projects (getting running water for the school) and Darien Books (getting English books for the school). Writing = Please, give us things, for we have them not!
- Dirt cups with the family tonight!!!
So, yes, I'm thinking about extending. But there are many things to think about, my personal hygiene/living situation happiness being one of them. It really is the little things. No showers, no salads, no DDR. And I can't live in a little town with like 3 friends, all of whom have kids, forever. If only I'd nerded out more as a child and wasted more time taking apart computers, I might have a job elsewhere...
Now that it's 2 AM, however, I think I'll take this opportunity and sign out.
