Roller Coaster of the Caucasus.

The Hygeine Poster Contest Award Ceremony is taking longer to accomplish than I thought it would.  Reasons?

1) Everyone at school has gone through their cycle of being sick for a week or so.  Including both my counterparts and the teacher I was doing the contest with, so last week was especially fun.  Cough.
2) It's Georgia.

So, I'll give you a draft I found lurking in my backlog (because much of it is still relevant/the same old), and prep another blog post later this week about what's been going on.

First order of business:  Giving Thanks.

I gave thanks multiple times this year.

• Once, I guess, at the All Vol conference in a huuuumongo group.  That was more of a period of not sleeping and drinking too much (every night.. not used to this) and talking about ridiculous things and philosophy and whatever else is a topic of great importance at 2 in the morning.

• Second Thanksgiving: I baked two pumpkin pies in the pechi this year.  One I shared with the 8th graders after they wrote an e-mail to my World Wise Schools correspondent about how they celebrate Christmas and New Year and Giorgoba.  The other I sent to the teachers lounge for them to enjoy while I sped off to Thanksgiving number three...

• in Tbilisi.  Good conversation, good people, good mood, good food.  Not all my axloblebi, but a couple good friends (one who's a good cook) and a good group of people and a 13 kilo turkey, not to mention an awesome girl who shares an odd kinship with me.

• Last Thanksgiving this year: in Telavi.  I still didn't get to help make pies, but Jeff and Tina helped me make PEANUT BUTTER (!!!!) and I helped Barb make pumpkin bread with a little of the leftover pumpkin.  The peanut butter is delicious, albeit a little... dry.  But it's chunky and au naturale, baby!  And not bad with apples from the backyard. (as long as I cut out the bad parts.  The apples are au naturale, too.)  But, anyways, it goes without saying that the people who were in Telavi are awesome people and a good time was had, despite faking sick on the marsh there so I didn't make people mad for having to pee, and my typical moody self flaring up, and not being able to shower. ("It takes a lot of money to heat the gas.  If you can be quick, go ahead.  But everyone will want to shower.  I'm sure you understand.")

 Things that annoy me:

Working seemingly all the time but never really having anything to show for it.  It's not like I have THAT MANY hours at school or a million (really, any) afterschool clubs (I guess the computer training counts) or other projects or keep in touch with friends back home or other volunteers.  Where does my time go?

Advice from "experts":

•  "You run on the stadium, right?  You should breathe only through your mouth when you run.  I'm a sportsman.  Just so you know."
• "Your hands, they're so dry!  You should use special lotion.  It's in drugstores.  It's got glycerin in it.  Then wear gloves all the time."
• "You should stay here for the rest of your life.  Don't you like Georgia?  She doesn't want to stay.  That means she doesn't like Georgia.  If she did, she would stay.

/end backlog

I think I will start a blog logging only the 3 things I'm thankful for each day.  That way, when my notebook runs out (both the paper one and the one I'm typing on, I guess) it'll exist somewhere.  Kinda like myself.

Now, back to work!  I asked my director for the off--and the initial reason, being a guest trainer elsewhere, has been (surprise!) postponed.  I'm still taking the personal day to get some work done, because heaven knows I need it!