The little things.

ese igi,

During the glorious vacation described in the previous post, I realized my depressing tendency to be depressive all the time, and I got-- well, you know.  It's a cycle.

So, to combat the Lamenting Linda syndrome, I decided to write each day in my little notebook (gift from the English teacher I don't work with anymore) 3 things I'm thankful for from that day.  I'd like to start either another blog or maybe twitter or something to keep track of these updates.  I haven't decided yet.  But, bottom line is, I have been feeling better about things.  Also making goals helps.  Stress eating bread and honey and not exercising does not.

Not that this time of the year has been the greatest time of year for me before.  As the one-year anniversary of my last and closest grandparent not being alive came and went, I found myself having a terrible week (at least I knew, in part, why) and escaped to my friend's place in the next town this weekend, and I was telling her that I'm going to buy some flowers when I get back and go visit Grandma's grave, because I haven't physically gotten to say goodbye yet, and the same thing happens to my friend one year later, when I just so happened to be there talking to her about my grandma.


In other news, I'm going to go to school tomorrow to work on the computers with Ana.  We need to fix them up for the technology training that's going on now.  Well, we didn't have this week because we had a SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!

Now, I know what you're thinking, Iowans.  No, snow days here do not consist of waking up at 5 in the morning and listening to the radio, praying that enough snow will dump before the deadline for the supervisor to make the call that the roads would be too dangerous for school buses to make the journey.  Think without the waking up early, without the warmth, without the planning ahead of time, and without knowing that school will be canceled until right after 1st lesson happens.  BUT!!! My Georgian snow day still consisted of making snowmen (and women) and chilling out with friends.

And I know what you're thinking, PCVs in the Greater Caucasus.  You don't have shortened classes anyway, because of heat/kids not coming/sickness/whatever excuse they're using today?  No, because our school has hot-water-pipe heating that's firewood fueled, and it's actually on ALL day until people want to leave.  Amazing, huh?

We also, thanks to Appropriate Projects, have 4 places with running water in our school.  I'll post more appropriately on that later, with the results of the currently underway hygiene poster contest.


Anyway, I'll leave you with a ponder pondered by one of my students while learning the word "thirty":
"Paula Mas and Magda Mas, why is there no "th" in Georgian?"
Most schools in this country teach kids how to memorize, not how to think.
Oh, and he's 9 years old.

I did promise..

And though I'm getting to be flaky and irresponsible (hey, it comes with the go-with-the-flow way of life here.  I'm just doing my job by integrating?), there's still a kernel of I-should-get-this-done.

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.

I'll post soon, I promise...

I know the masses are screaming for more fun, witty tales of my sxovreba in Georgia, and I'm not one to make people mad at me.  Not even teachers who will never lesson plan with me and so I dropped classes with her.  Still trying to be her friend.  Call it peacemaker, call it people pleasing, I just like everyone to be happy, especially when they're around me.

But though I'm suffering from a slight touch of the insomnia tonight, you just get the teaser.  I'm gonna lie in bed and pretend the world doesn't exist right now.

I probably won't have time to write tomorrow.  We're prepping food for the funeral Thursday, that of Shorena's grandma.  That woman always asked about me and blessed me the traditional Georgian "grow up! be happy!" in such a sincere manner that if the occasional "get married!" was thrown in there, too, I didn't mind so much.  Here's to you.

A few other headlines:

Hopefully we'll have some Halloween activities underway.

Ambivalent about computer courses, wave 2, with indefinite start date. Hm.

A committee of 3 including me are coordinating the planning/buying/making of the Thanksgiving dinner at the all-volunteer conference in 2 weeks.

Lab remonti hopefully underway soon with program pointers from tech saavy folk.  Also, there's this: Free educational and/or computer games for kids! Win!!!

Magda wrote a test for the 5th graders on the computer and printed it out on our NEW PRINTER.  Totally all by herself because I was gone.  She rocks my world.

Spring is in the air... kwelgan I davtwalierav

I am dead tired, and there are miles to go after I sleep. So I'm just gonna tell you a couple of highlights that I remember from the couple past days I haven't written.

Homemade hamburgers with awesome barbecue sauce. Like, the best barbecue sauce known to man. This may be biased due to lack of comparison bbq here, but I doubt it. This stuff was the nectar of the gods, man.

Dancing at the Club and watching people do stuff you shouldn't be able to see them doing from the window.

Working all week on the SPA grant with my cp, staying at her house either late or overnight, freaking out in the teacher's lounge over fear that it wouldn't get done, and then watching cp and computer teacher friends pull together and come to Tbilisi so we could price check and get shit done.

It's ice cream season. Also strawberry season.

CP's son, who's a self-proclaimed future advertisement-maker and/or pencil sketch artist (he's a prolific sketcher), bawled when I left their house one day, and rarely lets me leave without giving me a big, juicy kiss on the cheek.

Made lettuce salad (YUM!) today at my cp's house with homegrown lettuce given by one of the teachers. And had more lettuce promised me for Monday by another teacher.


The biggest news of the hour is that this week, two days ago, I had three seventh grade girls join me for my morning anti-notrunning training (good thing I'm also equally training for the stress-eating team. It has more than balanced things out). Yesterday, I had five, including host sis. Last night I slept at cp's house because I spent a lot of time planning and helping her fix her computer, then it was raining, and this morning she had her heart set on feeding me strawberries and oatmeal, so I didn't run. But the girls ran without me and asked where I was. What's going on?!

And.. there's dancing bazari bags on TV. I think it's time to call it a night. Headed to Tbilisi to practice for med sessions for new Trainee trainings, then Patara to the old host fam for some good ol' awkward moments, then Borjomi to hang out at a meet, greet, eat, drink with the newbs, then hightail it back home for a day or two, then back out for Trainee mentoring and delivering said medical sessions on hub day. AH!!!!

When it rains...

Or, in this case, when it SNOWS.  SURPRISE!!!!!11!!11ELEVENTY.  Happy St. Joseph's Day.


Yep.  This morning I woke up to a fresh coat of snow lining the track to the bathroom.  I do the familiar all-purpose-question-hand-gesture to host g-ma.  "Vigundaot?" she responds, making a snowball and pretending to toss it at me. (So, a language that can express "let's have a snowball fight" in one word can't be ALL that bad, right?)  However, it was all melty by the time I got off school.


I headed to Kwareli today with my counterpart to observe the computer trainings that some teachers from our school are taking (that my host mom skipped out on today).  They were doing stuff on an interesting website, lemill.net--it's got some interesting links for sharing resources.  If every teacher here lesson planned and shared their lesson plans on there, the education system would be much improved.  But pooling resources doesn't seem to be The Way with teaching.  Money and food and most things, yes.  Hm.


And, the computer trainings might be more fruitful if the teachers grasped basic concepts like select, cut, and paste, more concretely before trying to post their lesson plans on this site.  At least I have an idea of how much work my potential tech training in the village is going to be.  Too bad all they want is a CERTIFICATE, hell if they actually know how to tell the difference between my documents and microsoft word.  *sigh*
Maybe I'll just spend some time on GIMP and make my own.  You're Pahoola Shmidi certified!!!^©


Anyway, take it from me, you've never lived until you've pregamed a violet-picking-hike with three shots of chacha.




მომავლის მიზნები:
grad school?
thus, GRE?
(aka, work on figuring out what the heck to do with myself when this gig's up)
get muscles back
install kubuntu with working internet by the end of the weekend
catch up on the various PC stuff I should probably do...
work on being a little less intense/less of a wet blanket on my own party
start up work on Georgian again
learn some Russian while I'm here
be more attentive to people not in my immediate surroundings that I care about, PCVs and friends back home included
bake some babovka tomorrow (if there's milk...) for late st. j. day. celebray.

Bad Thing #3...

So.

The world laughs at my pain and comes full circle to deliver bad thing #3: computer issues.

I laugh back and decide to bite the bullet and install a linux-based OS--Kubuntu.  Why that over Ubuntu?  Gut feeling.  And it looked prettier.

Trent's taken well to it thus far.  I still have to convert all my files and customize the interface how I want it.  Probably with pretty pictures of warm things to get me through the cold month or so to go.

However, the world (read: magti and consumerism) laughs back at me for trying to have free love, a free spirit, and a free OS.  Magti's modem's drivers don't work with linux-based OSes.  Boo.

And I'm still trying to figure this one out.  If anyone has any clue how to make it work, throw me a lifeline!  kplzthxbai.