April!

As ever I feel that it is very important to talk about the weather. The weather affects just about everything I do and feel and sometimes my motivation to the extreme. For example when it was really cold I didn't feel like going out at all because I would have to walk there. Of course I have to say "really cold" with a little bit of an explanation because at no time was it REALLY cold, not even close. It is just that I didn't want to walk anywhere when I knew that it would take me 20 minutes to get there when it was slightly cold. One because I would have to wear a billion layers to do so and then I couldn't do anything fun, like go dancing cause I would die in all the clothes that I would have had to put on to go dancing in the first place. Needless to say I have not done a lot of socializing for the past couple of months. I am a hermit. Second example would be work. My school was heated, nominally, in the winter but as soon as March hit they turned off the heat. So even though it is not really above the 40s yet our school is unheated. And some members of my host family are fond of turning the house heat off in the middle of the day so the house is cold when I get home. Sigh. I turn it on and all is fine so it is better then school it is just that I would never turn the heat off. Thats all. And at school there is no magical turn the heat back on button. So there are days when I cannot wait to leave school because even though I wore layers and kept my coat on the whole time my nose and my fingers are freezing and I can't get any work done at school at that point. So as you can see (hopefully) the weather is very important in my life. And it keeps changing. Who does that? Really? If I have 2 days of 60 degree weather I think it is going to stay. But so far it hasn't it just flits in a couple of days a week to get our hopes up then the 40 degree weather comes back to dash them to bits. I almost miss the 90 degree weather at this point. Almost. Don't hold me to that statement.

As for school, it is school. There are moments of brillance and then there are less sterling moments where I just want to scream and leave the room or send a particular student from the room. Either would be acceptable in my mind, not so acceptable in reality. But I can fantasize, we have detention and I can send any student I want there and .... then I wake up, no detention. I will just have to use all of my creative 5 year old level Russian skills to talk sense into the situation. It works about, well lets not say and it will seem like it works pretty well. Life at site goes along much in the same vein, some days are just beyond anything I could have imagined in a good way and others, well in every sunny day there must come that one particular cloud that stops right over the sun and stays there for awhile. Eventually it goes away it just takes some really positive thinking.

I am excited to say that I have gotten involved in several different projects in the past month or so including planning for PST training, I get to tell new volunteers what to do! Well not really I will be helping to guide them and impart important and very useful information. I am looking forward to being on the other side of the table and sharing what I think was most helpful for me and hopefully putting a lot of worries to rest about what is to come. I am also going to be a mentor which goes along the same lines of giving information and advice and being a new friend and contact in Moldova for future volunteers. Hopefully they will get as much out of the experience I did. There are also just so many projects going on at any one time, so many ways to get involved and to connect with Moldovans and other volunteers. If anyone is interested in checking out an incredible array of what volunteers here in Moldova are do I highly recommend visiting the website

http://www.365peaceandfriendship.com

It is a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps and to all the work that volunteers and their partners due on a daily basis. It is full of pictures and posts about the people, places and work that volunteers encounter during their service. There is a ton to see. I hope everyone who reads my blog will go to this website. I cannot say how wonderful it is.

Happy April!