Happenings

The way he works

2008-06-22T14:12:00.000-06:00

God is good. He can take your life and turn it upside down. After that you grow and become more like him. Six months ago, I realized that I don’t want to be in the classroom. This was a big breakthrough for me because I always thought that I wanted to be a school teacher. I still wanted to work with kids and help them overcome stuff but I didn’t want to do that in classroom setting. I got busy with life and didn’t think about what else I may want to do for a few months. Three months ago, I started to look into what I wanted to do with my life. John is in school right now, but will be finishing in December, so I started to look to the future and figure out what my next step should be. I quickly came to the conclusion that occupational theory, OT, was the right choice for me. It fit my passion for children and my interest in science. I was praying during this time for God to show me what I suppose to do, but I was not taking the time to listen for him. I shared my new found conclusion with my small group and asked them to pray for me and about the decision. I was so excited that I finally figured out what I wanted to do that I still was not listening for God. While this was all happening, our church started a series called When God Shows Up. I was at a point where I thought I had figured out what I was supposed to do, praying for God to help me figure out the how and where, but still not listening for God. One service was a turning point for me. One night, I go on Saturday nights, Rick O. asked us to pray for the Holy Spirit to come and speak to us. I was hit with a word, transformation, and a picture of a butterfly repeating over and over again. For those of you that know don’t me, I don’t like to speak out, be in the spot light and the whole idea of God speaking thorough me in a scare at best. When Rick asked us a share for we got any words I didn’t share. I was frozen. Not sure where to go next. After the service, I felt that I had to go up. So, I slowly walked up not sure of myself or what to say. I told Rick what had come to me with a shaky voice. He said that what I heard was from God and it was what he needed to hear for the church. I still was not sure about everything, but I had felt different then I had ever before. Some was starting within me; God was slowly turning me upside down. Man, when God starts it feels like you are going to the top of the world tallest rollercoaster. The nervousness, excitement, and anticipation build-up and we feel like you are going to explode. After that first time of recognizing and acknowledging God voice, my head was rarely quiet. I had opened the flood gates and God had been standing by ready to inundate me with his words and heart. John left for Mexico May 31st and I think God was waiting to really pour himself into me. I went to a class called Ministry of Jesus. It was about how to pray for others. I felt a strong need to go to the class. When I got there I quickly figured out that I was the only person there that was not going on a mission trip this summer. I laughed a little about that because why was I there. Why did God lay it on my heart to go? I continued to practice listen for God more and more in my everyday life. Every week I had a new revelation from God and every Saturday the service would be related. During this time, I started looking at Master’s programs trying to figure out what I suppose to do. I found a program and it instantly felt right, a combination program in social work and international development. God speaks as feelings, as pictures, we can hear him in our mind, through other people, and sometimes he can speak to our heart. Everyday God was replacing more of my heart for his. Last week, I went to a regional leadership conference called Activate. I know that I do not have a leadership role at church, but again God told me that I needed to be there and I have found out that there is no use not doing what God tells you to do. I went to the night sessions and God was right I needed to be there. Every night he spoke to me through people there and directly to me. Every session reflected things that God had already placed in my heart. Brenda, my small group leader, was there and for that I am grateful. We grew closer to God together and she was a great listener and helped me see God’s plan. I believe that John and I are not supposed to live in the USA. We are supposed to help advance God’s kingdom all over the world. I feel that I am called to protect God’s children. I am not sure about much else right now, but I know that God will take of us and that he is in charge of the why, how, where, when and what. If I try to follow what I believe is God’s heart then I will be blessed in all I do. Looking back at my life, I now recognize how God has prepared us separately and together. I see how we both have very different views on life and what is important then most anyone I know. I am now at a place of excitement and anticipation. God continues to hit me of the head and I laugh at his humor and with joy at recognition of him.

TEN days to go!

2007-06-24T03:02:00.000-06:00

Hi Everyone!!
Just a quick note to let you all that we will be back on American soil in TEN days. I can't believe it. I have very mixed emotions right now. I am excited to be going home and finish my service here in Bulgaria, two years where have you gone, but there is a lot of things here that I will miss. We are use it living here, it is our home. The pace of life is slower and there are not so many choices, soon enough that will change. We are trying to figure out what to pack and clean our apartment for our replacements, new volunteers. Man, it is amazing how much we have after two years.
News on after we come home:
John has been excepted into Colorado State University, new Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise, GSSE, program. This program is a mixture of Business and International Development. It is a great fit to his interest and we are both excited. He will receive his MSBA after 1 1/2 years. So, a month after get back we will be heading to Fort Collins. I am actively looking for a preschool teaching position.
So that is it for now.

We are ALIVE

2007-02-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, February 6th: I have some time off this morning which is a rare thing recently, so I decided to post. First off, for those of you who didn't know, we went back to Ohio for Christmas. I know that we said that we were not coming back during our two years, but we felt that we needed to. We had been crazy busy, writing grants, working on projects, teaching lots, and having visitors, and need some time to see everyone and think about what to do next. Here is an outline of your life recently.
Projects
Grants- We have both successfully written a grant. I now know why people go to University to learn how to do this. It was a lot of work but both projects will help out our schools. My project will create a language resource and multimedia center. The center will allow teachers to create and use additional resources in their daily classes. The center will have a computer, printer, copier, language library, projector, and meeting space. John's project will create a mobile multimedia center. He will build a wireless network throughout his school and make a media cart with a laptop and projector available for all teachers to use. There will also be a printer available in the teacher's room for them to use. All of our teachers are really excited. Now we are just waiting on the grant money to be distributed.
Baseball- As you know this has been our ongoing project. In the Fall, our city final found a good location to build a field. In new field will be at the Agricultural school at the edge of town. The city has given the baseball field project to a local contractor. I think they are waiting till spring to get things going. We are planning a 2-day baseball instructor training in mid-March. The training will be held with support from Razgrad and the Bulgarian Baseball Federation (BBF). We are excited but have tons of work that we need to do to pull it off.
School
The first term is wrapping up. Wednesday, tomorrow, is our last day. We will have a two break. Then second term starts on Monday. I will teach 7 less hours a week next term. The extra time will be nice to work on my projects.
Continued Monday, February 12th.
Trips
We have been really have been really busy these past few weekends.
Istanbul
Last weekend, Thursday - Saturday, some friends and us went to Istanbul for our long weekend. It was fun. I love Istanbul. The city is beautiful, clean, colorful, and full of life. John took lots of pictures of himself. I got sick on Wednesday so I went out with everyone for a few hours in the early afternoon then went back to the hotel to sleep/rest while everyone else stayed out. It was not much fun, but I am still really glad that I went and would love to return someday.

Bucharest
The first weekend in February we headed off to Bucharest, Romania with our friends Jeremy and Erin. We had never been to Romania before even though it is so close to us. We live closer to Bucharest than to Sofia, Bulgaria's capital city. The city seemed similar to Sofia in many ways, but much bigger. The city has more pre-communist then Sofia, which was a nice change. The Parliamentary Palace, aka people's house, was beautiful inside.

Home Life
On January 19th, John turned 27. Yea, Happy Birthday! We celebrated by inviting some friends over for a weekend of fun. We all had a great time with tons of food and movies. John wanted cheesecake again for his birthday. So, I made chocolate cherry cheesecake , fajitas and lasagna for the weekend.
The next week John and I both had the flu. Not fun. We took the week off school and rested. Only to have the next week shortened because the city declared flu vacation for all city schools. In Bulgaria, if 40% of students are out sick then the school declares a flu vacation ranging in length from 3 days to 2 weeks. This year the flu was widespread and will over 50% of the countries schools had flu vacation. It is amazing to me how so many people can get sick at the same time.

Laundry Day

2006-10-01T04:33:00.000-06:00

A "Tragic Holiday"

2006-09-28T04:28:00.000-06:00

Our last school year here has finally begun. We are finishing up our second week and starting it get back into the grove of things. This year I will be team teaching with my counterpart, a Bulgarian teacher. We are still working out the best way to separate the lessons, but I think that it will be helpful to her and to the students. Here are some pictures from my first day. The first day is a celebration.

We have lots of speeches and songs. Then the first graders come forward.

The School Director throws water on the ground and older students hold up a flower arch. Here are the first graders entering the school, they are always the first to enter the school.

It is a fun day. After the celebrations at school, I went out to lunch with some fellow teachers. They all called the the day a "Tragic Holiday"

What happened to summer?

2006-09-13T13:04:00.000-06:00

Long time no wright! Well it doesn't seem like long ago, we were welcoming the end of school and the beginning of our summer break. It turns out that it is now the end of summer work and back to our more relaxed full time jobs. Don't get me wrong, summer was a blast! It was action packed from beginning to end, leaving me feeling like I've been beaten and left in an alley. Sounds good doesn't it? It all began with a harmless three week summer camp in Blagoevgrad (a beautiful town about two hours south of Sofia) at The American University in Bulgaria. I remember summer camp as being sort of laid back or at the very least care free. I now have a greater appreciation for teachers/counselors/administrators/anyoneelsors who have the responsibility of organizing and implementing a three week international English language extravaganza.

In fact, Alana has been busily writing a resource guide(novel) for other PCVs about organizing and surviving summer camps. Despite the 14 hour days, the camp turned out to be a wonderful learning experience that I will never forget. I am only gratefully that I had absolutely no idea of the immense commitment beforehand.

At the end of the camp, we returned to Razgrad for a brief four days before heading back to Sofia to pick up Beth's mother at the Airport. Yeah guests! We were truly happy to have people visit. This was the beginning of our vacationing segment of the summer. WOOHOO! Well I could go on with the wonderfulness of the rest of the time that we spent this summer . . . and I will. Most of the time that we were in Bulgaria with Beth's mom, we spent in Razgrad, which was really nice since we hadn't been at home much for the past month. It was nice to have another American around. Interestingly enough, as a side point, I began to notice many more foreigners around Bulgaria, than I had before, when we didn't have people visiting. After a refreshing few days at home, we headed for the Airport to fly out to ITALIA! OH-a Roma, I-a love-a the Italia! FOOD-a! PASTA!

. . . Colosseum-a and lots of old stuff-a! . . .

This trip reaffirmed my love for Italy. I have been to Rome and Florence before, but I appreciated different things this time around. Actually, when we first arrived in Rome, I said that we could see the Forum in about 5 minutes. Man was I wrong! It really is an interesting place that deserves a good look. I learned a whole lot more about the Forum this time around, special thanks to Rick Steves and my wife, Alana (a.k.a. Beth). For pics of these places you can visit our Flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/inbox.**

**at the time of this writing, we haven't uploaded any pictures of the trip to flickr. Stay tuned!**

After Rome we headed to Florence for a day where we ate Gellato! among other things. We also saw a bunch of Renaissance art. For lunch we ended up in a small local restaurant which had extremely tasty pasta . . . mmm. I have come to realize lately that traveling for me is all about the food!

On to Pisa. It was great to see the leaning tower of Pisa again, this time without huge cables holding it up, it was only me! . . .

What I didn't get a picture of are the thousands of tourists standing next to me in various poses, essentially doing to same thing.

After Pisa, we headed to a new place for me, the "Cinque Terre", which means five lands. Absolutely amazing! The Cinque Terre is a series of five small villages in the cliffs and hills that meet the sea in the Italian Riviera. The villages are connected both by train and a hiking trail. The hiking trail was a lot of walking but far worth it. The scenery . . .WOW!

This was a pretty adventurous stop actually. We went to the Cinque Terre at the absolute hight of tourist season. I mean we read in the tour guides to avoid going on weekends in
August. Best part of it, we didn't have reservations for a place to stay. We had called like every hotel and guest house listed anywhere! No rooms available! We went anyway. It was really a nice coincidence that 5 minutes after we got off the train in Vernazza (one of the towns), we noticed a sign posted at a wine shop, "Rooms Available". We went in and there were two Americans working there. One of them took us to show us the Room, which was actually at Luciano's place, the guy who owns the wine shop. What was really weird is that she had been there all summer and was traveling back to the states out of Milan on the same day that Beth's mom was flying out of Milan. So she made a great travel buddy for Carol, Beth's mom, on the way back as she planned the whole trip from Vernazza to Milan. Apparently she was quite familiar with Milan and she showed Carol around the shopping hot spots as well. We stayed in Vernazza for two nights. Our last night there, we ate at a great seafood restaurant by the marina where our older waiter claimed to have been in charge of a Carnival Cruise Line's restaurant. I don't know if he was telling the truth, but he sure new how to humor tourists. He left us with this quote "Life is-a beautiful-a, if you don't think-a too much-a!"

Anyhow, the next morning we left Carol to go to Milan from Vernazza as we traveled back to Rome to return to Bulgaria. Despite Beth's excessive vomiting for 6 hours as a result of seafood poisoning, it was nice to have an extra day in Rome before we left Italy.

Back in Bulgaria! We returned to Sofia where we had two days of medical appointments (Mid Service check-ups) before my parents flew in for a visit. . .

. . . to be continued, I'm tired of writing right now . . .

Summer is coming

2006-06-10T14:28:00.000-06:00

Only FOUR more days of school!! That means 10 classes or 9.5 hours in class until it is official summer. YEA!!!

"What are your plans when you are finished?"

2006-06-05T03:00:00.000-06:00

As soon as we came to Bulgaria people started asking us, “What are your plans when you are finished?” How are you suppose to answer that question when you have two years ahead of you? Some people knew what they would like to do, but I felt like I just need to live the best I could now and think about this question later.

Well, I guess the past two months have been later. John and I have been thinking about all of our known options. Until recently, three weeks ago, we thought that our best plan was to go back to school. John would go back for his MBA and I would go back for my teaching certificate. This is still an option and a good one at that, but I think we have figured out something that fits were we are in our lives and what we would like to do during our lives better. We have always talked about living aboard while working and John has been surprised how much he likes teaching, so we have figured out a way to combine this two things. Currently, we are looking into getting our TESOL certification in Thailand after we complete our service. Why Thailand? Thailand is the least expensive place in the world to complete the required month training in order to receive our certification. The certification is the same any place you can take the course. We have also wanted to visit Thailand, so why not live there for a month. Once we get our certification, we will go to Japan to get a teach job. We know two people who have contacts in Japan. So, as of now this is our plan. Go to Thailand get certified then go to Japan get a job. We plan to teach for a year there, but we may like it. Who knows.

Update

2006-06-05T02:38:00.000-06:00

I have only seven more days of teaching. YEA! John has 15 more days. We both can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In May, we went to a great teaching conversational English workshop in Sofia. The workshop was created so Peace Corps Bulgaria can help the Bulgarian government teach municipality workers English. They we need this skill to apply for grants and communicate with the EU. A trainer from SIT, School for International Training, was flown in to conduct the training. I think that all 40 of us there learned tons from the workshop. It was a great opportunity and I am very glad that we took advantage of the chance.

May is the month of holidays in Bulgaria. There are four different holidays; Labor Day (1^st), St. George’s Day (6^th), Culture and Language Day (24^th), and Education Day (25^th). Of course, we get school off on these days. It’s a great way break up the month and have some fun.

Coming up, we have mid-service training. It is crazy it think we have been here for so long and only have a year left. At our training we will meet the new volunteers still in training. Once John finishes school we are go, go, go until school starts in September. We have been invited and accepted a teaching position at an International Conversational Summer Camp. The camp is being run by the American University of Bulgaria. The camp will run from July 2 till July 22. We will have the kids in class three hours every morning and the help plan and implement afternoon and evening activities. There will be five other Peace Corps volunteers teaching at the camp. We are excited about the camp and really looking forward to it. August is full of travel and family. My Mom, Carol, is flying in on the 1^st. We will be visiting Bulgaria for about a week and then possibly traveling to Italy for a week. My Mom and I have never been to Italy, so it is bound to be a good time. John’s parents will be flying in on the 18^th. We will spend five days in Bulgaria and then off to Greece. We will spend six days in Athens and surrounding islands. We feel blessed to be able to visit so many new places. Once our guest leave, we will head back to school, but not before we start our baseball project.

We recently heard that we should get our grant money in July. We will work with the city the last week of July to get the field started and finished by the end of August. We may also have a press conference that week. Our plan is to start playing with the children in September. We should still have a few good months of weather.

Maybe, I will get a vacation when school starts, if not then in a year.

Tuesday, 2nd of March

2006-05-02T13:59:00.000-06:00

I have 23 days left of teaching this school year. A fellow teacher told me my Bulgarian is improving and tat I speak very well. I think she was just trying to make me feel good.

The past two months

2006-04-21T01:12:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, way too long in-between blogs.

So here is a summary of what we have been up to.

John, Jason, our site-mate, and I wrote a grant to help start baseball in your community. It has been approved and we are now waiting for funding. We had a meeting with Razgrad’s mayor, 2 vice mayors, and the director of regional sports in March. It was a great meeting. We explained the purpose of our project, how many kids are interested in baseball, and asked for the city’s support with the field. They all agreed to look for a suitable location and meet again next week. Our next meeting was only with the mayor. We all had coffee and he told us how great it was for us to start the baseball project and that the city was committed to help us any way they can. They had found a suitable site. It is an area were there is currently a soccer field and a large unused area next to it. The baseball field will be built next to the soccer field. The land is owned by a local company so prior to our second meeting the mayor had talked to the company’s board of directors and they had agreed to help in this project. Currently, we are waiting on the funding. After we receive the funding, the city will start work on building the field. Hopefully you can tell how excited we are. We have high hopes for this project. Thank you to all who have donated equipment. With 170 kids interested from only two schools, we will use everything donated.

The first week in April, my sister, Sara, and step dad, Richard, came to visit. We had a great time while they were here. Hopefully, they enjoyed themselves too. They brought us two huge bags of donated baseball equipment and a bag of goodies for us.

Last week we bought bikes. John was so excited. He feels that it is his freedom. We are not allowed to drive anything with a motor and John misses driving. I think his new bike has taken the edge off his desire to drive. He rides his bike to school everyday. I don’t, because my school is straight up a hill. Last weekend we decided to go on a bike ride to a local recreation area. We didn’t think is was that far away. We rode our bikes for 45 minutes and were still not there. Our legs were killing so we turned around. It took us only 15 minutes to get home. After we arrived home, we realized that the first half of the trip was all up hill. No wonder we were so tired.

Tonight we are getting on a bus to Istanbul. Easter is this Sunday, orthodox calendar, so we have a long weekend, no school until Wednesday. We will be in Istanbul on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and will leave on Tuesday night. I am really excited. Somehow I am getting to Asia. I can’t be that close and not go. I guess the city is in Europe and Asia so it should not be that hard. I will post pictures and stories when we get back.

I hope all of you had a good Easter last Sunday and have a great weekend.

The Sun

2006-02-21T02:27:00.000-07:00

The last four days have been beautiful. The temperature is around 52F with lots of sun. I didn't realize how much I missed the SUN. Yesterday I sat on the couch with the window wide open and the sun shinning on me. I could have sat there forever. With such great weather, I have been able to wash all of our clothes, sheets, and towels. For those who don't know, we do not have a dryer. In the spring, summer, and fall we hang our laundry out on our back terrace, but in the winter we use a small indoor drying rack. It works ok, but we can only wash one maybe two small loads a week. Hopfully spring will be here soon.

Recent Travels

2006-02-18T03:19:00.000-07:00

I saw that Alana posted a blog entry, but didn’t include anything about our recent travels! Well, we have had a whole lot of traveling recently, but not many pictures to prove it. Our most interesting recent trip, however, was to Pernik. Once every two years there is a celebration in Pernik, which is close to Sofia, called the International Masquerade Festival, also know as “The Kukeri Festival.” The most interesting part of this event is its traditional and not-so-traditional costumes, which are which – I have no idea. Originally these costumes were worn to scare away evil spirits. Now, it’s to attract tourists. Check out our recent pictures on Flickr!

If you want to know more about this event, follow the link to this news article. http://www.bulgariatravel.org/etis/news.php?aID=593

Time goes too fast for change to go so slow

2006-02-18T01:55:00.000-07:00

We have both survived our first terms. YEA!!!!! One down and three to go. Looking back on the past 5 months, I am not sure what all I have accomplished. Everyone says change is slow; I sometimes have to keep telling myself that. There are times when I feel that no one wants to change or cares. I have found that you have to say what you think or want at least 5 times just to be heard and then another 5 to get them to do anything. Cultural differences . . . what can you do. Starting a new term means changing schedules. John’s classes have switched from the mornings to the afternoons and my classes have changed times. I now start at 7:30am three days a week. During the winter we moved our mattresses from the bedroom to the living room because of heating issues. Due to this and my schedule change, I have to be really quiet when I get ready to leave for school. Ahh, life.

Two weeks ago when I started writing this post I felt discouraged. I was not sure what we were doing here. I think it was because I could not pin point one thing and say, ‘look I did that.’ I like to see a finished product, create things. I decided it was time to get in gear and not let everything slip by. Since then we have started a project in America called “Bats and Books for Bulgaria”, started working on a project with my school to build an art gallery, and we are talking with the municipality about writing a grant to build a baseball field. Five days ago, I began knitting to see more immediate results from what I am doing with my time. I am trying to make a scarf. The first two times I started, I made it way to wide, about 18inches . . . that’s a blanket! I was just so excited to be knitting! Finally on the third try, I got it right. I am about half way done. I like knitting. It gives me something productive to do with all my free time and I can see instant the results and improvements.

We have also uploaded some new pictures on to flickr. There is a link to the right to see the pics.

Bats and Books for Bulgaria: On-going project

2006-02-06T07:14:00.000-07:00

Bats and Books for Bulgaria

We are Peace Corps Volunteers, stationed in Razgrad, Bulgaria. Razgrad is a town of 30,000 people. We are both English teachers at local schools, volunteers at the town’s orphanage, and facilitate a weekly English club for community members. All of our students are very excited about learning English and about American culture. We feel that one of the best ways to keep them interested and learning more is to give them the resources to keep learning after we leave.

Our town has a very limited supply of English books. We are first requesting used books and magazines. We work with babies to adults, so any type of book would be used. The adults that we are working with read at a 9^th/10^th grade level.

We have discovered that there is a strong desire to learn about baseball. We think that baseball is a great game to teach teamwork, cooperation, and American culture. We currently have no baseball/softball equipment. We are asking for anything; gloves, bats, balls, bases, safety equipment and bags.

You can send books using Economy M-bags. M-bags can be used only for books, magazines, and sheet music. US postal offices will place the books in a bag for shipping at a reduced cost. You will need to send a minimum of 11lbs to use this method of shipping. You can send a maximum of 66lbs. It cost $11.55 for the first 11lbs and $1.05 for each additional pound or fraction of a pound.

We are asking our friends and family visiting us to bring over the donated baseball/softball equipment, as shipping and customs fees would be very expensive. John’s parents and my mom, Carol Holdren, are planning on visiting us this summer. My sister, Sara Gallaugher, will be coming over at the end of March.

The Freeze

2006-01-24T00:27:00.000-07:00

OK. So, the winter freeze is here. The record cold air from Russia has hit Bulgaria. Yesterday the high was -15C, 3F. Today the high is -20C, -4F. These temperatures are without wind and we have discovered that our town in a wind tunnel . Winds are about 36 MPH. We have settled into our living room, where it is about 65F. Thank God for central heating. The good news about all of the cold is that we don’t have school today and tomorrow. There is a rumor that school has been canceled all week. Hmmm, I need to check into that.

New Computer!

2006-01-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a great overseas insurance company and some help from family we now have a new laptop! We are both very excited.

No Computer

2005-12-05T04:58:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know that our computer is not working. We are in the process of filing a insurance claim, John dropped it, and should soon be buying a new one.

Cinnamon roll recipe

2005-11-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Link here for the cinnamon roll recipe, used to make the exploding roll blog

We are lucky

2005-11-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, finally I can write a post. I guess I should tell why I have not been able. As some of you know, our computer stopped working on the 8th. It is never great when your computer brakes, but it is worse when it is your connection with so many things and a purple, red, and blue screen happens, what does that mean. We were lucky that our town has a good computer repair shop behind our apartment and VERY lucky that the main service tech speaks English. It took the store a week to find the problem and get the computer working again. Bad news was that it was a temporary fix and they didn't know how long it would last. I guess on the 3rd, the computer bag slipped off of John's shoulder and hit the concrete floor on the one place where it bag was not padded. OPPS!! A internal board was cracked and they had glued it together. Well, exactly one week after it was fixed the problem happened again. So, the bad news is that we need to get a new laptop. The good news is that right before we left we bought international property insurance and accidental damage is covered. YEA!! We have already started the process. Our adjuster seemed very easy to work with and we are only waiting for an embassy report to file all of the paperwork.

Other than our computer problems, not much has been happening. Personally, I was excited to find out that a member of our English club works for the orphanage in town. The orphanage houses 50 kids between the ages of 6 days to 3 years old. We are working on setting up a visit. As some of you know, I worked with children in this age group. I am defiantly looking forward interacting with children this age again. I have discovered, while being here, that I enjoy younger children much more than 12 and up.

Have a Great Thanksgiving!!

Winter came

2005-11-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

Within the last 30 hours Razgrad has turned from cool Fall days to a Winter wonderland.

Last two weeks

2005-11-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

The last two and half weeks have seemed to fly by. I am not sure why. My classes have been getting shorter and shorter. They are suppose it be 45 minutes long, but last week they were 35 minutes and then this week they were 25 minutes long. My school changed to schedule because it was SO COLD in the rooms. My school has central heating but for some reason it just turned on today. The building is slowly starting to warm up.

We have had our first snow flakes. On Halloween we had snow flakes in the air. Nothing stayed, everything melted when it touched to ground. Bulgarians are now saying that we are going to have a long and cold winter. Great, I can't wait!

Two weekends ago, John and I went to Sofia for our required flu shots. Since we are not in that part of the country much we decided to visit Rila Monastery. It was beautiful. The leaves were starting to change and it was sunny day. Hopefully we will be able to spend some more time there later and do some hiking

YEA!!!

2005-11-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

We have HEAT!! Our central heating just kicked on. Maybe tomorrow we won't wake-up to a 50 degree room.

NEW PICS

2005-11-01T05:38:00.000-07:00

HI everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that we have all of our Bulgaria pictures, incuding new photos, veiwable at flickr. Just go to www.flickr.com/photos/inbox

Free Breakfast and the 150 Leva Pair of Pants

2005-10-13T06:04:00.000-06:00

Sorry I have not posted anything recently. Our internet has been acting up and would not load certain websites and Blogger was one of them.

Last weekend we decided that we had been bums long enough on weekends and planned a trip. We decided to go to Belchik, on the Black Sea. I had read a little bit about the area and it sounded interesting. We had to go through Varna to get there. John was excited that we were going through Varna because than he could eat McDonald’s. Anyway, we arrived in Belchik on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It was a great day to walk around and visit Queen Maria’s Summer House and Gardens. After the garden we decided to try to find a hotel room. The first place we went to was 60 leva a night and included breakfast but, it was more than we wanted to spend. The next place was 40 leva a night and newly remodeled so we decided to stay there. The next morning we wanted to pick up breakfast somewhere on our way to the bus station. We had plenty of time, 1 hour, before our bus left. We walked by a restaurant in the same building as the first hotel, the one that was too expensive, and decided to go in. The man serving the tables had us sit down and asked us if we wanted coffee or tea. After he brought us our drinks we started to question if we were suppose to be there. He soon brought us two plates of food. By that point we were sure that we were not supposed to be there. The server thought that we stayed at the hotel in the building, the one that was too expensive. John and I didn’t know what to do. We could tell him that we did not sleep there and explain that we would pay, but we need to catch a bus and explaining would take too much time. So, we asked our server if there was a bill. He answered, no. We quickly left the restaurant and walked to the bus station. WOO HOO free breakfast!

On our way home we went to Metro, it’s like a Sam’s Club/ Super Wal-Mart. John wanted to look for sweaters and pants and I like to look at their food. They have a large selection of items that you can’t find many places here. We bought many things but thought we had enough money. So, we checked out and the total came to 100 leva more then we had. I quickly went to the ATM and took out more money. When we were leaving the store, I looked at the receipt and saw an item for 125 leva, 150 leva with tax. We both had no idea what it could be and could not read the Bulgarian description . . . something about water. After talking to two people we finally got to the customer service desk. They checked all of our items against the receipt and found out that they had charged us for a 125 leva water pump instead of a 20 leva pair of pants. OOPS!! They quickly took care of the problem. I guess it was our payment for breakfast.

Check

2005-10-03T06:04:00.000-06:00

Hi! I changed some settings and justed too see if list notifiyer works. Have a Great Day :)

Cinnamon Rolls

2005-10-01T14:47:00.000-06:00

So, today I decided I wanted to bake something. I decided on Cinnamon Rolls, YUM!!

Well, guess I found out what happens when you pack the roll to close together BEFORE the RISE. They double and then STILL expand when they cook. OOPS! Maybe next time I will get it right. Even after all of the mistakes they still taste great, Gooey and Sticky.

Miscommunications

2005-10-01T14:30:00.000-06:00

This week was a good week. We both survived our first full week of classes. I walked into the teacher’s room on Monday morning and was asked “Are you teaching your 3^rd grade SIP class today.” I stopped for a second and thought “I’m not supposed to teach that class till next week, right?” I guess I was misinformed. I was going to teach a class of 9 year olds for 40 minutes with no lesson plan, no idea of what they knew, and with not very much Bulgarian. Luckily, I can be creative and we all survived. After class, I went to my assistant director’s office to ask her a question. When I arrived, she looked at me and said “Done already. You are supposed to have them for two periods, 80 minutes. Never mind today just remember for tomorrow when you teach the other group of 3^rd graders.” Another miscommunication, I guess. I decided to tell her that I want to teach as much as I can, but two periods with 3^rd graders was going to be TOO LONG for them. It is hard for them to pay attention for 20 minutes, let alone 80! She said that she understood and would talk to the director about making them only one class a week. Luckily, that worked and now my SIP classes are only for 40 minutes a week. I think I would have gone crazy otherwise.

American Network Television in Bulgaria!?!

2005-09-24T07:39:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, I discovered that I could download all of my favorite prime-time network TV shows that are aired in The States. Interestingly enough, I didn’t have any favorite American shows until I got to Bulgaria. Did it take me coming to Bulgaria to become addicted to American television? Since my discovery, we have become up to date with many popular prime-time shows, including: Alias, Lost, The OC, Prison Break, and The Sopranos. I watched the first couple episodes of Rome, but found them a little too risqué to continue that series. I guess I worked too many hours in the states to worry about TV. What’s great is that I can hook up the laptop to our TV and watch the episodes in near perfect quality! -- just like being at home . . kind of. Here, I have really become involved in each series. We can download each recent episode only hours after it airs in The States. Alias is our favorite and probably what fostered our addiction. Everyone probably knows, but it is about a covert ops team of spies called SD6. If you haven’t seen it and you are interested in spy flicks, be sure to check it out. There is talk that this will be the last season though. The season premieres on ABC next Thursday (8:00pm EST) and on my computer next Friday (Bulgarian Time)!

Gloomy Weather

2005-09-24T06:28:00.000-06:00

Sorry, Sorry!! I do read your comments and have been thinking about writing an entry. I just have not felt up to it recently and I have been busy.

Our trip to our host families was successful. It was great to see them again and they were very excited to have us. There was a big festival in the square of Saedinenie for Unification Day. It seemed like everyone from the town and surrounding villages were there. During the day there were wrestling matches. A calf was the grand prize. At night, we went to a small fair. There we saw a military parade and fireworks with AK gunfire throughout. YES, on the way home from this trip we bought a new TV. The price was not bad, but we all know that John has to have the best.

Our next big event was the start of school. On September 15^thstudents arrive at school for a celebration and to meet their class teachers. It was raining that morning, so my school had a small celebration only with the students from 1^st to 4^th class. I thought it was interesting that here it is GOOD luck when it rains. After the celebration it is tradition to go to a restaurant with your colleagues and share lunch.

John and I both had class this past week. The children in my classes are all relatively well behaved. I started each class by going over the rules. I decided to speak only in English for my 5^th and 6^th classes. They understand me, but act like they don’t sometimes. I think it is because they are still unsure of their skills. I am positive that this will improve with time, because I won’t let them off the hook that easily. One thing is, I will have to teach them what pair/group work is, because they don’t do that in Bulgaria. On October 1^st four more classes will start. These are optional lessons for 3^rd and 4^th grades. We will see how those go later.

It has been cold and gloomy here for the past five days. One day it was high 70’s and sunny and the next it was 50’s and pouring down rain. As soon as the weather went downhill, John got a bad cold. And of course, married couples share everything so I got the cold two days later. We were planning on traveling this weekend, a four day weekend, but between us being sick and the ugly weather, we have camped out on our couch for the last two days. Maybe we will head somewhere tomorrow.

Oh, and “Ne Raboti” is something like “it doesn’t work” in English.

Oops!

2005-09-02T11:34:00.000-06:00

Oops! A word of advice from what is now my experience . . . Always check what cords are plugged into the computer before you move it!

Yes, unfortunately I had to learn this lesson with harsh reality. Also, televisions don’t work to well after a 3 foot fall, face first onto a hardwood floor. The bad news is, the TV “Не Работи”. The good news is I haven’t bought a guitar yet, so we can afford to replace it. Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is because some lessons are better to learn secondhand.

The Next Two Days

2005-09-02T08:07:00.000-06:00

So, I have survived my first two days of school. As I logically knew, everything went well. I walked into a teachers meeting 30 minutes late. While, I was walking in my director said “Relax” and then went on introducing me. When he was done he told everyone to speak to me only in Bulgarian. GREAT! Luckily, that request did not last long. All of the English teachers told me that it is their job to better their English. HaHa. We have finally straightened the classes that I will be teaching. I will be teaching three groups of fifth graders for five hours a week each, a group of third graders and a group of fourth graders one hour a week, and American history/ geography class one hour a week. This schedule should keep me busy.

We have a long weekend. September 6^th, Tuesday, is unification day here. We are leaving tomorrow to visit Saedinenie, our training site. They have a big celebration every September 6^th. Saedinenie means United in Bulgarian. The town was the gathering point for revolutionaries who helped declare Unification of Eastern Rumelia, now Southern Bulgarian, with the Principality of Bulgaria. It should be fun to see friends and join in the festivities.

On a different note, the pictures and stories coming out of the south are surreal. CNN and the internet are our only sources of news. I just pray God helps calm the situation and order is restored.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!!!

Instead of sleep

2005-08-31T15:38:00.000-06:00

I should be asleep right now, but I can’t make myself go to bed. Tomorrow, well I guess today now, is my first day at school, kind of. Here all teachers start going to work on the 1^st of September, but the students don’t show up until the 15^th. I know it is a little strange to me right now. My nerves must be getting to me. I am not sure why. I have met everyone at my school already. Our English course has been going well. Everyone wants to continue the course during the school year. My counterpart, coordinator, and director are all VERY nice and willing to help me anyway that they can, but I have to ask (most of the time). That is hard for me right now. I know I need to work on this skill to get me through the next couple of years. This morning I had to tell my school that I could not teach all of the levels of classes that I was scheduled to teach. My agreement says that I can teach up to four levels of classes, while I was scheduled to teach seven levels. I hated having to tell them something was wrong and needed changed. I feel that everyone has done so much for both John and I and I don’t want to offend them. Well, everything worked out well in the end, but I still didn’t like doing it. Sorry, that I have been rambling on. My excurses are that it is 12:25 am here and I am tried.

On a different note, last night we went out with a colleague of mine and her boyfriend. It was our first time going out at night with all Bulgarians. We were not sure of our language skills, my colleague doesn’t speak any English, but lucky her boyfriend spoke some. It was a lot of fun and I can see becoming friends with them. John and the boyfriend have lots in common, COMPUTERS. Enough said.

Well I need to try to sleep before work. Leka nosht!

FOOD

2005-08-24T13:54:00.000-06:00

For some reason I have been thinking about a lot recently. I guess it’s because I have to cook twice a day and everything takes at least twice as long here. Maybe it’s because family and food are so closely related. Another reason maybe that I have already gotten into ruts of what I cook. Who knows? Bulgarian food seems to be a mix between Greek and Turkish with a little surprise here and there. They claim that a lot of foods that we think are Greek are Bulgarian, like feta cheese is really cirene, the Bulgarian word for cheese, and what we would call “Greek” yogurt is really Bulgarian and was invented here. What can you say? Bulgarians are very proud of their culture and heroes. As I said before I have gotten into a rut with my cooking, but I don’t cook any Bulgarian food, unless you consider making shopska salad as cooking. I try to cook foods that we ate at home; you know working the comfort thing. I make a lot of Mexican inspired dishes, so spices from that family are great to throw into packages. I usually make fajitas, stuffed peppers, rice dishes, that kind of stuff. I have also expanded my pasta repertoire. It now includes Cajun chicken pasta, a pretty close recreation of a dish we liked at Starliner Diner. One of the things that I like and don’t like is having to go shopping at least every other day. One way it is great I don’t have to plan out my meals that much, but I have to go shopping too much. There is a market in my town that is open everyday. I shop there 3 or 4 times a week. At first I was excited to market get fresh fruits and veggies, but it has turned into a search. Who has the best tomatoes, the freshest cucumbers, and the crispest peppers? I never know. Here is a picture of the produce that I bought at the market on Monday. It all cost about $2.50, but remember we get paid in Leva. We both feel lucky to be in a place where we are able to find great produce and frozen chicken breast.

Crazy Last Week

2005-08-22T00:25:00.000-06:00

This past week has been kind of crazy. We had two guests helping with our English class over the past week. It was great spending time with other volunteers, but I am glad everyone has gone back to their sites.

Our first guest was Mike. He is originally from Twinsburg, OH, so he and John know some of the same places. We first decided to show him around town, off to the hotel we went. On the 16^th floor of the hotel there is a discotech. There we can go out onto a balcony and see the whole city in front of you. We had never been up there, it was a great site and we were happy that we went. We then decided to show our City Park and zoo. Our City Park is pretty big and has a nice playground, but our zoo leaves lot to be desired by American standards. While Mike was here we also went back to a village nearby that has a 9^th – 10^th Century site on a hillside. We walked around and looked for pieces of pottery, did not find much. The next day he went home and our second guest came.

Our second guest was Jeremy. He was at our training site with us and consequently a good friend. Unfortunately, I was not felling well the first couple of days he was here. So, he and John went to explore the city by themselves. On Monday, I was feeling better so off we went to Varna, the largest city on the sea and only two hours from us. We had never been to Varna or the Black Sea. It felt great walking along the beach and letting the water splash over my feet. Early on we decided not to go swimming that day, but somehow I still got soaked. All we wanted to do was get a good picture with the wave behind us, oh well. It was fun and we dried before we went home.

Sorry this blog Took SOOOOOOO LONG to get written. I well try to be better and faster at getting them up.

The Start

2005-08-14T10:23:00.000-06:00

So, I finally thought it was time to jump off the bridge and join the Bloggers.

I guess I will start by telling everyone a little about what I am doing. My husband, John, and I are Peace Corps Volunteers, PCVs, in Bulgaria. We have been in country for almost four months now. Wow, time flies when everything is new. We both lived with host families for the first two and half months. It was a great experience. More to come about that later. Now we are living in Razgrad, a town of about 35,000 people. We like it here and are excited for school to start in September. I will be teaching mostly primary students at a general school while John will be teaching secondary students at the language school. We just started an English class for teachers at my school. The first day we had only four students, but it has been growing ever since. Last class we had twelve students. We started with the ABC’s and introductions last week and are moving on to simple verbs. We repeat everything a lot, but they seem to be catching on and learning. It is good to feel like I am finally doing some helpful. I have to start dinner, write more later.