The Last Few Months of 2014 and The Future

Like most bloggers, I'm running a bit behind on my posts. I've been pretty busy since October and it seems to never let up. This is what I've been up to:

1) Halloween
We had our annual Halloween party at my school again. All the teachers and students were asking about it as soon as October started. This year we had a costume contest, slide show, dancing, and students reading the history readings from my students about Halloween during our presentation.

2) All-Vol
This was my last All-Vol conference. Every November all the Peace Corps volunteers in the country gather together to conduct trainings and interviews for next year's committee members. This is also the time that we get together and have a Thanksgiving feast with the U.S. Ambassador.

The Thanksgiving Cooking crew

Anthony and me

Finishing our All-Vol Thanksgiving

All the Volunteers: G13s, G14s, and Response Volunteers

3) Thanksgiving
I celebrated Thanksgiving with a few friends in Tbilisi at another friend's apartment. We made pumpkin pie, a gratin, mulled wine, chicken, hummus and veggies. Yum yum.

4) GRE and graduate school applications
Ugh, not fun especially when you have to take the GRE two days after Thanksgiving. Also applications and personal essays are the worst. I want to earn my masters degree in social work so I'm currently applying to graduate schools. I've narrowed it down to seven different schools and so far have submitted four of the seven applications. Trying to coordinate transcripts, recommendation letters, rough drafts, application fees, final drafts, and communicating to various admissions offices overseas has been a juggling act. Wish me luck and I'll keep you posted about how it turns out.

5) Grant Project
Finally finished!!! I mentioned a few posts back how my counterpart and I were awarded a grant for our school. Well ,we finally finished it. Now all that's left is to submit the paperwork

6) GLOW Camp Preparation
We have our Winter GLOW camp in less than two weeks so I've been busy finalizing our camper and counselor list for camp. Having a camp in the middle of break and making sure that all of our campers and counselors can be present for the whole of camp has proven to be challenging. I'm so glad that my recruitment part of camp is almost over....just gotta get them there. 

7) NESC Regionals
We finished the second level of our competition! Now for the big push in March for our national competition. This is going to be a big task too but fortunately it's after GLOW Camp so I can focus on it afterwards. I've got to coordinate volunteers and plan and manage the resource fair among other things.

6) Christmas
Christmas was much needed after all this stress and cold weather. Ten of us rented an apartment in Tbilisi for a few days to celebrate Christmas. We made/ate tons of amazing food that we normally don't get to enjoy (take out Chinese food, fresh veggies, tacos, tomato soup, mulled wine, hot chocolate etc.). I even got to Skype with my family back home.

7) New Years!
My host family rang in the new year Georgian style. We cooked and prepared food all day for the midnight supra that we would have when the clock struck twelve. At midnight my brother, mom, sister, and I set off fireworks in our front yard and toasted to the new year.

I'm ready to take on 2015! It's going to be a year of change for sure with my sister  and a ton of friends getting married, finishing up my two year service here, returning home and hopefully starting grad school in August. 

Giving Thanks: A Not So Short Sappy Thank You Note

It's officially that time of year in America where we all gather together to share a meal together and reflect on the things that we are thankful for. This might get a little sappy so I'm giving you a heads up now. It was this time last year that I opened my email to find an invitation to come and serve in the Peace Corps for two years in Georgia. I was excited, shocked that it was actually happening, and kind of bewildered at the same time because I didn't know that much about this country. After going through numerous interviews, medical shots, paper work, tearful goodbyes, awkward hellos and language ups and downs, I've realized how much I have to be thankful for.

I'm thankful for the families that have taken me, a stranger who constantly butchers their language and probably causes more cultural faux pas than one can count, into their homes and their families during my service. I thank them for putting up with me at times, for being supportive of the ever busy life of a PCV, and having more patience than Gandhi, the Buddha and Mother Teresa put together as I try to understand the language and culture here. We volunteers sometime joke here at Peace Corps Georgia that it should be called Posh Corps Georgia because we are shown so much kindness, warmth, hospitality, patience, food and wine during our service. Definitely nothing compared to what any of us were expecting when we signed our PC applications so long ago stating that we would serve anywhere under any conditions. That's not to say that there aren't any hardships here, there definitely are, just ask my parents about how many times I've complained how cold it is in my room (currently 42 F by the way) or how many times that I've told them that I miss the luxury of taking a hot shower.

As hard as it can be sometimes, the comforts and what you gain here far out weigh those moments. Students greeting you with hugs after a week long absence from school, your host brother thrilled with himself that he just learned to carve his first jack-o-lantern, or the moment when one of your worst students actually learns  how to use go in the past tense. It's moments like these and many others that make up for your string of bad/uncomfortable/frustrating experiences that one often has in life. No one ever said Peace Corps was easy, but it's the experiences and the relationships that you form with others that make it worth it.

I am also thankful for my family back home and friends both old and new. To my family back home: I miss you tons, more than you will ever know. Your fb messages, skype dates and care packages have helped me get through some of the more discouraging moments of my service. I'm grateful for the times I get to talk to you and even more thankful that you continue to listen to me even when it sometimes seems that all I do is complain about the latest thing that happened to me at school. Your support during these past few months and your curiosity about life here in Georgia always keeps me looking forward. I'm going to miss you all this Thanksgiving and Christmas.

To my PCV friends: I don't have to say much to you because I know that you all feel the same way about me as I feel about you. You all are my rock. We have grown together through this journey so far. Facing strange cultural practices, backwardness of village life, going through the agonizing learning process of trying to pronounce the two different "k" and "t" sounds correctly and then being able to differentiate between the two of them, and leaving our family and friends behind for a world unknown to us. Your support and the fact that you won't judge me but fully know where I'm coming from when I say that a good poop status update text from your friend means it's going to be a good day, means the world to me.

To my friends back home: Quit posting pictures of really good looking food and ballin parties! That's so cruel! But for real, thank you for always having my back even if it is a million miles away. I love that I can skype with you weeks or even months at a time a part and we still pick back up as if I still lived down the street in the hood of Knoxville. You are an amazing group of friends whose late night skype dates and crazy town gossip help me when I get slightly homesick. I know that I've missed some of the bigger moments in your all's lives these past few months: weddings, new jobs, engagements, new relationships, babies...yada yada but I want you know that I've trolled that facebook a time or two to keep up with all of it. I'm there in spirit and in laughter.

So i guess what I'm saying in this long sappy post is that I'm thankful for all the support and happiness that you all bring me. My life is very full, very vibrant, and very rewarding because of it.