I'm sure not many people will read this final post on this blog, but I'm writing it anyways. Since I last wrote I have gone home to Houston to see friends and family and just got done with my first week of training in DC. There are two training update blogs on this site that I posted this week fyi. I will be here a couple of more weeks for training and will then head off to Iraq in a couple of weeks. I wanted to write a big long blog wrapping up my PC experience, but I've been insanely busy-my bad. So here are my quick final thoughts about my time in PC:

I'm sad/disappointed I didn't make it the full two years, but the new job was too cool to turn down

I honestly have no problems showering once every 4-5 days. Since I've been home I'm still having a problem getting motivated to shower and change clothes every day

Sleeping on crappy beds for almost two years really messes up your back-I got a massage the day I got home and it almost killed me because of how knotted up I was

I learned that we live WAAAAAY in excess in the States and am sure I will feel that for a long time to come and hopefully live a little more within what I know is fine for me

The people of AZ are amazingly kind, friendly and caring people and I am extremely grateful for their hospitality-they made trip unforgettable

It is scary to not drive for two years then come back and get on a highway-after two weeks I'm still not comfortable

A Butterfinger Blizzard from Dairy Queen is the best thing I've had since I came back (second place tie goes to a filet mignon steak with crab meat on top of it and lupe tortillas)

I have always thought I could move to an island or something and live the basic life for the rest of my life-now I'm almost positive, not saying I'm going to do it...yet

I had a lot of what I'll call smaller successes and no big ones (in my mind), but over all I think I had a positive impact in the PC

The main thing my time in PC did for me was show me that I want to start a career in development work because there are a lot of people/countries out there that need help and it led me to my new job

You can give all the trainings or demonstrations you want, but unless the people you are trying to help/work with honestly want them, they will never work

It's easy to find people who are willing to give grants and people who will accept/want grants, but it takes very special and determined people to work for the grants and/or work hard with the grant once they get it

I loved being a PCV, and it certainly is true that you only get out of it what you put in it-sadly part of the time I didn’t put near enough into it, but live and learn I guess

If you aren’t going to put in more than one hour a week of class and a ton of studying, you are not going to learn Russian very quickly

I actually like more fruits and veggies than I thought (although they are all still lame)

I’m pretty sure Tom and I (Tom is still improving on it) set a new world record for most road miles in old buses in a two year period in the AZ EVER

I am 100% glad and proud that I was a PCV and wouldn't trade those almost two years for anything...

Two things before you go: First, thanks for reading over the past two years-I hope I didn't bore you too much and second, my new blog's address is http://ashsworldlyadventures.blogspot.com/

and will be password protected due to my new job so you have to email me at euroash@gmail.com and I will send you an invite to view my blog. It will be the same thing, just about my next adventures in Iraq and beyond.

Good bye from this blog and a big NUSH OLUN to everyone I had to leave behind in Azerbaijan...Ashley

Ok, so after 2 days of killer driving, we then woke up Wednesday and got to shoot 10 rounds on Beretta and 006 pistols and AK-47 and M-4 rifles. I love shooting guns, so this was a good time. We then headed back near DC for 1.5 days of emergency medical care training-how to deal with all the gross injuries no one likes, especially someone who hates blood as much as I do. Friday we had surveillance training then did afternoon exercises where we drove around between two spots (supposedly our homes and the Embassy) and had to spot people and cars along the way that were trying to ambush us. Once they made us paranoid, we all were sure about so many different people and cars that were not involved that we looked like idiots. We did three laps and they staged an ambush on the last one to show how it could have happened (a four car ambush for those keeping score at home). This week was one of the coolest weeks of training ever. I had a great time and learned a ton. I'm hanging around DC this weekend and then start cultural training Monday morning. I'm still not sure when I'm leaving, but thankfully Tiffany Bryant and her husband are being cool with a bum living in their basement...

This is just a quick update. After a quick and relaxing time in Houston I headed up to DC for the first time ever last week. I had two days of paperwork and stuff. The highlight was getting my Iraq ID and then being able to use it to walk around the Pentagon solo-even though it wasn’t that cool inside, it felt cool.

Then I took my first American train from DC to NYC Saturday morning to meet my family. We went to a Yankees game and sat out in the right field bleachers where all of the fun action is. They have a bunch of cheers and chants the entire section does throughout the game, so it was certainly entertaining. I’m glad I got to see a game there (even though the Yanks lost) before they close down the House That Ruth Built at the end of the season. We then went out to dinner with my cousin and to see Spamalot-the Monty Python musical which was really funny. I also got to see a PC friend from the group before me, Terah, to have some drinks after the show. I took off back to DC Sunday and came out to West Virginia today to start my training. Today we were at a raceway where we learned ways to drive aggressively with controlled breaking, driving backwards around 25-40 mph and whipping the car around to turn, driving from the passenger’s seat and also drifting around a wet circle course with the back tires sliding but keeping your foot on the gas which I killed! Tomorrow we practice crashing through ambushes, driving hummers and getting to see IED demonstrations. How’s that for a Monday and Tuesday?

Pics are from the NYC weekend: the fam in central park, me at Spamalot, john lennon deal, fam at the game, and scoreboard pic is when Jason Giambi gets a hit they put up “Power of the Stache” with his face and a dancing moustache…YANKS RULE!

Ok, so sorry for the long pause between blogs-I've had a lot going on and wanted to get everything in order before I sent this one. So I started looking around at jobs and doing research to figure out my life post-PC in early March. Well it turns out that the second job I applied for, I got an offer and accepted it. It was an EXTREMELY hard decision, because it meant I had to quit the PC about three months early. I had always planned on sticking it out the full two years, but I felt that this opportunity was too big to turn down. I was offered a 366 day contract with the State Department to work at the Embassy in Iraq. I will work in the new Embassy in the International (Green) Zone in Baghdad. My title is Quick Release Fund Program Officer. Here is what that means: the Quick Release Fund (QRF) is a $30-40million fund that is set up for the local Iraqis out in the provinces. There are approximately 30 provincial teams that can apply to this fund for projects under $50,000 (from what I’ve heard so far this could include funding NGOs, building bridges or schools, or funding micro-loans). I will be the point of contact for 10-15 of those regional teams and will help coordinate their requests to the QRF, work with other managing partners to make sure everyone is working together and then monitor and evaluate the projects. I will also be responsible for helping improve the current system they have in place to manage this fund. I will work only in the International Zone-I won’t be required to go out into the provinces and will live in an apartment with one other person. I think this is a tremendous opportunity for me to help the people of Iraq and also to have an amazing experience to start my post-PC career. My timeline has gone like this: got offered the job, then had to do a ton of medical and security clearance stuff, kept doing my PC stuff trying to wrap it up, finally got the official job offer, quit PC, did all of my exit requirements, flew back to Houston, am trying to get adjusted to USA life, getting my life organized/prepared to take off again for another year, then take off for Washington DC next week for two weeks of training and then I’m off to Iraq on the 4th of July. Needless to say, I have had a lot on my mind and have been a tiny bit busy lately. I fully intend on having a blog over there and will post the new web site link later, along with my final thoughts on my time in the PC. I’m sorry it took so long to post this… ashley

Happy Memorial Day! Last weekend a small group of us went hiking and camping up north near Oguz. We camped near a little vacation place along a stream at the base of the mountains. Charlie attempted to take a group of five us on a day hike up to the top of one of the mountains, but we took the wrong ridge and didn’t even come close. We climbed up some pretty steep stuff, so on the way back down we could literally slide on the loose leaves and mud (it poured for an hour each night) which was really fun. It was a really fun weekend minus the rain (we had to buy big tarps to cover us and sleep on) and a ton of ants found our campsite and decided to hang out with us. It was a pretty low key week in Lankaran after that. One of my buddies loaned me ‘Flight of the Conchords’ DVDs, so we watched that all week. Really funny and weird stuff. We have had sunny days with temperatures in the mid-80’s, so it has been great. A group of friends came down this past weekend for my birthday, so that was fun. We made a massive pot of Mac&Cheese from my supply from my parents for dinner Friday and grilled out beef kabobs on my bday. The weekend was filled with a lot of ladder golf and general stupidity. It was a good way to welcome my 32nd year to town! Now I’m just at home relaxing and trying to recover from a couple of late nights. I see a nap in my hammock in my immediate future. In my last news I have a new addiction. Rikki George lent me the complete ‘Invader Zim’ cartoon collection. It was a Nickelodeon cartoon for three years around 2001 and is freakin hilarious. It’s basically just a bunch of yelling and screaming and I can’t stop watching it or talking like the main characters. I’m not sure if I’m going insane from being gone from the US for almost two years now, turning 31, or if its just the next step in my fun life… Pictures are of: the gang cooking hot dogs, me, Charlie and Bethany, Charlie preparing to lead out expedition, Magda and Ina with water balloons, Ben and me cutting up the 16 pounds of meat for kabobs, Rikki George presenting me with my cake she and Bethany made, Tom and me after our cake food fight, and me, Joyce, and Bethany

So in Baku down by the Caspian Sea near downtown they have some amusement rides for kids. Well about a month ago we were driving by in a taxi and saw some sort of skateboard ride. Obviously I flipped out and have been eagerly awaiting my moment of happiness when I finally got to ride it. Well fortunately last week Bethany and I had some spare time in Baku and thrashed away! While it wasn’t quite as cool as the Texas Giant, for 1 buck and being in the Peace Corps, it wasn’t too bad. In other news: We had our first softball weekend of the year in Barda which was tons of fun. An AZ5 got a grant so we got some free hotdogs for everyone for lunch and ended up playing about 10 games in two days. We had great weather and I was really sun burnt afterwards. A few of us stuck around for Cinco de Mayo margaritas, Ben’s famous refried beans, and kabobs. I then spent a couple of days in Baku for some medial stuff, the skater ride, and crashed with my friends who have the indoor pool and sauna-life was good! Then I headed up to Bethany’s village for her birthday. She had two parties thrown for her by her students, so that was fun. The high light was the first party about 20 sixth grade kids threw it and she had to cut a red ribbon to get into the house to start the party while a kid had “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky blasting! I was dying laughing the entire time because the scissors were too dull to cut the ribbon so she had to fake cut it and tear it at the same time. My medical supplies project is 100% dead due to new regulations from the Azeri government on importing medical type supplies that the donor organization cannot meet. I was really disappointed when I found that out. A few of us are going camping this weekend and are going to do a big day hike that is supposed to be beautiful. Hopefully I’ll have some good pics next week. For now, I hope the skateboard ride and bday pics can keep you satisfied…

So we had some friends from Barda (a city in the center of AZ) in town to visit this week, and we all went to a restaurant by the train station for some beers and for them to try some local food. In walks a group of eight backpackers that site down a little ways away from us, but clearly aren't speaking English, so we don't pay them much attention. After about 10 minutes of them sitting there a waiter comes over to ask me if I can translate for them. It turns out they were from the Czech Republic and spoke English. They didn't know an Azeri or Russian and didn't know where they were staying for the night. So I ordered some food for them, then offered to let them all crash on my floor (they had camping gear with them). So Tuesday night I had a slumber party with eight Czech back packers. It was funny, they all walked around in t-shirts and undies and that was it (girls and guys) while we played Uno. Not your typical Tuesday in Lankaran I can assure you.

Other that that, we played kickball at a local orphanage yesterday for a couple of hours, then helped move furniture for a new English resource center an American woman who teaches English at the local university is setting up. I'm off to Barda this weekend for our first softball weekend of the year, so definitely looking forward to that...

So Tom, Tim, and I went to our last ‘big’ wedding in Lankaran two Friday’s ago. It was our friend Fuad’s wedding. He was the first local that we met that spoke English well and has helped us out a ton with finding houses, figuring out life in Lankaran, and a TON of other stuff. He has been a great friend so we were very excited about his wedding. The three of us and three other foreigners we know had a ‘table of honor’ near the door so everyone that came in got to walk by and gawk at us which made for some funny reactions. It was a night of great food, good times, and dancing. To say the entire group of us made complete asses out of ourselves is a huge understatement, but it sure was fun. I also went to Ganja for Ben’s birthday-a quiet night of good food and Skip-Bo. Then I headed to Qazax to play soccer some PCVs and kids. Then off to Bethany’s village to visit. I got to go to four of her classes (5th and 6th graders) where the kids all had prepared questions in English to ask me, sang I’m a Little Tea Pot, Jingle Bells, and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes for me. I brought my wiffle ball stuff and we let about 50 kids take batting practice once school was over. It was definitely a fun day for everyone. I had a pretty low key weekend. The Lankaran gang played ladder golf and 4-square all Saturday afternoon and then had a big queso feast to enjoy the mid 70’s and no clouds weather! I got an email Friday that an organization in Baku has agreed to get the first of eight medical supplies shipments and manage them this year as a test. If that goes well, then they will be responsible for seven more shipments over 4-5 years. This is really good news because it will help a ton of people out in the poorer regions (and I’ve been working on this dang thing for almost a year now). We have our first softball weekend coming up and I think we will try to throw in a little Cinco de Mayo fiesta attitude for good measure. Enjoy the pictures of us being idiots at the wedding!

Sorry for my total lack of blogging lately, life has been really hectic. Here's a catch-up blog...I promise to be better from now on...

Tom's parents came to Azerbaijan again, so we took them on a country tour this time including Baku, Sheki, and Ganja. They had a good time, but I think they officially have had their fill after two visits and two weeks of time here. They took us out to great meals (I haven't eaten that much in a week since before I came here) and we tried to let them sample all of the regional dishes.

After that I basically slept and watched movies for three straight days to recover from all of the traveling.

Last week I had three really good phone conversations with organizations in America and Baku about my medical supplies project. I think I've found an organization to manage the supplies, so if we can find a company to donate a little bit of money to pay for the distribution costs, we may be able to finally do it.

We haven't found a camp site or set a date for the boys camp yet, so we are going to all have to start focusing on that sooner rather than later.

I went to a wedding of a really good friend Friday night with Tom, Tim, a local German guy, Shrilankan guy, and another American lady that teaches English at the local university. We had a 'table of honor', ate a metric ton, and danced for about three straight hours. It was a freaking blast and sadly may be my last wedding in AZ (but hopefully someone else will invite me to one this summer).

I went up to Ganja to celebrate Ben's birthday over the weekend and am now in Bethany's village. I went to four of her English classes this morning which was tons of fun. All of the kids wrote questions to ask me last week so there were prepared for the first American guy they've ever met. We are going to teach them how to play wiffle ball this afternoon.

I'll head back to Lankaran tomorrow I think and then the Lank gang is playing kickball at the local orphanage on Saturday, so that should be a lot of fun.

Ok, that should pretty much catch you all up I think. The weather has been gorgeous, but people in Lankaran are freaking out because we haven't had any rain (it rained 25 out of 30 days in April last year and it has only sprinkled twice so far). Talk to you guys next week...I promise...

Well the spring has finally arrived! This is our second day of April and it only rained for five minutes yesterday and has been sunny the rest of the time. I just keep waiting for the clouds to move in, the rain to start and not stop for the rest of the month. Last year it rained pretty much all day 25 days in April, so I’m enjoying every ounce of sun we are getting. I did some spring cleaning last week which consisted of sweeping my house-pretty intense stuff. Tom and I are going to pile up all of my leaves and have a yard fire in the next week or so, weather permitting. This will be my first ever yard fire, so I’m pretty excited. We have some firecrackers left over from NYE to throw in for added excitement. I also put up netting on four of my windows in attempt to keep the bugs out and let some fresh air come in. The mosquitoes and ants are already out sadly-not looking forward to a summer full of them. I took my first malaria pill of the year last night, so that’s always exciting-sadly no crazy dreams. In the true spirit of ‘spring cleaning’ I decided to shave off the 15 months of hair growth on top of my head because it was just filthy and time for it to be gone. I didn’t have electric clippers so I had to use crappy scissors, then my Mach 3 razor for about an hour, sitting in my bathroom on a stool, freezing my naked butt off. It was worth it-I do love the feel of a freshly shaven head. I think I’ll keep shaving it for a while, just for fun. The locals think this hair is waaaay weirder than my long hair (which they found pretty weird), so I get a ton of looks, stares, and comments. They cut hair short here, but never bic’d completely off. What else? A group of us went to Baku to watch some NCAA hoops games at an American bar. The owner gave us some free beers and appetizers, so that was really cool. Tom’s parents are coming back to AZ to visit (how ever crazy that may sound), so we are going to meet them in Baku this weekend again. That means we should have a batch of good American munchies. We put in requests with Tom’s dad for two Spicy Baconators from Wendy’s, so fingers crossed I’ll be eating a fresh (only 24 hours old) American burger at midnight Friday! Other than that, not much going on. I’m trying to figure out a couple of small projects for Youth Day and Earth Day. I’m heading up to Sheki next week so Magda and I can finish our reports for our business training. We have been asked to set up another one, so we are going to have to see if we can get some money for that and how to make it better. I’m still waiting to hear on my medical supplies project-this waiting is driving me insane. Oh, I’ve started having a lot of “lasts” in AZ. Such as: two weeks ago I slept in my huge and hot PC issued sleeping bag, I’m going to buy my last huge can of cooking butter this week, I’m planning my last trip during my service (Russia in June), we just had our last holiday (Novruz), and things like that. It is kinda a weird feeling, but also a good one, to know that I’ve almost made it (21 full months and counting). The pictures are of the trees in my back yard blooming, the netting I have to put up in all of my windows that kinda keeps bugs out, and what 15 months of hair looks like once it has been completely cut of

Bethany came down to visit over the Novruz Holiday, and instead of lounging around my house all week, we decided we needed a little adventure. Azerbaijan is one of only a few countries that have natural gas running under the ground that causes a phenomenon known only as MUD VOLCANOES!!! (I think this is all correct) I mean how cool does that sound? We thought it sounded cool enough to go try to check them out. Sadly, as much of a push as they have going here for tourism, one of their most unique offerings isn’t documented well and you are at the mercy of the locals to find them. We found out from some friends and an AZ guide book that they have some in a little town on the train route from Lankaran to Baku. So we packed up snacks, warm clothes, and head lamps and took the night train from Lankarn to Elet. I should have known it was going to be a fun trip when the guy at the train ticket office said he would write Baku on our train tickets and we could just tell the guy that manages our sleeping wagon we were getting off in Elet. Well we told him that, he said “I will be asleep and I don’t know what time we will get there.” THANK YOU SIR! Well thankfully a guy in our cabin said he can’t sleep on the train (another missed bad sign) and would wake us up. Well I estimated we would get there around 4:45am-ish so I set my alarm for 4:15 to be safe. I woke up a little before 4 because the non-sleeper was snoring/making really gross sounds that woke and kept me up. He got up and walked around at 4:10 when our train stopped. He didn’t come say anything, so I just stayed in bed a little longer assuming that was not our stop. I got up about 10 minutes later to use the facilities and turns out, yup, we just passed out stop. I got Bethany up and we got off at the next stop 40km away. GREAT start to the day, I know. We hung out at the train station until the sun started coming up and hopped a cab back to our original destination, or so we thought. The taxi driver said he knew where we were MVs were and would drop us right next to the hill we had to climb 2km outside of town. This is despite the fact we told him the MVs were near the train station. We went into a roadside tea house (basically a plywood room in the middle of nowhere) to warm up, drink tea, and get ready to start hiking. Well two guys at the tea house said there were no mud volcanoes on the hill we pointed to, we needed to take a bus 8 km father away from town. So we waited for a random bus they put us on and away we went. The driver stops a few minutes later, says get out, and just points at a hill in the distance and says climb. No go left, up, right, front side, backside or anything, just climb. So we just stated walking. We saw some rocks that looked weird from a distance and had high hopes only to find nothing. Then we saw some orange flags marking something on the other side of a big dip in the side of the hill. When we got to the top of that ridge and heard barking when Bethany points to a pack of 4-5 dogs hauling ass straight at us. She asked if we should be worried, and me, being the dog lover, said “nope”. After they got closer, weren’t slowing down, were getting louder, and looking a lot bigger than I thought, I changed my mind and we started walking away from them quickly without looking at them while I tried to decide how I was going to handle a pack of dogs attacking me and getting Bethany away from it. Not a fun situation to be in I can assure you. Thankfully the dogs all stopped on the ridge and didn’t chase us any farther than that. Needless to say, after that we were a little leery of continuing our climb up, so we kinda walked away from the dogs along the same elevation of the hill. After a while, with no MVs in site, we headed for the road and caught a random mini-bus back to our original town destination. Once we got there we asked a cop at the train station how to find the MVs close to town. He said just go down to the corner, wait for a cab, tell him MVs, and they are only 3-4km up the hill behind the train station. Of course they are! So we waited for a cab, and waited, and waited. Elet is a small town with taxi population one it seemed. We waited an hour until a guy we gave a match to for his cigarette called a cab for us. We that driver didn’t know how to get there, so he asks another guy on the side of the road who says he’s been there and just hops in to join our adventure. After taking one wrong turn and asking directions once, we finally get to the summit and MUD VOLCANOE CITY! They just bubble/gurgle/burp mud that flows down these mud/earth cone shaped hills about 15-20 feet tall. So we laughed, checked them all out, touched the mud, and took pictures for about 20 minutes, then headed down to the main road to hitch hike for buses home around 11:30ish. We did all of that before freaking 11:30 am! Top that off with jam packed bus rides home and when I get home finding out my camera didn’t work and I have no pictures to show anyone and the day was a complete success if I’ve ever seen one!

So Magda and I finally had our business training in Lankaran last week. We got a SPA grant from USAID and PC to hire a trainer from Magdas orgs to come down to Lankaran to train some local entrepreneurs on basic business practices such as marketing, costing, finance, and inventory management. The trainer was really good. He was very engaging and definitely kept everyone’s attention. We used the business center that my organization is supposed to be managing but never uses. Magda and I served tea two times a day and we all ate lunch at a local café. The trainees all got manuals to work with and take home. The training itself was a success which was a good feeling. The BS part of it sadly involves my boss. My boss has always wanted me to do a business training, so I was glad I could finally make his wish come true. His job that he agreed to was to find the entrepreneurs for the training since he is one of the most connected people in town. He kept telling me this would be “no problem”. Well it turns out he put two other people in charge of this and didn’t do anything to help, we didn’t have as many people as I wanted so we had to make a lot of calls the first two days to fill all of the seats, and my boss didn’t come over to the training 2 minutes from our office one freakin time. All of this despite the fact he has already taken all of the credit to the head office in Baku for the training and it makes him look really good. I haven’t seen him yet, but I can’t imagine our conversation will be too happy on my end. It is pretty frustrating to finally get to do something for my host organization after 18 months of them not working with me, just to have my boss be completely uninvolved. Like I said, the training was a success-I just wish it would have been more successful in that part as well. A couple of friends came down over the weekend to hang out and help Magda and I celebrate the completion of our project, so that was fun. The weather has been kinda warm lately-60’s. I actually went shirtless for an hour on Friday when we were playing laddergolf outside. This week will be filled with busy work wrapping up my project, some other PC stuff and errands around town. I’m going to call everyone I know today to try to find someone to come fix my freakin well motor this week-I’m tired of no running water. I guess I should go to my office and see what happens-yippie! Have a great week everybody! Pics are from the training.

I really don’t have much to type about and today was a good mix of a normal day but with some rare events, so I thought I’d give you guys a complete rundown of a “busy winter” Monday for me at site: 8:00-8:40-alarm went off, I laid completely inside of my sleeping bag trying to stay warm and reviewing Russian vocab, the milk lady walked by but I was too cold to get out of my sleeping bag to get some dairy products 8:40-10:20-made typical breakfast of 2 scrambled eggs on fresh bread with spreadable cheese, brushed my teeth, got a nalgene full of purified water, and crammed for my Russian lesson 10:25-11:15-had my Russian lesson at a local school. Funny story of the day: my teacher told me I need to listen/hear Russian more (I was having problems understanding what she was asking me) so we went down the hall and I met a tiny old Russian teacher who teaches 3rd and 4th grade-I am now going to go sit in on her class in the mornings when I can so I can learn Russian with 8 year olds-her exact words were “he doesn’t know Russian very well, the kids don’t know it very well, this will be fun”-I’m sure I’ll have a hilarious report on how little kids are mocking me in class and beating me up for being a teacher’s pet next week 11:30-12:45-went to my office, talked with my co-workers, read a month old Newsweek, talked about my training next week and rubbed my eyes constantly from the smoke from our wood furnace 12:45-2-ate lunch with the Lank gang-1.5 potato quesadillas and 1 goat stomach quesadilla covered in a yogurt-ish sauce for 60 cents. During lunch we debated what all of the floating things in my freshly cleaned nalgene and distilled water were-I mean it was just full of what can only be described as tiny pieces of toilet paper and I literally just used bleach and boiled water to clean it and the water was pure-couldn’t taste it though 2:30-3:30-the father or our secretary died yesterday so we went to his “death tent”-a tent in the road in front of their house where men sit, drink tea, talk a little and listen to preachers talk all day long for 7 days after the death. I just stared at the quilts that make the walls in the structure the entire time basically while going in and out of listening. 3:30-4:30-helped Jane to find a house to move into next month when the new group of PCVs is free of host family living 4:30-6:30-read 6:30-8-worked out in my living room for exercise and to generate free warmth 8-8:45-cooked and ate pasta with ketchup for dinner 9-10-wrote emails and blog and did stupid computer stuff 10-11-read and studied Russian vocab between chapters 11-11:30-internet time posting blog, sending emails, looked for jobs and looked at ESPN 12-1-read until I fall asleep There you have it ladies and gentlemen-that was a busy and productive day in the life of Me these days. It is supposed to start snowing soon, my well is still broken, Tom finally got water working over the weekend so I’m going to have to use his shower tomorrow since I haven’t showered in about 10 days, I am going to buy supplies tomorrow for the business training, Magda will come down this weekend, and that’s about it. Enjoy your last week of February-I know I’ll be happy to get my last cold Feb in AZ over with…

Well I just got back to Lankaran from being in Baku for what seems like an eternity. In reality I was only there about 5 days, but life there is so much more intense than the slow pace of life out in the regions. We got the new Rambo movie in Baku, so I had that treat on the night train back. Good old Sly just keeps killing people even though I think he’s about 129 years old. I went in early last week to help give a training to the new group of PCVs on working with their counterparts at their organizations as well as how to manage small projects while in the Peace Corps. I’ve given a training like this before but it was 2.5 days. I had to shrink it to 1 day to fit a tight schedule, but I think everything went fairly well. Besides that we had our first ABLE (the leadership camp we do for kids) meeting to plan for this summer’s camp and I also had a good first conversation with a new organization in Baku that says (with confidence) that they can help with my medical supplies project. I have another phone meeting with them later this week and I am really hopeful that things work out with the-I haven’t heard back from the first organization we met with so my faith in them isn’t so high right now. I also talked with a few people that work in development/aid work about options and advice for jobs once I finish with the PC. They had a lot of interesting ideas and thoughts, so I now have a lot more to think about in that part of my life. My well motor broke a week ago and my landlord today said it will probably be another couple of weeks before it is fixed. 2008 isn’t turning out to be the year of water. I’ve got to work a ton the next 2 weeks on my business training so I hope my office and manager are cooperative and we can get everything done-it should be interesting. The pictures are from our “High Society” Prom we had in Baku over the weekend. Thanks to Magda for making me a killer ascot! Ben and me, Magda, Ram, Ben, me, Tom, Rikki, Donny and Maria, the Lankaran Gang, and me, Tom and Carlo.

Not much went on this past week. I officially haven’t seen my boss in over 3 weeks, so that’s fun I guess. I’m going to meet with him this week to begin planning the business training Magda and I are doing in early March. I’m heading to Baku Tuesday night to help out with a training for the new group of PCVs and then we are having “PC Prom” Saturday night in Baku so I’ll get to see lots of my friends. Magda is currently working on part of my costume-our theme is “High Society”-which we all are clearly not. This is just basically an excuse for most of the PCVs to come to Baku on the same weekend in the middle of the winter and hang out. So I’ll be in Baku pretty much all week so warmth and cleanliness should abound!!! Oh, the motor on my well burned up earlier this week and Tom’s house still has busted pipes, so the water situation in Lankaran is still not ideal. Oh well. I’m having a few meetings on projects in Baku next week as well-this should be my last medial supplies meeting deciding if one of these two organizations can help out or not. I’m also going to meet with a few people that work for aid/development organizations to talk about ideas for jobs/work after PC, so it should be an interesting week all around. I just read a book called “The Killer Angels” about the Civil War-really good book. I just went and ate dinner with Joyce’s host family for the first time, so that was fun. It’s always cool hanging out with a new Azeri family that is outgoing. Her host mom was really chatty, so we had a good time. Plus I got free warm chicken and their homemade kool-aide/fruit juice stuff-I could drink it all day every day. The only thing that sucks about getting such a good meal is you have to have the required glass of tea after dinner, so all of those delicious tastes are burned out by hot tea. I’m just not destined to like tea-there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s about all I’ve got-short blog week. I should have some funny pictures next week from prom. I’ll leave you with this final thought and corresponding picture. So there is a cat that considers my yard part of her turf. We are cordial to each other, say hi when we pass on the way to the toilet, etc. Last week she got under my house and just made a ton of loud noises all one day. I thought maybe she was hurt or something-I looked under there and she was just sitting there alone not doing anything-who knows. Well today I heard some “different” noises from her, I look out my door and here’s what I see…

I guess everyone needs to find ways to stay warm in the winter…

I would like to start this week off with an Azerbaijan shout out to Cole Pregler and Crew Boyd and their respective parents and grandparents! Two of my best friends, Chris Pregler and Dagen Boyd (and of course their lovely wives Jennifer and Michelle), had their first children over the past week or so and I can’t wait to meet them! Jennifer got things going with popping Cole out a whopping 5 weeks early and Michelle followed up with popping Crew out a couple of weeks early. I got an early morning wake up call Sunday morning with Crew making some funny noises to introduce himself to me half way around the world. Oddly enough, after I finally answered the phone after 3 separate calls from Dagen, I think I made the same noises in my sleep daze. Last week was pretty standard-I’m sounding like a broken record each week I know. My friend Bethany came to visit for the weekend. Tom and I decided not to head to Baku to watch the Super Bowl due to money and me thinking the game wasn’t going to be so good. We also watched Sweeny Todd-freaking weird but good movie. We were trying to organize a joint Georgia and AZ boys camp with PCVs in Georgia this summer but I just got word things on that end aren’t going to work out so no dice sadly. I had a horrible Russian lesson yesterday and it was a total wake up call for me that if I’m going to learn that language at least conversationally while I’m over here I need to really bust my ass. This is going to be a BIG week of review and getting my head on straight. I just got back from Nene’s. Today is the 40th day of her return from Mecca, so she was giving out food and invited me over for some chicken and rice. I’m stuffed and she gave me left overs to take home for tomorrow! I forgot how much I love walking into her kitchen in the winter after work. It is always the perfect temperature of warm with the wood fire, never smoky and smells delicious. This is a 180 from my kitchen that is 40 degrees, a tiny fire from my gas balloon, and the smell of pasta and ketchup. She had a bunch of visitors over to eat and celebrate her trip to Mecca over the past 40 days and showed me my old bedroom. Well she probably has about 50 huge boxes of chocolates stacked up in there. Chocolate is the preferred gift when visiting a person’s house in AZ. She told me she’s going to take them all to the store later this week and sell them to the shop owner and keep the money-which is also perfectly acceptable over here. Re-gifting is also a constant thing. This week’s insight into my life makes me feel ridiculous. So I was skipping work this afternoon because I’m just more productive at home than in a small office with 4 people constantly yelling/talking. Well I got a call from Nene inviting me over to eat at 4, then a call from Jane saying I had a package at the post office. All of a sudden my quiet afternoon at home reading, working on Russian and doing internet stuff (like this blog) wasn’t panning out. I had an extreme sense of being “too busy” all of a sudden. How pathetic is that? I had to go eat, hang with Nene and pick up a package. That’s how slow life in the AZ is right now. Those two simple and normal things made me feel all rushed-that kills me when I think about life in America. I’m reading Martin Luther King, Jr.’s book Strength to Love right now and highly recommend it to all. Since we are in the winter hibernation period of the year, I figured pictures of me and my friends sleeping would be appropriate: me and Ina, Ram in his normal late night position, Magda, Jason & Kat in a normal group weekend setting, me and Ben at an early morning PC training during a tea break, Ben in his normal state any time of day, “fetal” Tom, me and Ben after a softball game taking an afternoon nap at Sarah’s house, Carlo and the only thing that would share a bed with him at the time and finally one of my favorite pictures of Ram after our America Day in Lankaran at one of my old houses…

For all of you bilingual English and Azeri people, that’s right-I’VE FINALLY GOT RUNNING WATER! The fixit guy came today, replaced two parts of pipes and then shaved a piece of wood to jam in the hole of my well motor pipe and the water is a flowing. It’s pretty dirty stuff, so I’ll be running it off and on most of the night to clean it out, then, fingers cross, tomorrow morning I’ll be taking my first shower at my house since December 30, 2007. I can’t freakin wait! I’m seriously giddy right now as I write this. I honestly don’t know what else to write besides that to be honest with you. This past weekend I read two books, worked on trainings for new PC Volunteers I have to give in three weeks, started working on my resume for job hunting, studied a bunch of Russian and pretty much was stationary on my couch either sitting up or sleeping the entire time. It finally warmed up into the high 40’s with sun, so most of the snow/ice is gone. My landlord cleared out 3 small trees that fell due to snow and ice, so my back yard looks a little cleaner. For some reason I have it in my head that it is almost spring, even though there are still 3 days left in January. I’m sure it will freeze again tomorrow and life will go back to the normal coldness I’ve gotten used to. Everyone is pretty much bored, grumpy and we are all passing around a cold it seems. This is the winter malaise of PC life in AZ. I’m actually doing ok with it, although I definitely struggle to get out of my sleeping back several mornings a week. I’m reading a book on President Bush and Iraq right now that is super interesting and really detailed, so that has been a challenge since I’m not big into politics or how our government works (as bad as that is of me). I also just read “Ender’s Game”-a sci-fi book from 1977 that is really good. It’s a quick and easy read, but really cool to think about. I highly recommend it. Magda and I are officially getting our PC grant to hold a 4 day business training in Lankaran in March, so that’s exciting for us, our offices and about 30 local business people. We will be pretty busy planning that over the next 3 weeks or so. Ok, that’s it. Sorry for the short blogs, just nothing going on of any consequence it seems. I’m going to go just stare at the water coming out of my faucet for a few hours and smile!

That’s all I’ve found so far that has cracked or broken completely from the 18 consecutive days of my house being a popsicle. The temps have warmed up and most of the snow and ice have melted away, but now everyone in town has busted stuff and the “workers” aren’t the speediest or most reliable folks to take on the challenge of fixing the town. I’m hoping that if temps stay above freezing I may have running water by next Wednesday-but that’s just blind hoping on my part. Thankfully I had to go to Baku for some meetings and took about 6 showers in 3 days-it was GLORIOUS! Now I’m back on the no shower kick again. That’s really all I have to report this week. I got back from Baku and slept 24 out of my first 48 hours for some reason-I didn’t do much of anything in Baku, so not sure where this sudden coma came from. I should find out in a week about my trainings grant and my meeting with the organization in Baku regarding the medical supplies project went way better than expected. I now have hope that it may actually happen. I’ll be hanging out low key in Lankaran for the next few weeks, which is just fine with me. Jenny and I are planning “PC Prom” for Valentines Day weekend in Baku, so that should be fun. High Society is the theme, which should provide for some interesting outfits seeing as how we don’t shower and wear the same clothes for weeks at a time here. Have a great week everyone! Since nothing has been going on, I don’t have any pictures. So I just decided to steal some of my friend Bethany’s pics of mosques she took in Istanbul for your viewing pleasure…

WARNING-You all may want to hold your breath while reading the following blog. Just for the record, it is both bad luck and bad form to plan your weekly shower for the exact day your water pipes freeze for 9+ days. That’s right, I took a shower on the 30th of December and was planning on the 6th. Well the winter blizzard hit that days, all of Azerbaijan froze-streets, pipes (Tom had a pipe and 2 faucets burst), doors, ice, everything. We got a total of about 1.5 feet of snow, but it has been butt cold every day until yesterday. I think we got into the 40’s with sun and things started to melt, but not my pipes. I’m heading to Baku on the Wednesday night train for meetings and will have a hotel room Thursday, so I’ll be taking a shower as soon as possible when I get there-20 days on stinkitude later. Just for the record, I’ve worn the same clothes all day every day once I realized I wasn’t getting clean any time soon and didn’t want to contaminate any other clothes and also, the 16th day really took a turn for the worse. I had a few friends give me a “smell test” and said I was fine, but I know yesterday I started to emit a mild and moldy stench.

Let’s see, what else is really going on….oh wait, NOTHING! That’s not really true, but the entire country seemed to be shut down last week and everything went in slow motion so as not to fall on the ice. I have my PC grants committee meeting this Friday, Ram and I are meeting with one or two organizations in Baku about our medical supplies project-this could be the make or break week for that so think happy thoughts please, I went to cut Nene’s wood yesterday and found out two 22 year old soldiers will be crashing at her place for three months, so hopefully she’ll be a little less bored. I’ve been working on making a “How To” manual for our boys camps to give future groups of PCVs, and that’s about it. I’ve been reading about two books a week so far over the winter, so I’m glad about that. I watched “No Country For Old Men” the other night. If any of you have seen it, shoot me an email to discuss-I kinda get it, but I don’t. Joyce, my site mate, has been keeping me up to date on the primaries and such-should be an interesting year of politics in America it seems. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad I’ll miss most of it. All Azeris have read Jack London books for some reason, so I finally read a couple and really liked them. Ok, that’s about all I’ve got. I’m going to go buy a bunch of car pine tree air fresheners and rub them all over my body and clothes…

That’s right, it’s freakin cold here. Last Saturday night around 10ish a nice little snow flurry snuck up on us. Well I woke up and it was dumping and continued to dump all day long. Then all of our water pipes froze, and the roads too. Jane and I made a killer snowman smoking a left over roman candle while joyce made a snowpuppy. So now it is Tuesday night and the pipes are still frozen, the major roads are kinda not icy and no snow for 2 days, but still snow everywhere. My house’s temperature has been dramatically fluctuating between a steamy 40-42 degrees since Saturday. Thankfully it does block the snow and wind from getting in, so I have that going for me. I basically make out with my electric heater each night it is so close to me. It actually isn’t that bad. I’m used to this temperature and know exactly which layers and how many of them I need on for certain temperatures. I sleep fully inside of my sleeping bag-head and all. The only real problem is getting out of it in the morning knowing how much colder the outside world is. This weather encourages me to go to my office more because we have wood burning heaters there that they always have rocking by the time I get there, so warmth abounds. I haven’t showered in 8 or 9 days-I literally can’t remember the last day I hosed off, but I’m fairly certain it was last year. I’ve started melting/boiling snow to wash my dishes, boil my noodles and distill for drinking water, so that’s fun. I make sure to avoid the random yellow snow patches that are near my door-getting all bundled up to wander about 40 steps in a foot of snow to pee into a hole isn’t that appealing at 10pm. Other than that, not much to report. A Chinese Circus showed up to town yesterday, so I’m gunna go see what that’s all about tomorrow. It has been a week of writing reports-Magda and I have been writing our grant for the past few days since it is due Wednesday and I have a periodic report for PC due soon as well. We have to fill out these long reports detailing our activities, where they fit in the goals of the PC, who they help, how they help, etc. In spite of the fact that it is not hot right now, I put up a bunch of cool snow skiing pictures on my wall from a few magazines my family sent me. I never thought in my entire life I would say these words but I’m gunna freakin cook cabbage this weekend for the first time in my life. Ina made some for me a few weeks ago that wasn’t that bad with a bunch of seasoning and then either ketchup or this kinda sourcreamish stuff they have here. One parting thought in regards to me getting up at 5am to track the OU Fiesta Bowl game….I should have never gotten out of my sleeping bag….. Pics are of our snow man, my back yard, and my frozen laundry…

So I have been a blog slacker lately and I apologize. I’m going to do a two week update/inclusive blog so you guys will have something to waste time with on your 1st days back at work after your holiday vacations. I went to Barda the weekend before Christmas to hang out with several friends-Jason had an “All Holidays Gathering” at his house and we had a fun weekend. We realized our group of AZ4 PCVs has gotten old and lame when we looked around about 1am and most of the girls were knitting and the rest of us were playing poker while the new group was all up and still rocking away. I like to think we have matured and calmed down, but I think we are just all lazy and know how to pace ourselves. Then I headed to Sheki for actually Christmas at Magda’s. They have a semi-movie theater there with a projector on a white wall with good speakers and for $6 total we got to watch our own Polar Express movie and eat popcorn! It was a ton of funand I really like the movie. We also made good American food, played games and watched all of the typical American Christmas movies-Frosty, Rudolph and Co. The entire country has all of this week off so it has been nice and relaxing. Due to the fairly consistent rain and mid 40’s temps it has become increasingly harder to get out of my insanely warm sleeping bag each morning. The Lankaran Gang had a NYE feast with games and then headed down to the main town square for the city firework show with music and the fountains going. We also stopped by Tom’s old host family at mid-night to say hello, then headed back to my place to set off a bunch of fire crackers. Firecrackers are kinda expensive here. For $10 Tom and I got a carton of blackcats, 4 roman candles, 1 foutain, 6 bees, 10 bottle rockets and maybe 1 or 2 other small things. I was hoping to buy a whole mess of cool stuff for $10 here. There obviously aren’t any rules against lighting them in the city. I’ve heard blackcats basically 24/7 for the past week or so from neighborhood kids. I’ll be glad when this week is over and that should be done hopefully. Today we all got our picture taken with the Azeri version of “Santa” and the “Winter Queen”. Tomorrow we are having a “Lonesome Dove” Mini-series marathon at Tom’s house. I got all of the sitemates to read my book over the past month, so they are all excited to see the movie. Well, we have officially finished our one and only full calendar year in AZ. Only about 9 months left on the countdown. I made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t think/worry about post-PC life until 2008. Well that worked our great until yesterday-now I’m screwed. I’ve been reading a bunch of books and am going to start doing research about possible employment areas over the next couple of months so that once March/April hits I know where I want to focus my job search efforts. I’m also going to start planning my trip to Russia for June pretty soon, so I’m started to get excited thinking about that. I’m getting up at 5am to follow the Sooner game cast for the Fiesta Bowl. I have two boxes of cereal from US already out with my OU t-shirt and stocking cap ready for the game!Pics are of "Happy New Year" sign, me and tom at the park for NYE, fireworks show, us lighting blackcats and the lank gang.

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season! I guess I can probably say I’ll see you guys later this yearand BOOMER FREAKING SOONER!!!!

So I’ve known for a while now that my general English speaking skills have been diminishing since I’ve been over here. I think it comes from not speaking it near as much, trying to learn and speak in new languages, texting in short hand instead of talking on the phone and my extreme lack of American fast food. When I’m in either Azeri or Russian lessons my teachers will always try to explain things by using the technical grammatical terms like “present perfect participle” or something crazy like that. I have to then have them give me an example or two so I can figure out what in the world they are talking about. I’m absolutely clueless when it comes to that stuff it seems. It’s embarrassing… Well I went up to Sheki over the weekend to help Jenny record the grade school English books onto CDs for teachers to use. Me, Bethany, Charlie and Jenny all took turns reading lessons and exercises into a computer all weekend. Bear in mind all three of them are English teachers over here and I’m clearly not, so they are all big on grammar and speaking/teaching correctly. An exercise comes up for me dealing with possessive plurals. I am supposed to read a sentence regarding some dogs and their house and I keep saying what comes out sounding like “the dogses houses”. They all just start dying laughing at me. I can’t figure out what the problem is, so I say it how I think it should be said a couple more times, each time coming out the same. Once they catch their breath they explain to me how I should be saying it, and I still don’t get it. Finally Bethany switched exercises with me and took over that one. I mean what the heck!?!?!? This comes a week after Tom and I were briefly talking about jobs after PC and I completely messed up some sentence regarding that subject and followed it up with “you guys hire retarded people right?” in reference to my current condition. I’m definitely going to have to re-learn the English language and how to communicate in a semi-coherent way before I leave the AZ. In other news, I had my longest in country travel day-I turned an 8-9 hour trip to Sheki into a 20.5 hour trip, it’s cold and rainy down in Lankaran again, my loving parents hooked me up with a new iPod as an early Christmas present-just in time for that miserable trip thankfully, I’m trying to figure out plans to hang out with friends around the Christmas/NYE Holidays, a lot of the new group of Volunteers are starting to have a hard time with winter hitting, Christmas away from family and friends, having been here for 6 months, etc.-kinda weird being totally fine with it this year, and we just figure out we are basically 2/3 the way done with our time here. Kinda hard to believe that there is less than 9 months left in my AZ living. I officially have 16 more days of no stress what so ever about life after PC, then it will hit with a vengeance I’m sure-I promised myself I wouldn’t even think about it until 2008 for sanity’s sake. That’s all I’ve got. I’m going to go read a 3rd grade English grammar book now…

I really don’t have much this week so I’ll keep it short and sweet for you guys. I went to Beylagan to do some work on our boy’s camp for next spring and to help Carlo celebrate his birthday. It was a really fun and low key weekend. Carlo doesn’t’ get many visitors, so he was really excited to have some guests finally. We went to a really cool cemetery outside of town where an old profit is baried that Carlo is helping out a little bit. The owner gave us a free and delicious lamb kabob feast which was really cool Aid funding for AZ has been basically cut in half recently for NGOs and such which is making it harder to do things here. I’m having some major problems finding a local organization that can help me manage all of these medical supplies if we get them, so that is taking up most of my time right now. I’m going to head up north to Sheki for the weekend to help Jenny record English lessons on cds so she can use a small grant to make copies and give out to teachers. We had a Lankaran gang dinner at our newest member’s house last night. Kathy is an English teacher volunteer at the local university and she had us all over for some good grub, so that was nice. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of their first president so a lot of people will be putting flowers on his statue in our big park and people will be pretty sad all day. That’s really all I’ve got. It is cold here, but not super cold yet. I’m living in my sleeping bag most of the time when at home, so I’m basically cocooned 24/7 when at home.

Well it finally happened, my iPod Mini died on Sunday. It had been freezing off and on the past couple of weeks. Each time that happened I had to let the battery wear completely out, then charge it back up and us it until it froze again. This could be 5 songs or 50, I never knew. Finally Sunday when I tried to put a few new Christmas songs on it, the little guy up died. It truly is a tragedy to lose him for several reasons: Music is one of the main things that helps me keep my already limited sanity here Listening to local music blaring on speakers on 8 hour bus rides gets a TINY bit old All of my music is on my external drive and I don’t want to mess with that every time I turn on my laptop and I want to listen to something My solo spontaneous dance parties aren’t as fun without music-this is something we’ve come to love-basically I get stir crazy, crank up my music, start dancing in my home and text someone else in AZ and tell them to join in-this way I’m not a crazy person having a solo dance party, at least one other person I know is dancing with me-ish Let’s be honest, who doesn’t just need to have Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” available at the press of a button… In other news, to take the place of music as a sanity keeper device I have taken up a new hobby. Remember last year when we had sock puppet theater? Well my very kind sister sent me a box of supplies to make a ton of actual sock puppets and also a “Stupid Sock Creatures” creation kit. It has a book with instructions on how to make crazy little creatures/stuffed animals out of socks, two pairs of socks, buttons, thread, needles and filling. I’ve made two so far. I suck at sewing- I think the last thing I sewed was a pillow in 8th grade home ec class with a sewing machine and teacher telling me what to do. my first attempt is a pretty poor looking fellow, but round two’s craftsmanship is top notch! I’m sure you are all laughing and thinking I’ve gone off the deep end with this one…you are probably right… I got up at 5am on Sunday to track the OU/Mizzou game on ESPN’s website. While that is nothing like watching the game, it was still fun to know we were whipping some ass! Thanks to Tye, Darci, Clay, Dagen and Ron for keeping me company during the game. And a big Boomer Sooner to the BCS-what a joke…. I found out last week there is a really really good chance my medical supplies project is going to go through next fall and I’m going to figure out how to manage several hundred thousand dollars worth of medical supplies getting here, being distributed to the right hospitals and making sure they are getting used. If this happens, I’m going to be busy as all get out. Keep you fingers crossed, this could be a really good deal for the small clinics in the villages so I’m hoping it actually happens. We gave a training to some college students today on interview skills. My program manager is coming on Wednesday for his yearly check up. He’s a great guy, so I am always glad I get to spend some one on one time with him. I had a tough Russian lesson today and walked out feeling like an idiot. I’ve got to put a TON more effort into it. This week’s pictures are of the mini-Christmas trees Jane made me, tom and joyce, my two new sock creatures, the mountains after their first snow and Tom and I at a local school on Saturday for an English Fair-the sign has my favorite Azeri saying “Nush Olsun” which means “Bon apatite” basically…

I woke up today and it was 46 degrees in my room-WINTER RULZ!!! In America I never thought 46 was that cold, but man, it sure is cold here for some reason. I wore a freaking stocking cap around today…I can’t explain it. I gave in and went to long underwear under the pants last Thursday which was a bad realization. Thankfully I live as far south as possible so it is warmer here than most places (I have friends that have been in long undies mode for a month already). I don’t have a wood burning mini-fireplace in my room this year-just an electric heater, sleeping bag and a ton of blankets. I have placed my bed (a folded out recliner type chair), couch, coffee table, and voltage regulator for computer and phone charging all in the corner of a room so that I don’t have to get up much and the heater can keep all of the “important” parts of my house as warm as possible. Let’s see, not much to talk about this week so I won’t waste your time. Tom and I just got home from going to a tea house and playing a board game similar to backgammon. I also hit the bazaar today and loaded up on 2 kilos of pasta, 1 kilo of rice, spices, 10 eggs, 2 red peppers, 2 green peppers, 5 garlic, a jar of tomato paste, 2 kilos of potatoes and 1 kilo of onions for about 9 bucks I think. I’m having a very low key week of reading and Russian studying after a long holiday weekend of movie watching. I finished season 3 of Lost-such a frustrating show I almost wanted to punch my computer. They need to end it soon, for all of our sakes. We have grants that you can get from the PC locally for about $3,000 so I’m trying to figure out a good project to use at least one of those on in the spring. We are also trying to plan another boy’s camp similar to the one in August, but in Georgia with the Georgian PCVs and their kids. We want to do a yearly rotational camp between the two countries. That’s about it on my end. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I will be up early in the morning Sunday to hit refresh every 10 seconds during the Big 12 Championship Game…BOOMER SOONER KIDS…. Pics are left over from Thanksgiving in Baku-me, ben and ram, me and tom kissing pumpkin pie off of bethany, tom and charlie and then me with our makeup still on after the show….