Last week was my COS Conference. It was really cool. The first thing we did when we arrived was check into our rooms. I stayed with Naima and Cristine. When we were in our room, Naima and I were looking out the window and a dog ran by and she said, "there goes dookie!" That was our dog friend for the next few days.

The first thing we did as part of the conference was all the M22s stood in a circle and our PTO Margaret read us things from a list and if any of us had done something we took a step in the circle and then a step back out after. One of my contributions was if anyone had gotten a mullet since being here, and I of course stepped in myself!

We spent the remainder of our time talking about how to say goodbye to this place, we received instruction on paperwork, and how to (hopefully) re-enter American society.

I wouldn't want a volunteer who hasn't experienced his or her COS Conference to learn all the secrets about the conference so I will spare you all that I learned.

I am now back in Floresti for my last 50ish days, and I have a ton of work to do. I must close out my SPA project, close my bank accounts, start my goodbyes, and figure out some if not all of my post-PC plans.

I can't believe that in just 3 days it will have been 2 years ago since I came here!

Here's to the future.

Today I went to piata with another volunteer and guess what I found? A pair of boxer briefs. So I bought them. Boring, right? Yeah, unless I add in that on this particular pair of boxer briefs is a hammer and sickle. That's right, CCCP and the communist symbol! They are my new favorite thing I own. Lately I've been trying to figure out what to take back with me to America when I leave here. You know, things that will really remind me of the good old days in Moldova. Well I can for sure mark one thing off my list, former Soviet underwear. Whoop! As another volunteer so eloquently put it, "In Soviet Russia, Underwear wears you!" Help me decide what other souvenirs I need for my journey back...so far I have the following in mind..

Romanian Bible (got it)

Cloth Punga (if you don't know, don't ask)(got it)

Orthodox Church Icon (got it)

A nice bottle of Moldovan wine

CCCP Underwear (got it)

Cool Moldovan jeans (got it)

Picture with me and my host family

Today marks my final 60 days in country. I mean to be honest, 60 days isn't anything to write home about. It just happens to be the amount of days I have left when I wrote this entry. There is a lot left to accomplish in these last 2 months.

First, I have to finish a grant I am currently implementing. My partner and I got some money to replace some windows at an elementary school. The school director seems really happy about it. I went to the bank to do a bank transfer from the grant account to the window company only to find out that I couldn't do that. Instead, I had to withdraw all the money and then just hand it to the window company representative, Andrei. It would've been very stressful, but I've learned to just roll with the punches here.

Next, I have my COS Conference. I won't say I've necessarily been looking forward to it since I came to Moldova, but I've been curious as to what would be like. Well, at any rate, I will find out in about 9 days. I really can't believe we've come this far. I did a countdown calculator on the internet of the day I came to Moldova until a projected day of leaving in April 2010, and it came up with 800 days. Wow! 800 days...how can a person make a difference in 800 days? Oh let me count the ways. I must say though, I think Moldova has changed me more than I could ever change it, and I am very thankful for that.

Last, and the thing that has me the most worried. I need a job or a Law School to accept me! Please! I've sent out all the prayers I can to all the entities of which I feel comfortable praying. I guess, though, at some point I just need to realize that even though I might be broke and jobless in the states that all I can really do is just sit tight until an opportunity comes along. Um, that sounds like bad advice but it's just the way it is going to have to be. In the meantime, I can just keep applying for stuff and see what materializes. Please something, materialize!

Ending transmission

If someone had told me in February of 2008 that I would make it to the end of my service, then I probably would have laughed in that person's face. I'm sorry to those people in whose faces I laughed, because here I am staring down my last 100 days as a Peace Corps volunteer. I have no idea where I'll go after, or what I'll do, but the future is bright. In my last 100 days I will...make corrections to a grant proposal, finish a Peace Corps video, celebrate, new new year, old Christmas, old new year, Easter (of the living), unfortunately not Easter of the dead, and Post, Martisor, Opt Martea, see my host families one last time, say goodbye to MD friends, wait out law schools, and I'm many other things.

Good luck and may the road ahead of you be lit with dreams, and those dreams be your road ahead.

I will give you a run down of all that has happened to me in the last...what is that like 17 months?

I went to the 4th of July party and lost my cell phone

I got a "new" cell phone

I became the new Mentor Coordinator for the ARBD Project

I got off of lock-down

I went back on lock-down

I attended a Democracy seminar

I turned 24

I had my first fight with my partner...he cited "language reasons" as to why I sucked

I got off of lock-down again

I did a team-building day with some volunteers

I had another fight with my partner...again language reasons

I learned the "secret" of my town

I went to Transylvania for Halloween!!!!

I started work with a new organization

I moved out of my village and to the Raion Center of Floresti

I started a business club

I had my first thanksgiving without my family, but with my new Peace Corps family

I made some Moldovan friends!!!!

I saw my first snow on Christmas day!

I had my first Christmas with my Peace Corps friends and prayed by the Christmas tree

I spent new years with my host family in Moldova and celebrated their Russian heritage

I had my first All ARBD-COD big fun family extravaganza

I went to Venice

I celebrated a year in Moldova

I co-taught a lesson on budgeting

I celebrated my 2nd Easter in Moldova!!!

I went home and visited my family in Texas

I helped welcome the M24s to Moldova

I started studying for the LSAT

I started co-leading Gender Workgroup with another awesome volunteer

I submitted my first grant with my partner...we lost but had fun doing it

I led a leadership session at a camp for Moldovan youth with some Flex students

I turned 25

I took the LSAT

I got my score back

I applied to law schools

I led a leadership seminar with some Winrock volunteers in Balti

I started an English club with my site-mate

I had a wonderful thanksgiving with some Peace Corps friends in Cahul

...and now I am on my last leg of my Peace Corps journey.

I am sorry to my dear friends who were once my loyal readers. I know you read my prose and it was decidedly funny yet I know me and I know that I can't stick to anything or really commit to anything...besides living to be 25, finishing college, manhandling this Peace Corps experience...etc, etc, altceva, altceva. I have about 120ish days left in the lovely Republic of Moldova. I have had many trying times, and I have had really awesome amazing times that I wouldn't trade for anything. I have been annoyed with people but I always seemed to have the exact person in my life that I needed, when I needed them. Over the last 2 years, at some points I felt like it was only me and god, and other times I knew and felt that the world was with me. I've eaten a lot of interesting things, and likewise, thrown up a lot of interesting things...yikes. Peace Corps is definitely not for the faint of heart, and even though I still have about 4 months left I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. I started with approximately 800 days and I am almost down to my last 100. I will try and remember to keep up the blog because my brain likes to forget things and I would hate for my wonderful stories to be lost to inescapable "mind melts."

This journal entry, although very late, is dedicated to my Aunt Marie. She died of Leukemia since I've been here. However, before I left to come to the Peace Corps, she gave me a journal to write all my thoughts and stories down over my 2 year experience, and I started keeping a journal but then stopped about the same time I stopped updating this blog. Now she's gone and I realize the importance of that journal...to keep a memory of everything that is important to me, how I see it, because in the blink of an eye what's important to us can be gone but our memories keep things important to us, such as our loved ones, alive.

I was walking around Green Hills and the music flowed into my ears. Tengo La Camisa Negra started playing in lieu of the Romanian music. I couldn’t believe it. Also, I couldn’t tell if people were looking at my like I was crazy because I was singing along or just because I was American. The latter is what usually happens anyway. The reason I was in Chisinau was because I had a migraine a couple of days before. It all started on a beautiful Thursday morning: I was awakening to a brand new day in the Republic of Moldova, and I had a headache, but I thought it was just a sinus headache, I went to the office and my counterpart wasn’t there so I came back home. On my way back, my head started hurting more so I took some Tylenol and then after lunch I took a nap. I woke up like 4 hours later with a pounding headache so I took some more Tylenol and then called the Peace Corps Doctor. He told me some stuff to do and that he would send a car to my village to get me. By that time, I wasn’t even able to move out of my bed and I could barely talk and I felt like I was going to throw up. I finally got to Chisinau around 1:30 am, and the doctor gave me shots for the pain and I’ve been sick ever since! So you know what sucks about trying to keep up with this blog? I’ll tell you, like I really feel like a lot of amazing things happen here to me and when they do I’m no where near a computer to write my thoughts down. Dangit! Like the other day, I saw this place like I had never seen it before and might not ever see it again. I was so depressed for some reason, probably because I had no phone, no computer, and no Internet, and I was bored. So I went for a walk, and it was a weird day because it was cold for some reason, so I put on a jacket, grabbed my iPod and left the house. I went to edge of town and sat on a bench and started playing solitaire, and after losing several times I decided to go back home. On my way back home this storm came out of nowhere and it started raining on me, which would have made things ever worse, but it was crazy because the rain caused me to have one of those life realization moments, like I am really here in Moldova and my little spirits lifted right up. Also, I keep having moments where my perspective on the way I view the world changes, and at present I can’t think of any, but just know…when you talk to me again in the future, I swear I’ll be smarter…lol, well at least sassier. Speaking of sass, I’ve actually become somewhat able to sass in Romanian, so…yeah watch out. One other thought, so I really miss food from the states, for instance Taco Bell, in fact I’ve almost decided that I will own a Taco Bell one day kind in remembrance of the days when I had to do without and the one thing that got me through was thinking about a juicy taco with some fire sauce, anyway, I always see these chickens running around the village, and they look so tasty. I know they are tasty because my teeth ache to bite into one of them, kind of like some sort of antenna that knows about food. So yeah I bet when those chickens get killed and fried, they are gonna be so good to eat.

Don't let the title throw you, I just felt like singing that song, you know the one. I played frisbee with the kids in the village, it was great because they sucked at it, and I was really good. If you know me at all, you know I'm not very good at sports, so it made me feel special. After a while, the kids decided that rolling in the dirt would be more fun, so that ended the frisbee game. I lost weight. Again, if you know me, you know that me losing weight is not a good thing. I think it's just stress related, you know still trying to adjust to the Moldovan lifestyle. I'm becoming a lot better at the language, so good in fact that I want to start learning Russian. Haha, well not that good. Oh good news, I'm all caught up with Lost, The Office, and Scrubs. It's been a long time coming, but the great thing is, "time" is what I have the most of. Well that's all for today. Only like 20 or so more days of lockdown! Then I'm free, sort of.

So, I've been just rolling right along with the summer. As I'm sure you already know, I think my village is a hard place to live in. I've gotten used to showering outside, or afara, and using an outhouse has become quite enjoyable. I've been going to my tutor everyday, so that's always fun, but that only lasts for an hour. I'm so incredibly bored in my village, and it's because I don't know the language very well so I can't really talk to anyone. People yell, Vii in coace, which means come here, but the verb to bake is "a coace" so I keep thinking the people want me to bake something with them. The other day I went fishing with some kids in the village, that was pretty fun, and then we played volleyball. Oh also, I saw a woman breast feeding out in the middle of the street, normal right? Oh yeah so my computer charger is broken, so my mom's sending me a new one so as soon as it comes here my life will be complete again. I have been trying my hardest to keep up with LOST, which is actually gonna get to happen this afternoon, I think. I'm gonna have to watch it on my IPOD but no big deal. Now for the biggest news of all, I have a Moldovan feauxhawk slash mullet. I don't know what else to say in this blog, just keep in mind, I'm trying to figure out a way to reverse the process of the international mail system.

So I’ve been at site for 2 weeks-ish now. I’ve already gotten sick, but I hope it doesn’t last too long. The other day I was rummaging around in our destroyed casa de cultura and I found a bust of former Vladimir Lenin’s head. I want to take it back to the US with me. The first 2 weeks, looking back, seemed to have flown by. It’s funny, I could have sworn I was going to be in the place the rest of my life. Let’s see, I have my new Romanian tutor at the school. She speaks English thank god, and I’ve been going to work everyday and trying my best to comprehend what’s going on. Someone in the village tried to convert me to my own religion, Baptist. 2 drunk guys picked me up and tried to drag me to a bar but I told them to leave me alone. To get to my village, I have to walk for an hour from the highway. I have to walk over this bridge to get home, over the Raut River, and this bridge is none too safe. If it’s ever icy, I’m gone. However, contrast the unsafe bridge with the extremely steep hill I have to walk up and the bridge becomes my best friend. Speaking of best friends, I became friends with a local goat. I finally have a use for that name Harvest Peach. For realsies though, I met some guys in town who are my age. The other day I was with them at the school hanging out, sounds cool right? Also, we have 5 cats are my house, but now 2 of them are pregnant, so we get to have even more kitties running around. That’s all for now. Yeah so only 102 more weeks to go and you get to see Kyle all you want.

I went to my new village last week to check it out. I can’t say for sure that it was a fair realistic preview of my life for the next two years. I went to this village with only 6 weeks of language training and cultural knowledge. Needless to say, the particular weekend was very frightening. You can ask just about any current volunteer and they would probably say they had the same experience. I left from the north bus station in Chisinau, and took a 2 and a half hour bus ride north to the Floresti Raion. I got off in the town of Ghindesti, which I think means “you think.” There I met my partner and he took me the rest of the way to my town of Rosietici. I’m not gonna lie, it was a very beautiful town. If I were a betting man, I’d bet that I had one of the prettiest villages in Moldova. It’s situated right on top of the valley of the Raut River. I posted some pics on facebook, you should check it out. The scary thing about my town is there is no one hardly there my age, few people speak English, none of which I will be working with, and the village is small, about 500 people. The people are nice and so is my new host mom. I think while I was visiting the town though, I started to panic and worry if I had made a huge mistake by coming to the Peace Corps. I think what I thought the Peace Corps would eventually make me do, finally started happening. For the first time in my life, I knew I was going to have to completely rely on myself, and that is seriously a scary thing. When I came back to my training village, I didn’t know if I wanted to come home or not, and I honestly couldn’t think of a good reason why I should come home, especially if I wasn’t at least going to give volunteering a fair chance. I called my friend Amanda and was telling her about what I would be going through and she reminded me just to laugh at everything. If you have to take a shower outside for 2 years and the water is heated only by the sun, just laugh. If you are talking to someone in Romanian and you accidentally tell them not to pack a bitch instead of a knife, which I’ve done, just laugh. I’m gonna be laughing my head off for three months. I ought to know by now that nothing worth having ever comes easy. And, if I ever get scared, and there’s no one to hold my hand, I can just hold my own, I guess it’s better than nothing.

I have had bronchitis for like 2 weeks now, maybe more. I can't even keep track of it anymore. I was on the verge of getting over it, but all of a sudden I had a relapse. UGH, MY LIFE. So I heard that A&M had it's ring day? Kinda early? Well congrats to those who got their ring early, or extremely early, Robin Blunck! I found out my new site in Moldova. It is a small town called Rosietici. It is in the north of Moldova, in the Raion Floresti. It's gonna be out of control. It's really small, approximately 570 people. I will find out this weekend if I have the common American luxuries such as running water and an indoor toilet. I'm not gonna worry though, life is going to be great and I think I'm really going to like my job. I'm gonna be helping out at a small business startup organization. We apparently help with local economic development and things like that, and I think we get to build a park. Yay, so I miss everyone and I'm also getting tired of our dollar losing value, what seems like, daily. FIX IT! NOW! Oh and can someone send me some sour candy?

So, I’m getting better at the language, and I starting to really love it here, but I feel like I’m neglecting people back home. It sucks because when I want to call someone, first I have to make sure that person would even be awake, then I have to try and remember his or her number. My host parents speak English so they usually know what I’m saying, but if I talk fast, slang, and Texan enough, they can’t tell what I’m saying. I wish someone would mail me some sour candy, they don’t sell it here in Moldova, sigh. Next Monday, we find out our future sites, so exciting, so next weekend, we go on our 3 day site visits. I will stay with a new family every night and everyday I will go and check out my new job. After that, I go to Chisinau for 2 days for a sort of debriefing conference. I can’t believe it’s already April, and I’ve already been here for over a month. Time seems to fly by. I learned a little Russian the other day. Our language classes went over the Cyrillic alphabet, just FYI, their H is our N, their B is our V, their C is our S, so on and so forth. I was really sick for like a week and a half, it was terrible. One night I coughed all night long, and finally fell asleep at like 3:30, but now I’m better, hooray. Also, I’ve been able to keep up with Lost, so that has been really awesome. Anyways, I miss everyone back home, so send me stuff, NOW. Addy is on Facebook.

So things are going really well here in Moldova! I don’t think the newness has worn off yet. I feel like I’m getting a pretty good grasp on the language, although I still don’t really know anything. We went to visit one of the Ag volunteers at his village of Valcinet, and the guy seemed to have a pretty good thing going on. He had several different tasks occupying his time. I hope I can be as good of a volunteer that he seems to be. The day after that, we all went to the city of Soroca, which sits on the border on Ukraine. We got a lot of interesting history of the country, as well as a lot of history about Rroma. We are going to find out our future sites pretty soon, and I hope to get placed in a “so to say” business development center, but honestly I won’t care where I get sent to, because I’m ready to see what I’m capable of in the Peace Corps. Yesterday, me and the fellow Porumbeni volunteers met with our mayor and discussed the problems in our community, so that was really cool, and I also got to go with my dad to a neighboring village and make chicken feed. Tonight, I’m going to a birthday party for one of the volunteers and we’re going to watch arrested development. Yay! More later!

It all started saturday night, there I was at an alimentara with some friends and I started coughing...blah. Today I'm at the Peace Corps office, missing class I might add, and I'm getting checked out for a sinus infection. Um anyways, this afternoon we are going to Orhei to withdraw some money for the remainder of our service training. Oh also, I got a telefon mobile, but I don't know the number, but apparently you can txt me for free from the internet. Again, not sure how that works, but I'll get that information. At any rate, when we went to Chisinau yesterday, I saw the central church, the Moldovan Arc de Triumph, the famous statue of Stefan Cel Mare. Last night for dinner I had Coltsunasi, it's like ravioli, and it's so good. So here I am sitting here at the computer waiting for the Medical Officer to come get me and fix me and then send me back. A last thought, I wonder what's going on in the states...?

Last night was very entertaining. It started when I called Andrea to see what she was up to. I went over to her apartment and we just hung out and chatted while she waited for her boyfriend to call. After a while, her host mother (Mama Gazda) made her dinner, and then Rose came over. We were just gonna watch a movie, but instead we decided to go with Andrea’s sister to the local discotec. I walked with Rose back to her house in the dark so she could change. Very scary. As soon as we left the apartment building there was a stray dog in the doorway and we both screamed, lol. Some protector I am. Being in a strange place at night is very difficult but I guess I’ll get used to it. At any rate, we all walk over to the discotec and some people had been out in the parking lot fighting, so we quickly went in and couldn’t find a table so instead we went to an alimentara across the street and met up with some other volunteers. We all just hung out and chatted for a while. I got back to my house at about 12:30. Ok, so maybe that doesn’t sound so entertaining, but when you have class 6 days a week, anything is entertaining. I woke up at about 9, which if you know me at all, I do not wake up early, but over here I do. It’s actually nice waking up early. There’s a whole other part of the day that I didn’t know existed. Morning? I think they call it.

So, I'm obviously not any good at this blog thing because I think I'm supposed to update it more often than every week, but nevertheless, Moldova is great! Spring has begun here and so I'm hoping for some warmer weather. Everyday, I meet with my eight (opt) other fellow Porumbeni Peace Corps (Corpul Pacii) friends for language lessons at school (scoala). Then I come back home for lunch and that good stuff. Today is the Day of Woman. It's a big deal here in Moldova and is a celebration of Women in the country. Tonight for dinner we had barbecue pork. Este a fost foarte bine. It was very good. I've been having a lot of weird dreams lately. One in particular involved my friend Beth. I dreamed that she joined the Peace Corps and she was fluent in Romanian. Needless to say it was a very strange dream. Well that's about all for now. I'll post more later! La Revedere!

I didn't sleep the night before I left for Philadelphia, so when I arrived at orientation I was already falling asleep.  That afternoon I met all the M22's who are going with me to Moldova and they all seem really cool.  My roommate and I were put together because our first names are both Thomas, but neither of us actually go by that.  Jokes on the Peace Corps I guess.  I also met another fellow Aggie who is really cool and he and I decided that we needed to celebrate Muster on April 21st, that excites me to no end to be honest!  The first night, all the volunteers went exploring the town looking for a good pub and we all got to know each other a little better.  Today, was spent doing a lot of group exercises.  It's really comforting to know that everyone is just as nervous as I am about going to Moldova in the sense that none of us really knows what to expect, but at the same time, it's nice that I don't have to explain myself and my intentions of joining the Peace Corps to all the volunteers since we all have pretty much the same reasons.  We all went out for dinner in chinatown in downtown Philly, and I had the best szechuan beef ever.  Then a few of us went and had a few drinks, and we had so much fun.  Yay, for the best last night in the U.S.!