Let Me Know When We Get There...If We Get There

Greetings all,

While I don't know that this post will contain much useful information, as the month of March has arrived in Georgia, I figured that it was time for a new one.

So...what do I know?

I've been having days off from school because the "Mother's Day" and "Women's Day" holidays fall somewhat close to each other, so we got essentially a week off. Yes! It's been a good thing because I actually had a lot of work I needed to do without the distraction of teaching some gremlins at school.

I'm mostly kidding about the gremlins.

I had a very unfortunate situation with my 7th graders last week where I basically broke up with them. Being left alone in the room without my counterpart, they proceeded to act like wild animals (but not the cool honey badger kind). After unsuccessfully attempting to yell at them to sit down and be quiet, eventually something in the classroom (possibly a falling desk or something of that nature) made a loud bang-type noise, silencing everyone. I used the opportunity to tell them in Georgian that I wasn't coming back to their class, which acts worse than 4th graders. Then I promptly stomped out of the classroom, leaving behind a wake of incredulity and sorrowful students.

Despite protests and later being met at the bottom of the stairs as I attempted to walk out of school to convince me they won't do it again, I think I'm done. There are too many things in this place that I put up with, and that class doesn't have to be one of them. So long, 7th graders! It was...real? Annoying? Let's go with that.

On a different note, I will be asking for money to build an English study room (aka English cabinet) at my school as one of my last acts as a PC Georgia Volunteer. The process allows money to go through a PC program and is tax deductible for all donators. Once everything is approved I will send the link your way. I know we're all poor, but you have electricity, right? Yeah.

Also, we are preparing for our Close of Service Conference, which will be held towards the end of the month. And yes, you don't have to tell me that I'm leaving in August, which is 5 months away, so why would we have the conference in March?

The idea is that we need information and then time to prepare for "life after Peace Corps," the next chapter of our lives. The chapter that hopefully includes working out regularly and shopping for a new dress to make ourselves feel better when something bad happens...but I digress. Are we ready for the freak out? I HAVE TO GET A JOB BUT THE ECONOMY IS TERRIBLE AND I AM GOING TO MOVE SOMEWHERE I WILL BE SO POOR I CAN BARELY AFFORD THE RENT AND I WON'T KNOW ANYONE AND THEN I'M GOING TO HAVE TO START ALL OVER BUT NO ONE IS GOING TO UNDERSTAND HALF THE THINGS I TALK ABOUT BECAUSE I'VE BEEN LIVING IN BIZARRO WORLD OH GEEZ OH GEEZ SOMEONE GET THE BROWN BAG I'M HYPERVENTILATING!

Cool. Cool freak out. I'll be ok, I think. Right now I'm trying to think more about the awesome trip I'm taking to NYC to check out some digs and stuff with my friend, and then the tropical paradise I'll be visiting with hometown friends before getting down to the grindstone. Pina colada vacation and massage therapy! HOORAY! Who cares if I'm poor? L'oreal tells me I'm worth it.

Anyway, I'm in a small group of people who volunteered to help at this COS Conference, so I'm doing a lot of research on different things to attempt to be useful to others. It's kind of fun. I always thought it would be really sweet to be a life coach, but then I also thought that someone paying me for that is not going to happen, so I had to let it go.

Something I've thought about over the course of preparing to leave is that Peace Corps life, like "regular life," involves a lot of waiting. We wait for the next holiday, vacation, weekend, boyfriend, phase of life, grant application, marshutka, hot batch of khatchapuri, conference, hot water, electricity, package with hot sauce and Oreos. You know, normal things! Okay, so maybe those last things are mostly things PCVs wait for, but the point is that sometimes waiting can be really frustrating.

Maybe pointing that out seems pointless and obvious. But sometimes just knowing that the waiting is there makes it easier to push past it somehow-do what we need to do to get by.

That's all I've got for now.

Talk to you soon,

-Lauren