Orientation at new job today. I'll be a Server Assistant at the Chop House in downtown Ann Arbor. The job is more or less glorified bus boy, but the shifts are 5pm-10pm, and I will usually pull in $80-$100 a shift. And I can move up to server pretty quickly, which means even more money per shift.

We also found an apartment in downtown Ypsilanti. We will be moving in this week. It's a great location, beautiful space, and really cheap. It's going to be nice to have our own place, and get back in to the flow of things. Transitioning always kind of sucks.

Ok, after being back a while I have a list of things that I definitely notice more after living abroad.

1. Parking Lots - I saw one parking lot in all of Bulgaria, and it was tiny. Every time I see one here I'm always thrown.
2. The space between things. -From houses to grocery store isles, I can't get over how much space there is in between things.
3. The size of cars - I saw maybe 2 pickup trucks in Bulgaria, and even small/midsized cars here seem huge to me right now.
4. Warning signs - I saw a warning sign on a window letting you know that children can fall out of them. Compare that to the doors of death (a.k.a. the people's doors) on the Sofia pubic trams.

and last...
5. The meaninglessness of life - OK, lemme explain. I'm having a hard time putting meaning and value to things here. I think that because in Bulgaria, nothing came easy, everything was more meaningful. It was a huge deal when we bought a blender. A giant accomplishment when we properly communicated to the lady at the post office. And visiting friends seemed so much more urgent and necessary, and it took so much effort, that it was always incredibly meaningful. I think that because things here take so much less effort, they feel a bit cheapened.

I can feel myself starting to slide back into things, and I think overall this is a good thing. I gotta look ahead, gotta stay positive.

The future is food.

With all the changes in my life over the past few weeks you would think I would have something to write about other than cooking.

but.

well.

I'd rather not talk about the other stuff right now.

Tonight I made probably the best pizza of my life. A lavender dough topped with fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, parmesan, tomatoes, garlic-stuff olives, chicken, arugala, and a tomato-pesto sauce. And a salad with arugala, spinach, honeycrisp apples, pecans, strawberries, avocado, and gorgonzola, with a honey-lime vinaigrette.

Good food and drink are about the only things keeping me sane in America. I love having access to this stuff, I just hate how much it costs. I'm probably either going to be working as a cook at whole foods, or serving at a really nice restaurant in Ann Arbor. Either way food is in my future. Hooray.

Closing Time

I would say that I hate goodbyes, but let's be honest, everyone hates goodbyes. I've never met someone who has said "Man, I love saying goodbye." If that guy exists, he is either a liar or an asshole.

That being said, there is no way for me to put into words how difficult these past few days have been. It's been harder to let go here than it was at home. And even though I know it's for the best, I really don't want to go. I'm not ready to go. I have too many people I want to spend the next few years with, too many experience I want to have, too much everything. And while there are so many people and things I am looking forward to seeing and doing, it's hard to focus on that when everything I will miss is still staring me right in the face.

Life will go on. I will readjust. I will be OK. I will feel much better in a week or two.

To everyone who came or wanted to come see us off, I appreciate it more than you can imagine. I needed that closure.

To everyone back home. The one thing keeping me sane is knowing that I will see you soon. I'll be at the Town Bar in Jackson this Thursday, Spring Arbor for the weekend, and in Ann Arbor next week. Liz and I will probably settle in the AA/Ypsi region.

In the prophetic words of Semisonic, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. I'll try to remember that as I drink this last bottle of Rakia.

Will it blend?

I never wanted to be one of those teachers who slams textbooks on desks in front of kids and makes them copy dictations for entire classes, but here we are. I have run out of ways to get these kids to shut up for two seconds and care about the present perfect tense.

When I signed up for Peace Corps I didn't exactly envision myself in a room full of 11th grade boys at an auto mechanic school, listening to their mp3 players and yelling at each other while I was teaching. Hell, I didn't even envision teaching. And I'm not sure how to make them care, when quite frankly, I don't care.

It's not that I don't care about them, I just don't care wither or not they learn English. Honestly, these kids can have a fine, productive, and meaningful life in Bulgaria without it. Most of my students want to be bus drivers, mechanics, ect. which are not things you need English for, and in lots of ways knowing English hinders that "sustainable development" we heard so much about. When someone here can speak English, they usually do one of two things, they leave their town for a big city, or they leave their country all together. It's hard to feel like I'm not encouraging the brain drain. But then again, it's not like these kids are learning anything from me anyway.

But we got a blender.
It's making everything ok.

The other night, because I actually found lettuce, and the heirloom tomatoes are still in season. I made some golden sandwich bread and my own mayonnaise to go along with some creamy cauliflower soup.

Blender

Making Mayo

Soup and Sandwich

I forgot just how much I love sandwiches. This is going to be a regular occurrence from here on out.

What do we always say is most important?

I am continually baffled at what passes for breakfast in the country.

Things I do NOT see Bulgarians have for breakfast

*Toast
*Eggs
*Pancakes
*Cereal
*Granola
*Oatmeal
*Fruit

Things that I DO see Bulgarians have for breakfast.

*Pizza covered in ketchup and mayonnaise
*Cheese wrapped in fried phylo-dough
*A slab of mystery meat on piece of white bread
*Packaged croissant filled with chocolate
*Whatever was left over from dinner
*Cigarettes
*A Beer

I didn't realize just how breakfast conscious I was until now. I guess all those food pyramid programs in elementary school actually paid off.

Revenge

Yesterday, while taking attendance in class, some of the students were laughing at my pronunciation of names such as "Svetsislava" or "Blagoegigiv" ect. I needed to get back at them.

So I decided that because the Bulgarian language has no 'soft G' sound, no 'W' and no "Th" diphthong I promptly wrote the name "Gweneth" on the board and asked them to say it. The result was something along the lines of "GENET." Now it was my turn to laugh.

Dinner

Here's one straight from the man himself. I like it so much I made it twice this week.


Note to people in Bulgaria (or anyone else really):
I can't find lavender, but I've used parsley, dried thyme and dried rosemary. All have worked really well. And I just used a cheese grater for the shredding.

Cred

Just for the record. I wanted to be a community organizer way before it was cool for republicans to make fun of it.

Saturday in the Park

Yesterday Liz and were walking in the park in Botevgrad, talking about our lives in Bulgaria, our lives back at home, working situations, general feelings of uselessness, you know the usual. But when we turned to the topic of our students I came to a hard realization.

The students Liz had last year in Jackson need so much more help than the ones in Botevgrad. And for that matter, my home city needs so much more help than here. When I walk around Botevgrad I don't see an eviction notice every five house, I don't see bums outside liquor stores, I don't see furniture lining the street, (ok, I do see boarded up windows but most of those are former communist buildings that no one wants anymore.)

Liz's students last year had issues like parents in prison, not enough food on the weekends, no beds to sleep on, and being raised more by pit-bulls than their dads. Our students now have ridiculously expensive cell phones, go shopping in the capital on the weekends, and mostly just act like a bunch of spoiled brats.

It's just hard to justify acting like some great humanitarian when I know that I left somewhere that needs more help. And I have tried just looking at this as "working and living overseas" rather than the expectations I had for Peace Corps, but I didn't come here for that.

But then again, at home I was working in a call center. I guess at least this is something.

Gravity

On my walk to school each day I pass a building that has been, and probably will continue to be, perpetually under construction. All summer there has been no one working on this thing. It's just four floors of bricks.

So Friday, as I am walking down the street next to it, a large piece of lumber, maybe a 8 foot long 2x4, flies off the top floor and lands in the middle of the road about 20 feet in front of me. This wouldn't have been so bad if it had not been followed by a giant wooden door. Apparently work has begun, and as we all know, the first rule of construction is to throw large dangerous objects from high places onto the middle of the street.

I wonder how much time I could have gotten off from work if I had been hit. I should have just fallen down and pretended.

Conversations with my counterpart pt. 1

I realized that I really need to start documenting these.

Me: What is the name of the textbook we will be using this year?
Her: There aren't.
Me: Yes, I know. I will go get my own book, but what is the name?
Her: I don't know...Only this.
Me: So there are no books that I can get?
Her: Yes, in the store.
Me: What book can I use?
Her: Tomorrow.

It's been comin down

Today I learned that the weather is controlled not by God, but by Bulgarian school children. They informed the skies that the first day of school is today and asked to please stretch out summer as long as possible. Saturday was sunny and in the mid 90's. Then, Sunday evening, the first school night of the year, the clouds rolled in, the rain started, and the temperature dropped thirty degrees. Summer ended in all senses.

First day of school and I was lucky enough to receive my schedule and find out what classes I will be teaching. Other volunteers have not been so lucky. I will be teaching all in the morning and only earlier than nine once a week. I couldn't have asked for anything more perfect.

I also have something to go on for a secondary project. A teacher at my school took me to a 3 day seminar/training for Junior Achievement which is a program where students create their own company, are given start-up money, provide an actual product or service, create business plans, administration, give themselves salaries, pay taxes, and buy shares in their company. At the end they can enter their product and business plan in national and international competitions. I wasn't too sure about it at first, but honestly, anything that will get these kids thinking about something other than their cellphones and hair can't hurt.


Also, if you are ever in the Balkins, I highly recommend Plovdiv