20,000 more words about camp

Telling my story through pictures

Fat Camp

I wanna write and tell all the crazy stories here that have happened. But I'm not sure if it is like PEace Corps where you aren't allowed to write the whole truth til after you leave and are not apart of the organizationa anymore. so I will wait till afterwards. For now I will offer a few pictures.

Build me a fire

knocked up, knocked out

While I was in Chicago I went and saw the movie Knocked up with my cousin EMily and a friend of her's. Unfortunately we are all going to have to see the movie again. The girl who sat directly behind us was saddely mistaken into thinking that everyone in the theater cared about her opinion about everything. She was lucky that I'm trying to be polite because she should ahve gotten knockedout. I wanted to find her afterwards and tell her that while her opinion does matter... to somebody. It really doesn't matter at all to me and I want to HEAR the movie!

continuing that thought!

Oh, you know just hanging out at some ancient ruins. Why wouldn't there be an ass load of sheep hanging out in the ruins, I mean it's Kyrgyzstan.
Caitlin and I had to chase a turkey. We might have been having a little too much fun doing it too.

The Chocolate Cake Caitlin bought for us volunteers for us to cope with me being the K-14s first Ad-sep. Didn't realize it was the most expensive one when I picked it out, but totally worth it.
K-Train and I kinda felt left out of the pic so be just looked longingly into each others eyes.
The Peace Corps place to hang out when in Bishkek although they raised their prices ALOT right before I elft so I don't know if it is still a hang out. Prolly....
Me and my kick-ass Russian Tutor Nargiza. She was so nice and took me in and let me watch Russian DVDs at her apartment. I miss her alot!
The penguin doesn't know what to do. Lost in having to pack up my life in Kyrgyzstan I had to resort to putting on the ole penguin outfit to cheer me up

Caitlin and I in At-Bashy! I must say it is considerably prettier than Kant. This posse was not my choice!!!!

Just want that on the record!

After Thought

I didn't really take very many pics in Kyrgyzstan cuz I thought I had 2 years and didn't want to waste my memory. Fortunately Caitlin did take a lot of pics of her visit and here are just a few to give you an idea of the craziness.




Caitlin and I looking at the SI swim suit edition. K-Train had more than one copy so he didn't mind us taking a look. We're wearing the calpacks cuz they are comfortable.




BAAAAA!!!! Caitlin sure was excited about these sheep so we had to get a pic with them.

Cotton Candy! It was Caitlin and I's last food together before I left and our first one when we were reunited. There was the world's worst carnival going on a few blocks from my apartment. This stuff was more expensive than when we got it at Lake City!

Saint Patty's in Kyrgyzstan. Exactly where you wanna spend Saint Pat's. Thank goodness Caitlin brought lots of party favors to get us in the holiday mood.

If I had stayed any longer I would ahve ended up an old babushka. I was aging at warp speed!!!

The yurt in Ala-too square with the girls! If I had known that I would be sleeping there a few days later because Peace Corps gave me no where else to sleep... I... I would have been more shocked than when the day actually came.


Teaching in Jill's class. I don't remember what was going on here but it doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary.

Early I said I was aging at warp speed and here I look like any picture taken of me when I was twelve!!! I love the trolley bus it took FOREVER to get where you were goign but you saved 2 som!!! That is like 5 cents.

K-Train and I in a very typical Kyrgyz wedding photo posture. No smiley involved. Took a very long time for us to get straight faces. love that he is drinking some nashe pevo... translates into our beer.

Jill, Caitlin, and I doing the Remer hand between your legs dance.

"And this is the dance where I put my hands between my legs!"

We rocked that little cafe in At-bashy. So worth everythign that happened afterwards.

Nooryz.. Kyrgyz New Year. Nice outdoor Uzbek cafe. you don't have to wear shoes which I always love. Caitlin and Rick's firend that was visiting both got pooped on by birds. It started rainign and Rick whined the whole time. It was awesome!

From my head to my toes

I beginning to realize that all the jobs I get on the farm are the ones that no one else wants to do at all. A good number of these jobs include poo. Today I had to power wash two tractors and a manure spreader. One of the tractors is a blue New Holland Front Loader. It had been used a lot for scrapping manure out of the manure pits so let’s just say it was pretty dirty. You never would have known it was a New Holland by the color of it.
When power washing a nice combo of cold water and tiny chunks of manure fly back at you. I ended up totally covered in this vulgar paste. I have to laugh at my friend Nick who told me a story one time of how he got a little cow manure splattered near his eye and that was the grossest thing to ever happen to him. I was so covered that when my mom came up and saw me power washing she said, “ Gosh,I didn’t even notice that this tractor was blue. It wasn’t blue earlier was it?” I nod. “hmmmm. And you used to be blue.” She was commenting on how my shirt that had been blue was now totally black. I couldn’t wipe any of it off my face because It was all over my hands and arms so I had no clean space to move it away from my eyes and mouth.
It’s a shitty job but somebody’s gotta do it.

Agitating

In my 23 year history of being a little sister I have gotten very good at agitating people. I have a gift for saying precisely the wrong thing at that moment when someone doesn’t want to hear it. Then I do that whole Midwestern/Canadian apology thing later which just seems to exasperate the person even more.
Lately, though, I have been doing a totally different kind of agitating. I have been agitating manure. I sit in a tractor that is hooked up to a pipe and for hours watch that pipe shoot out the manure back into the pit. You have to do it just so because you want to get the manure all loosened up. You also need to get the manure swirling to help mix it up even more. I sit and watch swirling poo…
Fact:
I.Am.Cool.

Country Girl

I have friends, mostly my friends who grew up in the suburbs, who get irritated that I don’t listen to country. They love it… no…. they LOOOOOOVE country music. That’s right they love it so much it requires 5 extra “O”s. They question if my dad actually is a farmer or if I have ever seen a cow, if I don’t know every line of the newest …. Give me a country star (is Shiana Twain still big?) … Faith Hill (?) song.
I have to confess I have been listening to more country music since I came home. Partly because country music is every other radio station, and partly because when I get the good tractor there is a radio on it and it seems to ONLY get country stations. I don’t know if that is a requirement for a radio in a tractor, to only get country stations, or if this radio just likes country music.
After hearing many…many country songs I understand why it is predominately my suburbanite friends that love country music. They can relate to the music. They too spent their time down by the levy (I sorta think I know what a levy is, but why are so many of them in country songs?), they spent their teen years making out on tractors and dancing in barns.
Country songs also seem to love to sing about how regular they are. If you question that listen to the song Common Man or Regular Guy Like Me. They just like singin’ about there good wife, their great kids, and beer. I do have to give some respect to men that know the difference between Case Red, New Holland Blue, and John Deere Green…. and can find ways to sing about them.
I did find it odd how many country songs defend country music. I heard probably four songs in an hour and half defending how great country music is and why they listen to it. You don’t hear Pop songs having to defend why they are great. Well, except for ‘NSYNC’s Pop…. But I super-duper (with a cherry on top) love that song. How can you not love it with lines like:
Sick and tired of hearing all these people talk about
“what’s the deal with this pop life and when’s it goin’ fade out”
Fantastic!
Country, though, has more than one anthem declaring that it will live on. In all honesty country doesn’t need any of these, because their anthem was written long ago. As Hank Williams Jr said A Country Boy Can Survive.

Birds

I have to be honest I am terrfied of birds. Their beaks, the feathers, the whole flying thing gets kinda creepy. I find Alfred Hitchcock's Birds the second scarriest movie ever, after Return to Oz(don't play those wheelers, a talking chicken, gnome king, dessert of death... that movie is freaky!!!!)
Without thinking I agreed to disk my brother's fields. It means I was driving a tractor that is pulling a devise that turns up the soil. That all sounds fine till you realize that every seagul(extra yucky!) from a 30 mile radius it seems comes flying up hoping to catch some worms that might have gotten turned up.
I'm not sure why I'm extra freakedout by seagulls, but I think it has something to do with my childhood. Probably when my old sister Karen was eating a piece of KFC and a seagull swooped down and tok it right out of her hand!!!! I witnessed this horrific display. So, imagine my terrior as I drive a tractor through a sea of seagulls, breaking up the calm white serfiace just to have a giant waves of white feathers coming at me every inch of the way.
I have had to be looking at tiny little baby birds in their nests latly. When I told my neice that I don't want to because bird feathers freak me out, she so nicely pointed out that baby birds don't have feathers. Right.... true actually.... but that makes them even creepier!!!! little featherless no flight birds are even freakier.... don't ask me why. Just please don't come at me with one!

Why the new blog?

because I needed one.
So the question now becomes: what am I up to?
Well, nothing special to be honest and I kinda like it that way. It has been weird for me lately because I'm normally so concerned that people know I'm alive and care about me and are interested in me... but since I got the boot from Peace Corps I haven't been so worried about that.
In case you didn't know I did get kicked out Peace Corps, no quitting for this girl! Actually (we'll protect his identity and call him Joe New York) Well, Joe New York tried to kick me out before we even got to Kyrgyzstan because he said my sense of humor didn't fit Peace Corps. I talked him into letting me stay and was able to stay and work for 10 months, 10 months longer then anyone thought I would make it since they tried to kick me out in Philly.
I had no where to go when I first got back because I didn't tell anyone I was back right away. I ended up staying in Abe Cross's Parent's basement. It was actually really nice and a good week long adjustment to being back in the country. Now I'm totally use to being back here but at first it freaked me out.
Since then I have gone home and worked on the farm a bunch. Have you ever had to move three years worth of cow crap in a week? I have!
However, that isn't my biggest accomplishment since I got back, oh no it is talking my cousin Lena into giving her mom a peach tree for mothers' day. I don't know why I did it? I just really wanted to be apart of buying a peach tree.
My mom liked to accuse me of never wanting to leave home. That couldn't be further from the truth. I did get her off my back though by finding a job out there in the real world.
I'm going to be a photographer at Fat Camp!
Not just any fat camp, Camp Shane, The Fat camp! I'm super excited. I'm sure once I get there I'll be asking my facovirte question, How did I get here? Until then I'm going to keep rockin' it here on the farm.

Women's Day

International Women’s Day. It isn’t a big holiday in America because we have mother’s day. However, in Kyrgyzstan it is a BIG holiday. And let’s just say as a woman I kicked it! It was also my counterparts birthday, and she is awesome so we had to have a big party.The 7th was when the teachers rocked out. There are no male teachers at my school so the women through their own party. First, at the school we had a concert and my students gave me cards, candy, flowers, and a little angel figurine(very me :P). After the concert the teachers thought all the students were gone and were joking around saying, “We got wine and there are no students or men are coming along! So, We are going to drink and PARTY and be loud and stay out all night!!!”(we stayed out till 4 when the pay checks came in) What they didn’t realize was to male students were still in the room taking care of audio equiptment and they were mortified.The Physical education teacher at my school also gave me a Russian Language book for beginners. She kept putting a lot of emphasis on the Beginners part. I kept nodding acknowledging that I know I don’t speak very good Russian.At the party in the café we ate so much. I was bit over joined at the abundance of cheese, which I can’t afford. I kept whispering to myself, oh, sweet, sweet calcium. Also, when I took a little bread, with a piece of kalbasa, and some cheese… having a psuedo-sandwich and getting protien and calcium at the same time. It was too good to be true.We sat around singing old Russian songs. I’m currently trying to learn two. We danced to Russian techno and there were only 3 songs on the play so we heard the songs 4 or 5 times a piece. There were some soldiers who danced with us for a while. They ended up buying us women a bottle of champagne to celebrate with. In my mind you sit around and enjoy champagne but we had to take it as shots. They also made me sing a song in English. I went with I just called to say I love you, by Stevie Wonder. It’s easy and for some reason they all know it. They also made me stand up and give a toast so that teachers who didn’t know me could get to know me a little bit. My counterpart told me I could give it in English and she could translate if need be. I didn’t want everyone thinking I couldn’t speak any Russian and also didn’t want to give a bad toast, so I might… MIGHT have spoke a little long. For some reason even though I know very little Russian I know a lot of toasts and congradulatory phrases. So, I just kept talking. Fortunately I proved that, yes I do in fact know some Russian and it is alright to talk to me in Russian, versus chopped up English.Later that night Svetlana(my counterpart) took me to a concert. It was mostly in Russian but a little bit was in Kyrgyz and Ukrainian. When the Ukrainian part came up I was like dang I don’t understand anything. Fortunately, Svetlana calmed my nerves by leaning over and telling me that it was in Ukrainian.The next day actually on the eigth we had a party at Svetlana’s it was women’s day/her birthday party. She invited another volunteer, Rick, from a near by village to rock out with us too. There was sooooooo much food. All Rick and I could keep saying was I’m so full, I’m so happy, mmmm, ahhh I guess I’ll have one more plate full. I have already written to Max after Man’s day about the dish she made for us(he is the only one that regularly asks about the food) it was Scalloped potatoes with cheese and pork. On Man’s Day I ate about half the tray this time with Rick there to compete I got a little less. But she also made us Bish Bermak, because I ahd told her that I didn’t know what it is. It is a Tradtional Kyrgyz meal that has noodles and normally Mutton(she made it with beef). It’s literal translation is five fingers. Your suppose to eat it with your hands, but since we were in a Russian home we dished it out with a spatula and ate it with forks. We also had a cake that had like Grahmam Cracker layers, it was amazing!Mixed in with the eating was a good bit of Kareoke and dancing. On Man’s day I had to sing all the songs on the English Kareoke CD by myself. It was nice because this time I could pawn off some of the songs onto Rick. I did an amazing back up to his Losing My Religion and Hotel California. However, when I tried to help with My Father’s Eyes Rick yelled(put southern drawl on it) “Carol be QUIET! I’m singing like ERIC CLAPTON RIGHT NOW!!!!” I had to reliquish myself to back up dancer. When my turn came to sing like Whitney Houston and belt out some I Will Always Love You, Rick and Sasha(Svetlana’s husband) did not settle for being backup singers. Even though I had a microphone I could not overpower them. I got my turn later when I made them sit through Hello, Dolly and they didn’t know all any of the words. Sasha and Rick were readily best friends despite the fact that Rick, though he speaks it perfectly, he only speaks Kyrgyz. Sasha being Siberian, only speaks Russian. Although they all did force Rick to sing a couple songs on the Russian CD despite, him not knowing any of the songs.Overall it was a great time. Can’t wait for women’s day next year.Spraz-nikam.

All Up in the Air!

So sorry that I haven’t written here for a while. Life has been a little crazy. This entry will probably be a little boring but it is to catch people up on my life.I recently switched sites. New school and an apartment to myself. The apartment came furnished with only a couch so it is my little oasis in the mass of my junk that I have no place to put anywhere. The apartment also came with; hold your breath, a hot shower and a FLUSH TOILET!!! This was very exciting for me, and since I have no real furniture to speak of the first few days I spent hanging out in the bathroom admiring my flush toilet. I ended up putting up a map of the world I have in Russian so I could feel like I was learning something hanging out in there all day.My new school is awesome. A much better fit for me. I teach 4th and 1st form, although I haven’t had 1st form because they have been on vacation all week. I’m running lots of different clubs: Debate Club, Science Club, Conversation Club, ACCELS club, and I’m going to be starting some sports clubs soon. I also teach adults English twice a week at the American Corner in the Library. It is strange starting at a new school because I have to start the process of introducing myself with everyone all over again. The other day I had to use the bathroom before my classes but an older lady, I don’t know if she is a teacher or not beat me to it. So, I patiently waited as she turned off the light to the bathroom I said Hyet, Hyet, ne nada (no,no, no need) She gave me a little bit of a dirty look and didn’t say anything. She then pointed to a door down the hallway. I looked at it, and then looked back at her. She then took me to the other door and told me this was the student’s bathroom. I said fine, not understanding at first that she thought I was a student and then she left. I looked in at the squatter holes that are for the students and back down the hall at the teacher’s bathroom with a flush toilet. The older lady had turned down another hallway but I could hear her talking so I knew she was close by. I decided to make a run for it; the only problem is I was wearing my rain pants still. I was wearing because it is always muddy and dirty yet everyone talks about if I have mud on the bottom of my pants so I was trying to keep them clean. I made a run pasted her only 5 feet from her swishing as loudly as possible. I locked the door and took my time hoping she wouldn’t be outside the door when I opened it. I must have stalled long enough because she was gone. It’s weird I have always been considered much older than I actually am and now I’m an adult and need to be viewed as one I get accused of being a student. There is a very good sports complex near my school, so I wanted to take some classes there. I found the perfect one for me, belly dancing. I have already gone to two classes. I’ve always been bitter that I have never gotten to take a dance class and there might be good reasons for me never having taken one before. I’m terrible. I have no expectations though and just view it as a chance to get out in the community and meet some more people. It’s also one of the perks of being a foreigner. In America I would have to acknowledge that I know I look ridiculous, here I’m just the foreigner that doesn’t know any better. Love it! The first lesson was tough because I was in the very back of the room and couldn’t see the instructor and it was like a bad game of telephone where everyone is just watching the person in front of them and it becomes slowly worse down the line. Even though I couldn’t see the instructor in the mirror in the front of the room I’m a good 6 inches taller than anyone else in the room and could easily watch myself. I have lessons three nights a week so maybe by the end of my service I’ll be able to do one maybe even two moves correctly. I’m really focusing on the hand movement parts more then the booty shaking and the actual belly dancing part.Before moving to my new site I spent a week down in Naryn which is considered the “Authentic Kyrgyz” part of Kyrgyzstan. It was very interesting for me, because to be honest I don’t know much about actual Kyrgyz people. Although, now at my new school I do have a few Kyrgyz students and my Director/neighbor is Kyrgyz. I got to spend sometime with my friend Remer’s family which was interesting for me because it was one of my first interactions with a Kyrgyz family. Remer’s host father told me I speak good Russian. When I said that wasn’t true he corrected me with, “I said GOOD not Excellent.” Ahhhh. Thanks I stand corrected. That has become one way I have figured out if guys are flirting with me when I am talking to boys my age, they will tell me I speak good Russian. That being a blatant lie that we both know is a lie I now know where we stand.Overall, everything is going well and it is good for me to have a new site. I like it a lot and hope things will be going better now. Sorry for not updating sooner for those of you who have complained and please email me telling me how you are doing.

Helping a Kid out

Today on one of my 12 year old students I could smell cigarettes all over him. He tried to deny that he had smoked cigarettes and then caved and admited... maybe he had one. His older sister came in my room later and I told her, she granted me permission to tell their Babushka who lives on my street. But before I told her I gave him a lecture on the dangers of smoking. I also had a pamphlet on smoking in my room and showed him a picture. None of this seemed to be phasing him, he seemed more impressed that I could tell he had smoked. As, if I knew some kind of vodoo or something. So, I took him aside and gave him a piece of advice: If your going to smoke don't wear a wool sweater it traps in the smell. Lighter fabrics breath more, therefore not trapping in the smells. Lighter fabrics ruin my magical power for knowing if you ahve smoked or not. I feel in my own small way I'm making a difference in the world.

New Year's Day

have gotten several comments asking me what my everyday life is like. The things I don’t think you guys understand is I do write about my everyday life, my everyday life is just that random. But here let me try:There is one bus that goes back and forth from my village. It never leaves on time, except the very last one from the city I need to catch it from at five. If I show up even a minute late I have to walk 20 minutes to the edge of the city where I can hitchhike back to my village. The other day coming back from New Year’s celebrations out on the other side of country I came back at 5:05. I tried to get back in time. I left early. I didn’t eat. I was focused. Alas, I was 5 minutes too late. I walked to the outside of town, if it now VERY cold here. By the time I got to the outside of the city I had lost feeling in my feet, face, and hands. Then I had to wait for about an hour, for someone to stop for me. Finally I did get picked up, by a milk truck. The milk truck was able to drop me off within a mile of my village. As I walked into it I was confronted by a new trend, sleds being pulled by cars or motorcycles. Some of my students have asked me to hope on board but first I consulted my P.C. Handbook and no where in there does it say we can’t get pulled behind a car on a sled. Granted if I do it and get hurt there will then be a rule against it and future generations of PCVs will have to ask themselves who was stupid enough to do that. I’ll probably have to wear my bike helmet for it.I rang in the New Year to Smack That. A delightful little song that is played none stop here. We didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy the song because we were in a state of panic over the fireworks display. No, this was not a display put on by the city it was all the fireworks that the locals were setting off in the crowd of people. Not just setting off in the crowd of people but it to power lines. My mom wouldn’t even let me fly a kite anywhere near the power lines much less shoot off FIREworks into them. Because every other volunteer here has a computer I was able to watch two bootleg copies of recent releases. The first is Borat. It is a story about Kazakh journalist traveling through America. Very funny, but Sacha Baron Cohen should have come out here first because he could make Borat even funny if he studied this area. It’s kinda weird because he makes Almaty sound trashy and Almaty is awesome, very expensive, and very westernized. There are a lot of gypsies who are camped out near where I live so I do appreciate any references to gypsies. Also, in season two of the Ali G show his beat the Gypsy dance kinda looks like how some guys here dance so I have incorporated it into my dance moves. Also, I saw The Departed. Good. No Great movie. Even on crappy bootleg copy it was really great so I can only imagine in America on in the theater. Although the boys did get to see how worked up I can get in a suspenseful movie. Oh, I read A LOT. Do you feel like you understand my everyday life now? No? I’ll try better next time to explain the complete randomness.

Working on Christmas

In Peace Corps we are not given Christmas Day off. So, I still ahd to teach class. I was able to have some of the boy volunteers come and stay with me and give lectures to my kids and do activities to explain American Holidays.

One of the boys, Gino, was born and spent his childhood in Russia so he speaks fluent Russian. The other boys Brandon, Zach, and Justin don't speak any Russian. They learned Kygyz here in country. So, what we did is those boys talked in English and then Gino would translate into Russian. Then we did some activities with the kids. The lectures were, um... interesting to say the least.
Zach talked about Christmas in all of his lectures. He seems like a pretty good teacher. He was engaging and asking them questions and getting them to read what he wrote on the board. Even taught them what CAROL means. Great teasher I give him a 5(A in America).

Justin, well he is not a teacher. He is a business volunteer. It was a scandal and a half that he wrote with his left hand. For me it felt like he was trying to diagram how to get the GDP up for Halloween. His talk to my 5a class about Ground Hog's day made us look less than intelligent. Gino couldn't think of the word for Ground Hog so he said Large Rodent. Hearing about a day where a large rodent comes out and sees it's shadow was weird. My students looked perplexed, I could understand where they are coming from. It does sound like a pretty stupid idea.

The best talkes, for those of us who understand English at least, were my friend Brandon's. They were passionate and heartfelt. His first talk with my 6a was about Independence Day. He came out of the gate swinging, "We all know one thing: America is the GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!" Gino looked at him, Brandon gave him the eyebrow raise to translate it. He did, with a little change. He translated it to, "America has many holidays." Myself and Gino were the only ones who knew what had just happened so Gino had to suppress and giggle while I bit my lip and started making squeeking noises as I tried not to laugh. Brandon then kept going between my world map; that is situationed under some bubble letters that say, "Life is calling, how far will you go?", and the front of the room. He went on about the vil empire of England and the Great nation that is America. He started writing on the board about 1776. My 6a is alreay generally confussed class, so I instructed them to take out their notebooks and copy down what he was writing on the board. He started ranting and raving about tea and the Bostonians dressed up as Native Americans. The thing about his rants is:
a. He was so passionate and loud
b. Gino was quite and none emotional while translating
c. Gino rarely actually translate what he said
Brandon also did a lecture for my 4a class about St. Patricks day. The day where we all become Irish, we get pinched if we don't wear green, the ADULTS drink green beer, and the city of Chicago dyes its river green. My students I was sitting by kept asking why to all these things and I wanted to just say, "It's an excuse to party." I instead kept telling them it is a tradition and aren't traditions fun, and asking them what they think about traditions. It really does sound stupid to the outside world.
The best of his talks and probably the one that actually had the most impact on my students was his talk on Independence day with my 5a. He started out this time with what is the most important thing in the world? My students answered: love, life, beauty... Brandon picked up the numb of chalk and wrote, "FREEDOM". He then turned around threw his hands into the air and yelled, "FREEDOM!!!!" My students giggled but didn't know what to do. Gino translated it into Russian very monotone. I then instructed my students in Russian to repeat what Brandon had just said. So, they all said freedom. I then again instructed them to repeat, and this time I participated myself all of us throwing our hands into the air and yelling "FREEDOM!!!" in unison. Then we started repeating it and I told them to be passionate. FREEDOM!!! The boys I was sitting next to pulled out their notebooks and wrote down freedom and the russian translation, if they didn't have a notebook they tore out a piece out of the other kids. They then kept practicing the rest of class and asking me if they were pronouncing it correctly. After the freedom chants were done Brandon said, "All men die, but few truely live." Gino actually translated it. He explained how the British treated us like dirt and how we had to break free from these oppressors of FREEDOM.
At the end of my 5a all the girls asked for "Very Beuatiful Zach" to autograph their notebooks. All the rest of the kids joined in and got autographs too from all the boys. These guys were super stars to my kids. Overall, it was great. I had a great time. The guys had a great time. My students got to learn about American Culture. But for me part of why I wanted those guys to come and talk to my kids was because I wanted them to see an example of great guys. They don't always get that where we live. And judging by my students treating them like rock stars I think they did just exactly what I wanted them to.

Sledding and Ice Skating!

The kids in my village say they like sledding, yet we live in a FIELD!!! No where for kilometers and kilometers is there so much as an incline. I live in pretty much the flattest part of on of the most mountainous countries. When they say they like sledding they like having someone, normally me if I'm around, pull them on a sled. They also like ice skating. This includes holding onto the back of someone's coat while they walk along and they slide on the ice. Yesterday I had a line of 8 children latched on to my coat and they thought it was hillarous as I ran faster and faster on the ice. They thought I was playing but in reality I was just trying to shake 'em loose. Didn't work and my neighbors came out to watch the specticle and kept telling me they were impressed by how strong I was. "My, you'd let 8 children in a line be pulled be hind you that is impressive." I was too embarressed to admit that I was only pulling so many children cuz I wasn't strong enough to get away from them. So I smiled flexed my arm and kissed my bicep and went into my house to do some push-ups.

Dance for it!

Yesterday I went to an English speaking Church in the capital city. It had people from all over the world. India, China, New Zeeland, America. The pastor is Scottish. During the service he had us get up and make a conga line to celebrate the good news. :) It was pretty boss.I was told by another volunteer that maybe if there had been conga lines at his church growning up maybe he would have kept going to church. I do have to admit it was pretty fun.

Now we're talking about what I know

“Sit down; you’re not pulling anything that I haven’t already thought of!” I say this in English to one of my students who can’t understand one word that I just said. He gives me a smirk then takes a long leisurely stretch and makes as much nose as he can in the process. I smirk back thinking, ‘Honey, came up with that one in Mrs. Ladd’s 1st grade class!’ He slowly walks back to is chair and does as I suspected he would pulls the chair out so it scraps along the floor then turns it around so he is sitting backwards in the chair. This time I think, ‘Nothing that Mrs. French didn’t have to put up with in Excel in English in 5th grade.’ I’m not impressed. The things he just did are suppose to be a warm up to really agitating the teacher, to making sure not even the most studious of students can pay attention, to blatantly not doing the work. However, this is the best he has to offer. He sits down I stare at him and he turns the chair back around. Later he will hit one of his fellow classmates with a spit ball but that is easily ignored by the rest of the class. The next day when I ask where his homework his, he shrugs his shoulders and says he hasn’t done it. See, I’m not, not impressed, because he has disrupted class but for the lack of creativity the lack of flair. See I am an expert on how to really gnaw at a teacher’s goat, if you will. Let me give you a few examples:When I didn’t do homework I didn’t just say I didn’t do it. No, too simple, too expected from the talkative student in the front. (the front? Yes, back of the room disturbances are expected, being right in the front give an air that you might eventually crack down and study and forces all other students into disruptive behavior) No, I would hand write a paper in the class before, annoying that teacher, listing out all the reasons I did not bother to do the homework. It normally took as much if not more effort to do this than if I had just done the assignment. Then there were exams, particularly math exams. Where when knowing that I knew nothing for the exam I would proceed to write ten in for every answer. It was right once, but I only got partial credit because I didn’t show my work. Another time I wrote a very nice note about how I hate advanced algebra and it wasn’t going to help in life. Mrs. Erspamer wrote a big zero on the top with a smiley face in it. She liked my note Now a great way to disrupt the class and still get a good grade is to have actually studied and not just that but looked up background information. This is effective for actively interrupting the teacher with little nuggets you have found out, stopping other students from talking by correcting how what they think is right is actually wrong, and it helps for writing your tongue and cheek research paper. I’m still proud of my paper “Our Enemy to the North” in which I proved that beyond a doubt we should attack Canada. My presentation on it was top notch as I got sophomores to become passionate on the subject and kept them asking me questions about exactly how can we extract all their natural resources. That leads me to another good one for English class. Volunteer to read your paper you wrote. You have to make sure you have not actually read the book of which your paper is on, but be extremely critical about the author’s scholarship of this so-called “classic”. Yeah, I’m sure Dickens was great and all but I don’t need stories about crazy ladies in wedding dresses. If this is too much work learning show tunes and singing them on key trigger words is affective. Bringing in Varsity Blues and slipping it into the VCR while the teacher is gone for her cigarette break also works. When the teacher has you sit outside the classroom start to play wipe out on the lockers. Asking the weird lonely kid with the magic cards to please explain how awesome they are, and if that has not taken enough time move on to the pure awesomeness of Dungeons and Dragons. These are a bit of my tamer exploits into my past of being a disruptive student because I’m sure by now my mom is laying on the keyboard going where did I go wrong? However, then I get to point out I got into her alma mater, made Dean’s list, and graduated with Honors. Also, that all these exploits happened 4-16 years ago. Although, I could disrupt a college theatre class like no other for the simple fact that I can mimic mannerisms fairly accurately and Theatre Profs got some rockin’ mannerisms. Please, don’t think I say all this to brag. Not true. I just want to back up the fact that I am an expert in this field. There are lots of things I am not an expert on Napoleonic wars, Heisman Trophy Winners, Vegetarianism. But leading public school teachers and students alike, completely off topic. Oh, my friends I am an expert. I also know that from my time in excels and honors classes smart kids are the best ones at disrupting classes. Their creative little brains when turned towards the bad can be very powerful. And I could lead those kids in the disruptions. I’m not saying that makes me really smart, but does mean I could control the really smart kids. That is why when students show some caliber of excellence in the field of disrupting classes my inside urges want to nurture it but my roll as teacher has led me to trying to crush it. Examples of some of my better(disrupting) students:There is a second form boy who is shockingly disruptive with little effort. He touches everyone. All the time. Not fighting or hitting or being mean in any way. He just keeps touching them, the other children. I keep telling him to stop but it doesn’t happen and I can’t take him to the director for I would feel like an idiot explaining in my broken Russian that he touches the other kids, for no apparent reason. This is brilliant for it is a difficult issue to get under control for its lack of chaos. Then I have a third form boy that simply won’t sit down. When he doesn’t do his work he has this adorable and infectious giggle that says look how cute I am not doing my work. When he does do it, and I have written a 5 on his paper, he does a killer Michael Jackson impression. This stops all the kids and myself as we watch him spin, sing, dance, and moon walk. That is talent when even the teacher has to watch and can’t find the muster to say sit down. With my fifth form classes they have a lot of issues with cheating on exams (really quizzes, but we call them exams). On one exam I had the Russian word for flower as a bonus question and they had to write it in English. Only one girl got it but there were a bunch of boys with Violet written down. I couldn’t figure out where this came from but all the boys do sit together so I knew something was up. Then in the next class a boy Roma was talking to me and he pointed to alphabet chart next to “V” and said, “Violet (in Russian now) that means flower.” I looked at the chart looked back at him and smiled. Ah, that is where they got it. I called the boys out and was like you boys got caught coping off of this board and it isn’t even right the world for flower is flower. One boy Anatoli stands up, outraged that I could accuse him of cheating off of that board, “No! I copied off of Roma!” I suppressed my smile and told him to sit down because that was worse, I wasn’t actually mad about the coping off the board since it was my fault for not taking it down. I couldn’t be mad at him for coping off of Roma for is impromptu confession was too funny for me. Then there is Vallerii. My 6th former. A child after my own heart. He hardly comes to classes but when he does it is almost certain nothing can get done. He is actually pretty smart, but knows absolutely no words that I have taught him but can fluently repeat any rap line he has ever heard and anything I say in English not related to the lesson. He knows an abundance of curse words and how to properly use them. I have stifled that by looking at him blankly and asking if that is German. When he realized he is failing my classes he started pulling his chair up next to mine while they were suppose to be doing their writing exercises. Everyone was enticed to watch our dialogue instead. There is a sort of brilliant flair to his disruptions that I admire and would be co-collaborator if I were in sixth form with them. Only recently have I found a way to stop his antics. I made a deal that if EVERYONE, I had to keep reminding them that means Vallerii too, turns in all their homework and is very good for a week and a half we will play volleyball one day. This has lead to the other kids forcing Valerii to sit down, pleading with him to remain quit, and lending him paper and a pen to do his writing assignment. We’ll see how it works out. But again I gotta say I like his style, and trust me I’m an expert on these things.

I want you to appreciate what you have

If you live in America there is one thing I can pretty much guarantee you take advantage of and don’t even really appreciate it for how awesome it is. You especially don’t appreciate that it is in side. The Toilet.Yes, The Porcelain God. See I have learned how awesome they are, especially since the cold snap that started a few weeks ago.I have also built up a tolerance. I can go very long periods of time without using the “toilet”.Some volunteers here have toilets. I am not so lucky. However, most everyone I know that lives with a Kyrgyz family has a pit toilet (read whole in the ground). I have pretty much a standard issue outhouse. Now when I want to go to the outhouse I will sit and debate how long I think I can wait. When the time comes that I can’t wait anymore the process begins. I put on a pair of tight track pants, and snow pants (more like rain pants but the best I got). Then I put on two or three layers and my coat (a rain coat, again the best I can do). Then I have to debate whether I think it will be a quick trip or a long trip. If it is a long trip I put on a hat, coat, and scarf. Short, I skip all that. Although the other day I thought it would be a short trip and my hands went numb in the process and I couldn’t feel the toilet paper and accidently dropped it down the whole. That is like a mortal sin here, you HAVE to throw it in the trash. Then I have to walk from my room in the back of the house down the hallway through the kitchen. I turn on the lights to the outside. I gently walk down the stairs trying to avoid slipping on the ice. I get down the stairs and try a brisk pace, but still needing to be careful because of ice, so the wind doesn’t blow the snow off the haystack on to me. I walk past the pig pen, then through the cow barn and try to avoid their toilet area. Then I gently shuffle down an icy slope. Get hit by the stabbing cold wind in the open area. Have the dog try and attack me and I’m there! I do my business then have to do everything in reverse. We do have German magazines in there if I am so inclined to read them…. I don’t read German. So, I want you to make sure and fully appreciate everything you have. Even if it is in your least favorite room to clean.

Fall of the CCCP

I have to admit, I love Russian Babushkas. In my training village I instantly made friends with about 6 Babushkas. They became known as my Bab Squad. These women, there is no other way to put it, are tough. They survived the Soviet Union, then the fall of the Soviet Union, then being thrown into the 21st century with out decades of preparation for it. The other day I was walking behind two Babs on my way to church. I could see this giant piece of road that was broken and sticking up into the air. However, one of the Babs didn’t see it. She went flipping over it. Don’t think that it was a gentle fall either, some nice little trip. No, no, no. It was head over feet, face down into the ground kind of fall. I came running up to help her up. The whole right side of her face was gashed open and bleeding, so was the backside of her right hand. She joked with me that she is getting too old since she didn’t see that bit of road. Her friend let her know that she was bleeding. The bleeding Bab reached into her packet and got a napkin and gentle started dabbing the blood, all the while joking with me and her friend. It was a little while before she even noticed how bloody her hand was. Oh, well look at that… and she started dabbing at her hand. She and her friend did not make a big deal of this. Yeah, she fell she was bloody, that stinks, but that was about it.This is not a mirror of the Russian girls I deal with on regular basis. This new generation of Russian girls is nothing like the oldest generation left. They are whiny, moody, spoiled, and will burst into tears over the littlest things. I want them to look at their grandmas and see that these are tough women. These are women to respect and admire. They need to see that if the don’t shape up they won’t be treated with the same reverence their Babushkas are. I hope she put some iodine on those cuts.

My Purpose Statement..

The other day I was having a bit of a crisis. I had my face pressed against the cold glass of the bus and was staring out at the fresh coat of snow. I was thinking, "Why am I here? Why do they need to learn English?" I was praying for God to show me a sign and he sent it. Out the window I saw an ordinary boy walking by and he had on a Red Sweatshirt. It all was so ordinary so not the sign I was asking for till I read his shirt...In very large block letters his shirt read, "BOB'S WIFE"ahhh... That is why am here.

Doesn't it Feel Good?

"Doesn't it feel good to be alive, when you're going somewhere."-Colin HayThat is from a song called "going somewhere" by Colin Hay(lead singer of Men @ Work). I love that song and love to rock out to it when I am in any mode of transist whether it be by foot, train, marhrutka, bus, or plane.There are sometimes where it does not feel good. Where all I want to do is get to where I'm going and be there. Several bad rides I have had before are:When our van broke down in Alabama and Diane and I had to hitchhike to the nearest town to call a tow truck. The man who picked us up had a couple guns in the truck and was rockin' an NRA sticker. (That wasn't bad, as weird and uncomfortable)There was the time in Africa where there were six of us girls crammed into the car that was swerving and bobbing on the slick muddy roads, through the rain as we went higher up the mountain. I holding my friend Grace on my lap while the driver explained that the lake we were driving next to was the third deepest lake in the world. I screamed out, "Oh, good they won't be able to find the bodies!!"Even here there was once a ride I thought was as bad as I would encounter in this country. Lydia and I were on our way back from guesting and had three gentlemen get into the marshrutka with us. One brought on a full gas tank. Another a bottle of homemade alchohal(read: moonshine). Last gentleman started smoking out the crack of a window. With all these elimanants on the Marshrutka I wanted it to go very fast, but at the same time very, very gently. This past weekend topped them all. I was going out to Cholpon Ata to visit some other volunteers. A trip that should have taken less than three hours. It took over nine in the end. I had to go out to the city of Tokmok. From there I was suppose to easily catch a bus out to Cholpon Ata. I had just missed a bus by a couple minutes, so I had to stand around for another hour. Then when one did come I got on but a couple minutes later they pushed me and an old lady(the only other white person, don't know if it means anything, but I noticed) off the bus and said they couldn't take us. We talked for a little bit neither of us knowing why we had been pushed off.It was getting late and I didn't want to be arriving too late, so I started talking to taxi drivers. They wanted way too much money and there were no other people interested in sharing a cab with me. After over an hour of stopping as many cars as I could that went by and them telling me they weren't heading that way(even though it is the only way to head out of there) I eventually got a marshrutka to stop that was carrying packages out to Kara Kol. He said he could take me because he was going to have to be driving through Cholpon Ata anyway. I agreed to 150 som, more than I should have paid, because I was tired and figured it would be faster than a bus... if I ever did get one. We went along well enough at first but then it seemed he had to stop for EVERYTHING. I decided to ignore it and read my book I had brought along. The mountain pass was was really pretty with a fresh coat of snow, which ment we had to drive even slower for "safety". We did get stopped at a check point and the driver paid the bride, errr... I mean toll. Then drove a 100 yards , stopped, talked on his phone and told me to get out. I refused at first. Then I got out to figure out why he wanted me out. He said that he had a buddy coming with a bus who would pick me up. I was yelling, "No! No! I won't buy! I won't buy!" I couldn't think of the word for pay and buy came off the tip of my tongue. "No, I bought you! I bought you! I'm not buying him!" "yes, yes, yes." The man nodded his head and jump into his Marshrutka and drove off, much quicker than he had ever gone with me. So there I was in the middle of no where, literally. No cities, villages, or yurts for miles. Shivering in the cold of the fresh snow and wind of the mountains. Just praying that there would, for real, be a bus. Eventually, and there needs to be an understanding eventually...eventually... I was there for a very long time by myself. Again, the bus started out just fine and I was pretty happy and content and even became optimistic once again. That was beaten out of me. the bus broke down for a while and once they got it going they couldn't get the door to shut. I was sitting near the door. I sat there pressing my bad ear into my shoulder hoping I wouldn't get sick again, since my host mama doesn't like me going to these cold places where I can get sick. After about 45 minutes they did get the door to shut.I had told them to drop me off at the center of Cholpon Ata figuring I would be able to locate something from there, where Lydia could pick me up. We again broke down on the outskirts of the town. I sat there watching Little Man in Russian, being very patient knowing I couldn't change the situation by getting frustrated. Once it started back up they drove a little bit and told me this was the center. I had been to Cholpon Ata before, I didn't recognize anything. Mostly because there was nothing near mean to recognize. I said this isn't the center, they insisted this is where I was suppose to get off.I started walking and frantically texting Lydia to come and find me. After walking at a very quick pace, for 45 minutes I started to recognize stuff. Lydia kept sending me texts saying that there was no way I was dropped off at the center since she couldn't find me. A fact that I was very well aware of. I eventually saw a tall girl walk past in the shadows and took a chance and yelled, "Lydia!" Sure enough it was her. Thank you lord! She took me back to the cafe she and other volunteers were eating at and I tried to explain why I was so late and had missed half the party, through my chattering teeth.Doesn't it feel good to be alive...

Another first

It is weird when another first in your life has come and gone. Last week a first I was terrified happened, I survived my first earthquake. It wasn't long, I think I was mostly freaked out because the "heater" and the lights went crazy. I kept yelling at my students, "What is this? Is this an Earthquake? OMG What do we do?" In English. When it stopped I got my act together enough to evacuate my students out of the building like I was suppose to and my students had fun acting out my terror for all the other students. Glad to ahve gotten that first out of the way but I don't want to do it again!

Eats

My group that I got sworn in with as a Peace Corps Volunteer has lost two volunteers since we have been sworn in. The first girl we lost 4 days after going to our permanent sites. She said that she would rather be in Indian than here. It is the wording of that that made us realize there was no way we could talk her out of it. She would rather be in INDIANA. If you ever say to yourself that you would rather be in Indiana then where ever you currently are, then leave, because you must be really unhappy. Our other girl we lost was medical. She can come back and we are all hoping and praying she gets healthy.I asked another volunteer if there would be any reason she would go home early and she replied, “Wendy’s Big Bacon Cheeseburger, Biggie Fires, and a Frosty” I started salivating… The thing is I have found lots of foods that I like here. My absolute favorite is Lagman. It is pasta with peppers, tomatoes, carrots, some green thing that I can’t remember its name. Oh, very tasty. The few times I have gone to a café it is what I order. There are also lost of different kinds of dumplings. My host mama has been making Lapsha a lot which is like chicken noodle soup. Put a little black pepper in it and you are in business. Pieroshki is always good it is fried bread with either potatoes, apples (if I’m around and helping cook), or pumpkin. If I’m rollin’ in Bishkek I might stop in and get a Gamburger. You would think it would be similar to a hamburger but it really isn’t. It is on a hamburger bun but then on top it has Gyro meat, mayo, ketchup, cucumbers, and cabbage. Overall there is lots of food to be had, although the other day we got some American Newspapers and in them were ads for Pizza Hut. I don’t even like Pizza Hut, but oh, how I pray sometimes that Kyrgyzstan will change its policies and let in American Restaurants. If they do I’m getting an Egg McMuffin, Jalapeño Poppers, and finishing with a Frosty.

Slumber Parties and Cowboys

This past weekend was my first time sleeping away from home. I like to say at this point in my second Childhood I am back up to college, but that isn't true. I'm up to middle school. I get picked on by high schoolers and I couldn't sleep I was so excited about a slumber party. Okay, so techinically it wasn't officially a slumber party, it was Program Travel. I got to go down to Koch Kor in Naryn, the "authentic Kyrgyz" part of the country. Koch Kor is up in the mountains and pretty spectacular. Although, it is extremely cold. My host Mama told me not to go down there becuase I would get sick, we'll get back to that. I went down there to help with some American Cowboys. A group of cowboys came from Wyoming doing a mountain to mountain exchange. They came to show horse tricks and share the culture of the American cowboy. Since I was going so far anyways I showed up a few days before the rodeo to hang out. I was so overwhelmed by getting to speak English that they couldn't get me to quiet down the first few nights. One night I stayed up talking all night to this girl Jill, also from Michigan... we actually played basketball against each other in High School. And another night with another volunteer Brandon. I say it was a slumber party because it had all the fixings: The staying up all night talking, rockin' out to Forgiener's Juke Box Hero, and playing pranks on the first person to fall asleep. We felt so grown up. One night we even got to sing Karoake. I did Sweet Dreams with Jill for three Kyrgyz men. And later that night I sang Beauty and Beast with another Voluneteer, Justin, to the only other person there, the bartender. She was very polite about it. The rodeo was interesting. They tried to have a buckin' Bronco but the horses here are much tamer so that did not work out very well. They also had a Kyrgyz translator for the cowboys. It proved very difficult to translate Wyomin' into Kyrgyz. At the end they were giving out prizes to the kids who had won some of the competition. They asked myself, Brandon, Justin, and Kay to work as blockers. This was not fun. We had to push kids back so they wouldn't steal all of the cowboy's stuff. I think we all got spit on. I had three luggies hawked on me. One hit my coat, another in my hair, and another one on the back of my neck. I was told by the end of it after being spit on so many times I seemed to enjoy pushing the kids back... This might be true. I keep having to remind myself I am a volunteer and I will do whatever, whenever I am asked to help. Although, now I'm thinking if working blocker for a cowboy is asked I'm going to try and talk someone else into it. Yesterday on the way back from Koch Kor I absolutely felt like death. I had gotten really sick while I was there. My mama likes to keep telling me how she was right. Driving through the mountains was painful on my congested head. I couldn't hear anything yesterday. Today, I have absolutely no voice. Today teaching class with no voice was interesting. We had been learning animals, so today we just colored the animals. Last night I had to sit with a tea kettle that had steaming water and Baking Soda in it and two blankets over my head. This was suppose to get my voice back but it didn't. I am resting up though because this weekend will be my first time hosting a slumber party. My host sister is getting married and my Mama is letting me have my friends Lydia and Brandon be guests at the wedding. I'm pretty jazzed. Once other vols found out that I was having guests to rock out at my sis's wedding they all started trying to invite themselves. I had to say no. I'm only being allowed these two guests becuase I promised my mama I would dance at the wedding if two of my friends can come. She thinks I don't dance enough.Alright I have to go take some nyquil and get 12 hours of sleep so hopefully I can say something in class tomorrow, or else we are doing more coloring.

My Class..

I literally had to stand in front of the class today and scribble on a girls hand. She had written all the answers to the exam on her hand and it "wouldn't" wash off. These kids haven't figured out like Vicotria Danielsky and I figured out in high school Spanish, just copy off the smart kid. For me that was my sister. For them there are three different choices and they still come up with prehistoriac ways of cheating that I can spot easily. Now before exams we are going to ahve to do a hand check. I don't think they realize I don't like that anymore than they do.

My Personal Soundtrack

My iPOD made the desicion to take it's own life, totally unprovoked. Sitting there on my desk not ten minutes before alive and active, and then when I came back... gone. I could do nothing to revive it. As of right now I'm ignoring the bone crushing depression that will come with a cold hard winter alone and no music. For right now I am focusing on the soundtrack of my life.Most days I like to go for long walks to see the beautiful countryside and to study my Russian. I make a little index card full of words I want to learn and try and memorize them. On my way out of town I always pass this one house that has music blaring. The other day the song "I come from a Land Down Under" or is it called "Down Under" see it is on my iPOD, if it was alive and ticking I could check what the official name is. Anyway, the song by Colin Hay, sung by Men at Work (I own both of Colin Hay's solo albums so I didn't have the Men at Work version I had the accustic version). It seemed wrong to have it blaring as I walked by. Then I had to realize it makes no more sense then when I would blast it in my room in East Lansing. Hell, I'm closer to Australia here then I was in Michigan. I tried to tell myself that it is more okay there, even though I have never been to Australia, because the song is in English. That same day when I came back from my walk "Lady in Red" was blaring. There was no arguement in my mind for that one, that was a weird song to hear here. Alot of English songs are constantly used in Ads on Television here. One song that is constantly being played is that WHAM! Christmas song. The other day I found my 7 year old host niece, who I taught to say, "shake your money maker" knows the words to it better than I do. She sat there singing ever so nicely, "Last Christmas I gave you might heart and the very next day you gave it away..." I was very impressed. But for her encore we went into a little James Brown. And dance party was started.They keep reminding us that this is a 24 slash 7 job(the always say slash). So when I see work to be done or anyone needing help I try to jump in and give a hand if I can. The other day a bunch of teenage girls were husking corn. I asked if I could help out and they said sure. For the next few hours we sat there and husked corn and sang any English song they knew. We started with Old McDonald. They didn't know what any of the aminal names were even though we made the animal sounds; because as I have found around the world animal noises, as imitated by people are not universal. But old McDonald quickly led into Michael Jackson, Britany Spears,and eventually Black eyed peas where we sang "shut up" and "Humps". I also was given the job of trying to explain what "Never, never, never goin' let you go" ment without being able to remember the word for never. I had to grab on to a girl and say, "never, never, never goin' let you go." Seemed to get the idea across. My hands were rubbed raw from husking corn, but my vocal cords were shot from a rousing round of "Oops, I did it again."In my class on Friday a student stood up and asked me what, "I'm going to F*** my B***h up right" ment. I told him to sit down and NEVER(I looked up the word when I got home) say that again. That it is very bad for someone his age to say that, or my age, for anyone as a matter of fact. I asked where he learned that and he said a Rap Song. Probably 50 Cent, they are obsessed with him here. The saddest part is I like Rap, but I realized I don't like the image of Americans they are sending out to the world. Last night I made a mean batch of Kettle Korn for my family. I sang if "Hammer Song" while I made it. You know.... "If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the mornin'..." You know! But as we sat there eating the POPcon(as my family calls it) they all liked to talk about how smart I was because I make a mean batch of Popcorn. Praising me because of my extensive knowledge of popcorn is not done enough. Actually, it was done only once before last night, when a friend of mine from college(Max) tricked me into making him popcorn on the stove. When I rocked it, he sat there talking about how great the popcorn was and my mad popcorn skills. Let's face it, I do have some mad skillzzzz