Few degrees colder...

Well I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't there, but today I managed to get everything I need for the initial submission of my SPA project. Today I got the budget and several figures which have taken weeks and months to figure out. So tomorrow I will complete the forms and send them off. I am sure there will be a ton of changes that need to be made but I'll worry about that later.
Allot of changes are happening here with PC policy. Especially regarding travel. I won't go into it to much because everyone who needs to know about them knows, and if I talk about them to much the Thought Police will come down on me. Thankfully however I don't think they will impact me much if they are implemented as planned. Some people however are a bit peeved. PC has there reasons for the changes, I can't honestly say that I believe them but I will respect them; despite the fact that I feel we are being punished for other peoples mistakes and stupidity.

Flight

Ok this will be the last one year type of posts. My plane arrived in Bulgaria on the 25th of April one year ago. After that I went to the town of Strelcha for a week before meeting my host family.

One Year

Well one year ago today my parents dropped me off at the Hampton Inn in Chicago. I said goodbye to them, gave them hugs and kisses and began my Peace Corps Journey. Hard to believe that an entire year has passed. This has easily been the fastest year of my life. So much has happened that it causes my head to spin sometimes when I think about it.
Just over a year ago I left my job at the Minneapolis airport and moved back with my parents for about two months before leaving to come to Bulgaria. During that two months I had three weekends of decadence with my friends Mike and Mike in Chicago, Madison, and Milwaukee. I played golf with my father and his friends and ate out at allot of restaurants with my mother. I watched allot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD and enjoyed driving my car before I had to sell it. My family through me a surprise going away party, which I grudgingly admit was allot of fun and an excellent idea. I went to my cousin's wedding and visited the hollowed ground of Lambeau field.
Those two months were a great time to relax, enjoy my friends and family, and get ready for the next two years of my life. I wasn't sure what I was going to experience but I knew that it would be a challenge. Well I was definitely right, the past year has been a challenge, but in the most incredible and fantastic way possible.
One of the main reasons that I left my job, friends and family behind for two years was because I had become content with my life. I had a job which I was good at but also caused me stress and frustration. I was happy with my friends and family but also incredibly bored. I knew that if I didn't do something my life wouldn't change significantly for a long time, and I didn't want that to happen. The only choice I had was to give up everything and go in a completely different direction. It was a scary decision, but the prospect of not doing anything scared me even more. When my parents dropped me off at the hotel and left me there alone I knew that no matter what happened from that point, I was going to experience things that I never would have if I had stayed put in Minneapolis.
Looking back over this year I am amazed at how far away I am from Chicago, both in a physical and metaphorical sense. I have been accepted into a Bulgarian family, whom I love. I have met people that I never would have even known existed. And made friends with people who were not in my life a year ago, but whom now I can't imagine life without. I know allot of people think that you have to be crazy to join the Peace Corps, and indeed that definitely helps. But at the same time, I believe that you would be even more crazy to not want to try something like this.

Busy

Sorry I haven't been posting much recently. The past few weeks have been very busy. During my spring break my sister came and we went around Bulgaria so I couldn't post then. And this past week I had training in Sofia. In addition to this my school wants to get a SPA grant done by a deadline in mid May, despite the fact that almost none of the paper work is done (the only paper that has been done is the stuff I am responsible for) and they do not know where they are going to get their share of the money for the project from. It's pretty interesting being this busy however after months and months of twiddling my thumbs. While part of me is screaming to relax it feels nice to be doing something somewhat productive again. I just hope that everything works out in regards to the SPA project. I'm not quite sure that the other members of the project team I am working with realise that time is running out for this quarter. I need everything to be more or less done, as far as planning goes, by the end of next week, so I can submit the proposal to a committee member before revising it and then submitting it to the committee for approval. We are having a meeting tomorrow to talk about the project and I will make sure to tell them that time is running out and that if the time line isn't met then the project will have to be delayed. Needless to say this will not go over well. But hey what can I do? I've done everything I can.

It's over

Well vacation is over.... Ack... I taught for the first time in over a week today. Classes and students were pretty normal but I was just depressed. You know that feeling of impending doom you get towards the end of a vacation? Well It all hit me yesterday after I dropped my sister off at the airport. As I got into the cab I realised how great it was to see her and how much I was looking forward to her visit.
But hey life goes on. Soon summer will be here, my parents will come visit, we'll go to Rome, I'll travel all over Europe with friends, and a bunch of stuff will happen in between. Some stuff will be good, some will be bad. Thankfully I am sarcastic, bitter, and positive enough (yes you can be all those things at once) to handle it all and laugh along the way!