A Silly Amount of Time

has gone by since my last blog post. It's not that I've forgotten you, my family and friends back home, it's more that I went through a rough patch and started keeping a private journal. After my rough patch, I had a very busy summer, which included my family visiting me in Ukraine, many summer camps, and a busy start to the new school year. To make up for my lack of activity, here are some of my journal entries complete with pictures:

 I tend to romanticize life as a Peace Corps volunteer by sharing only my good days but the truth is it's hard, the hardest thing I've ever done. I've experienced my lowest lows but also my highest highs, both shattering my previous views on life. Some days I take the longer, scenic walk home from work, feeling refreshed and quoting Thoreau. Other days I'm jaded and frustrated, self-medicating my attempts turned failures with ice cream and romantic comedies. The loneliness alone during the winter would make anyone crazy.

Any Peace Corps volunteer will tell you that being flexible is a recurring theme in daily life. Nothing ever goes as planned, but instead of getting discouraged, I try to see it as a measure of how adaptable I can be given the limited resources. Let's just say I've gotten pretty good at thinking on my feet ;).

I don't know how I can have such mixed feelings about America. On one hand, I miss its comforting familiarity where everything just makes sense. But man, when I hear people complain about being poor or unlucky on Facebook, it's really irritating. They have no idea how most of the world lives.

I ran out of cortisone lotion so I started putting tape over my mosquito bites. This sounds crazy but it's actually the air coming in contact with the bite that makes mosquito bites itch. I highly recommend it if you don't have any anti-itch creme on hand. Sometimes tape can also extract some of the venom if you catch the bite in time.

I feel like I speak 4 different languages:

1. Conversational English - which I use the least
2. "Teacher" English - where I'm careful to speak clear, not use slang or filler words, and use very elementary word choices
3. Russian - конечно!
4. Peace Corps -  similar to conversational English, but with Peace Corps acronyms (and there are a lot!)

Here's a video of Peace Corps language in action