Freaking Amazing & Bootylicious!

We Are RAM
(Roy, Adriana, Miranda)

I have internet, but for some reason my internet hates Blogger and Facebook. When I get these pages to work, they load very slowly and I don't have the time for it!

I've been super busy in my first month of school. I'm teaching 20 hours a week, having Romanian tutoring sessions Monday through Thursdays, and I'm tutoring a couple girls Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 hours each time. Tomorrow I'm supposedly meeting with a nun who speaks English but wants to learn how to speak better. That should be interesting.

I went to a wedding of an Irish guy I met. I was out with Roy and Adriana at a bar, and as I'm coming back from the bathroom, this eldery guy stops me. (oooh blogger just died on me, but luckily it saves periodically! I told you my internet hates Blogger!) So he stops me and starts talking English to me. Roy and Adriana come over, and after a few rounds we discover he and his fiance, Ludmila, met online. He's from Ireland, and she's from here. She speaks Russian and Romanian; he doesn't speak either of these. So, her son is translating. I can't imagine the kinds of things he must have to translate between them... Eventually we part ways with him inviting us to his wedding. So last week, Roy and I went to the wedding (unfortunately Adriana couldn't come) and we ate and drank all night long.

Today I went to a birthday with my host family. We ate a bunch of food: fried meats and pancake things. I was full when to my surprise they brought out 2 chickens. So, I ate some chicken. I was super full and ready to be done, when they brought out sarmale. I LOVE sarmale, but I just couldn't do it. I was beyond full. Sarmale is a rice, carrot, and meat mixture in either cabbage or grape leaves. I love them. After that, they brought out 2 different kinds of cake. Keep in mind, this is a Moldovan celebration, so of course we were having quite a few shots during this whole thing, too.

Last Friday was "Day of European Languages" at my school. I had to give a presentation about English in English. About 5 people in the room of about 60 understood the presentation, so that's fun. It was for the 7th and 8th graders. I put a few facts about English on the slides with pictures of "English" stuff. They were especially excited about the slide with the English Football Club logos. That got some hollars and a round of applause. Oh how they love their football (soccer) here.

Finally watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Not nearly as awesome as I anticipated.

Going to Romania on November 20th to see the second Twilight movie, New Moon, with some other girls. Oh man I'm excited. I'm a dork, but how I love Edward Cullen :)

Planning a trip to Bucahrest, Romania, Sofia, Bulgaria, and Skopje, Macedonia for Christmas. Going with Adriana and another girl. Originally planned on going to Egypt, but it ended up being far more expensive than I anticipated. This should be a fun trip anyway!

Bought some mascara from a Russian company. The mascara is called "Freaking Amazing Mascara." Also in the catlogue were "Bootylicious Lip Gloss" and "I'm Naughty Mascara." The girl who sells for the company had no idea what these meant so I had to explain Freaking Amazing and Bootylicious...

Woo I'm a Real Volunteer!

Swearing In Ceremony in Chisinau on August 18th. Now we're officially volunteers. The Health group and English Education (which I am) swore in together. After the ceremony, we each loaded up our suitcases and headed off to our permanent sites.

Going for picnics in forests is a common hobby here in Moldova, especially in the northern part. My family has gone several times. This time we climbed a nearby mountain/hill. It was pretty fun, and I saw a crazy little lizard while climbing.

This is my current host family. We are at a cumatria, which is a celebration for a baby's baptism. We got together with a bunch of people at a fancy restaurant, ate a bunch of food and drank lots of cognac, beer, and vodka, and ended up dancing until 3:30 in the morning. We danced the Hora, a traditional Moldovan dance, and I got a bunch of blisters on my toes. But it was definitely worth the blisters!

This is with my extended host family at my host grandparents' house.We stayed for a night. This was day 2. We ate rabbit, which was surprisingly not bad, chicken, potatoes, and of course cucumbers and tomatoes. My host mom's second cousin was there. She makes her own cognac and vodka, and she made sure I sampled each of them several times.

School is going really well. I am teaching 2nd through 9th grades, and I have 19 hours of work each week. I am team-teaching all the classes except one group of 6th graders I teach by myself. Here, I am with a Russian 8th grade class. They had a big birthday party for all the summer birthdays in their class. We ate lots of treats and danced to English music. It was quite fun!