mind of a child

so i love children's books.
i am not sure why. maybe it's the innocence or simplicity or how they have a way of reflecting on life in an unpretentious way that puts everything back into perspective.
whatever the case, here is a nice little excerpt from alice's adventures in wonderland.
i find it amusing.






'Please, then,' said Alice, `how am I to get in?'

`There might be some sense in your knocking,' the Footman went on without attending to her, `if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were inside, you might knock, and I could let you out, you know.' He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. `But perhaps he can't help it,' she said to herself; `his eyes are so very nearly at the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer questions.--How am I to get in?' she repeated, aloud.

`I shall sit here,' the Footman remarked, `till tomorrow--'

At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman's head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him.

`--or next day, maybe,' the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing had happened.

`How am I to get in?' asked Alice again, in a louder tone.

`Are you to get in at all?' said the Footman. `That's the first question, you know.'

It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. `It's really dreadful,' she muttered to herself, `the way all the creatures argue. It's enough to drive one crazy!'

The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with variations. `I shall sit here,' he said, `on and off, for days and days.'

`But what am I to do?' said Alice.

`Anything you like,' said the Footman, and began whistling.

`Oh, there's no use in talking to him,' said Alice desperately: `he's perfectly idiotic!' And she opened the door and went in.

преживявам

ok, so not that i ever really wrote anything all that revealing here, but every once in a while i'd talk about something i was actually thinking about. you might have noticed this has stopped and been replaced with useless babbling and pictures. even though i suppose i had to have thought it to write it...well, you know what i mean.
i feel this is the better rout to go. because i don't think that anyone would really like to know what runs around in my head here pretty much 24 hours a day. and i hesitate to even talk about work or my town, in fear that i would go off into that direction. that's what the paper notebook next to my bed is for. although it spans over 5 years there were sparse to no entries for years. now, each entry is pages long with almost unreadable scrawling as i hastily attempt to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the paper least i forget them. or worse yet, they remain in there.
so, sorry if all of you are thinking "um we don't freaking care about dried fruit, or your clean room, or your favorite tea."
well, that's the way it goes.
or something.
and now, more periphrastic garble.

ok, so let me tell you why this picture is great.
well, besides the completely confused look my face, or perhaps in addition to it. whatever. so here we go..
1) my bedroom is clean. yes, just my bedroom, but it isn't like my apartment is huge or anything so having a clean bedroom takes care of a good 1/2 of my apartment. so it's a start.
and i don't mean i just kind-of organized it. i took everything out of my closet and drawers and dusted everywhere and vacuumed below my bed. my bedroom is CLEAN. my mind even feels more organized now. tomorrow the living room (i suppose that is what you would call the room that doesn't have my bed in it...)
and then... the kitchen. i seriously don't even want to think about that. i'll leave it for last.

ok, moving on to the next reason why this picture is great.
2)i got my new issue of discover! (on the bed)
yes, they DO deliver to Bulgaria! (so, in case you were contemplating a move to bulgaria but were hesitant because of the possibility that your favorite magazine won't be there, worry no more)
i don't know if i have talked about my love for this magazine before, so forgive me if i have. but it is great. the articles are short, (good for those of you/us with ADD). they have super interesting articles but aren't so technical that you need a biology degree to read them.
oh, and also they are great because my older students (all 3 of them.) love this stuff. for example, yesterday, after class was over i took out my magazine to show one of them something and we ended up sitting there talking about it for another hour. they wanted me to translate the main points of the articles for them. however, although pretty rudimentary it's still a freaking science magazine. so after struggling to put it into Bulgarian with the aid of numerous unsucessful gestures and pictures, we decided it would be best for me to rephrase it into simpler English and then have one of the kids who speaks pretty good english then translate it into Bulgarian for the other two. yeah, maybe is took a little longer than it would at home with the language and stuff...but we got by. it was actually pretty fantastic.
they want me to bring the magazine again to class on thursday.
definitely.


and now, finally, the last reason why this super fuzzy, 70's looking picture is so fantastic.
3) the tea in my hand.
it's the stuff i got in turkey. i just accidentally picked it up at the grocery store next to our hostel because the tea they gave us for breakfast there was horrible. but this stuff turned out to be the best tea i have ever had.
green tea with ginkgo... which i have had versions of in the states. but this...it is perfect. so i went back before i left Istanbul and bought the remaining boxes at the store. (they only had three more left)
i still have a box and a half left. but then... what will i do?
i suppose that is just one more reason i need to go back to Istanbul.

eh, i'll throw in one more reason.
4) while cleaning i found my favorite pair of worn in jeans, which i'm wearing in the picture, that i hadn't seen in a month or so. you might wonder how an apartment so small could have become so disorganized as to lose a pair of jeans. well, it's a special talent i have. magic almost. i'd like to say it's inherited, but nobody in my family is like this, so i guess i take full credit. even though the jeans weren't really lost... just...you know...under stuff.




ok, off to english class with the younger students.


but before i do, i can't forget to say that....
KELLY IS COMING TO VISIT!!!
MAY 5th!!!



miss her. tolkova mnogo. can't wait. can't wait. can't wait. :-)



oh, and one last sidenote.
i used the word 'freaking' twice in this one entry.
i feel this is excessive.
i actually considered removing them as soon as they were typed.
but decided against it.
freaking was what i thought. freaking is what stays.
jesus, now it's up to 5.
and i gotta go...
ciao!

instead of rambling about my kids obsession with swear words...

Suprise Suprise, I'm going to talk about food again.
You know, I probably could save the world or at least get an advanced educational degree if I just took the amount of time I spent thinking/talking about/cooking food and did something else with it.
Well, maybe someday.
What I want to go off about today is my new found love of dried fruit.
I never really liked it back in the States. And although I don't really remember, I'm pretty sure it tastes different (read: better) here.
Dried figs, plums, and dates...
soooo good.
Did you know that dried dates taste like caramel? I kid you not.
But they are just too good. I ate quite a few today. (ok, so maybe my dinner consisted entirely of dried dates... that's ok... right?)
But that left me with a lot of date pits.
So I decided that I'm going to try to grow them.
(warning: the following will highlight exactly how exciting my social life is here)
After looking online for how to grow dates from seeds I think that I figured out the two varieties that are sold at my local "supermarket" (read: store that sells more than two varieties of yogurt)
But honestly, I am really not sure.
I studied social work in college. Maybe if I had stuck with forestry, my first major choice, I would know this.
But then again maybe not. It isn't like date trees grow extensively in Michigan.
Regardless, I want to grow them. Not that I'm going to get fruit or anything, I just want to see if I can.
I have some room in my kitchen. And lots of extra date seeds.
And I'm not expecting some tropical palm tree in my apartment, but I'll be happy with any sort of life i can get from the seeds.
Hey, if they can grow a date tree from 2,000 year old seeds I shouldn't have a huge problem with these.

Plus, Tunisia exports a lot of dates.
I already wanted to go to Tunisia.
I love dates.
Clearly, I am meant to go to Tunisia.
I'm glad you follow my logic.
Yes, maybe Egypt is the largest producer of dates, but Egypt has too many tourists and I have already decided that it is not a place I have much desire to go...well, at the moment anyway. So I ignore their date production standing.
See how the reasoning works?
In reality, I'm not crazy and the amount of dates a particular country produces or exports really has no bearing on my choice of a vacation destination, but I just like to have random facts backing up my random decisions.
Like how I decided that I just HAVE to go to Tunisia sometime.
I don't know why. I looked at my map and thought, 'yeah, Tunisia.'
Or maybe there was more to it.
Or maybe there wasn't.

and from home...

today i picked up a package from my family at the post office.
among the fantastic goodies were tons of trader joes instant miso soup packets, triscuts, and this super cute letter from my sister:





love you too beth.
i don't know about your birthday, but i'll see what i can do.
muah!

Second, Istanbul

just a small observation. i realized that unintentionally i stopped biting my fingernails last week. Just didn't occure to me to do it. And now, here we are, two days back in Zlataritsa, and my fingers are damn near bloody again.
interesno.
anyway, today could have been crappy, for the normal set of reasons.
but, like always, the afternoon saved it.
for english today i decided that i didn't feel like sitting in a room, so we went on a walk for a couple hours. i don't really know how much english was learned but it was soooo good to walk around. i can't really describe how beautiful it is here. you guys at home have no idea.
the first spring trees are blossoming, and the grass is greening and the river has melted, and there are frogs and fish and mountains all around. it's like a dream.
with all the beauty around them, i still had to stop the kids about 10 times from throwing trash onto the street, or the river, or someone's yard. they kept telling me "this isn't America, tracy. this is BULGARIA"
which, in their minds, explains everything.
i told them if you want a pretty town, you need to keep it pretty.
i'm sure they will remember that about as much as they will remember the words for stairs, and bridge, and trash can, and air, and whatever else we learned today.
but oh well.
they also liked to say random english swear words that they know, and then ask me what they mean. well, obviously they know they are bad. they ask me every week. and then they pretend that they just came up with this word for the first time.
no, i remember. you asked me last week. i told you it was bad last week. word hasn't changed. it's still bad.
which i suppose is funny. how can a word be bad. words are words are words.
i suppose i'm just perpetuating the power of the word by withholding the meaning from the kids. well, maybe it will keep them coming back. the possibility of learning how to swear in english. whatever it takes. or something.






well, if you haven't already guessed, these are the pictures from Istanbul. it was a great, however short, vacation.
got scrubbed down at a turikish bath, went to asia, saw the blue mosque, the grand pazar as well as spice pazar, smoked some hookah, went dancing, got sucked into a carpet store for a few hours, heard nearly every line possible by pazar vendors, ate turkish delights, went to starbucks... you know... everything you think one should do when in istanbul. i could go back again. the sooner, the better.
this has nothing to do with the mass quantities of beautiful people living there.
nope, not at all....
even though, sadly, we did not see the turkish volleyball team that we had met in dupnitsa, like crystal and i had hoped... but the people we did see pretty much made up for it.
ok, no more talking. more pictures.
then i'm off for a run.
4ao for now.

First PDM

Well, let's start off first with PDM in Plovdiv. All the B20's were there from Sunday to Wednesday learning how to develop projects. Things were learned, good times were had. I love this group. It's always a great time. Like on the last night pretty much everyone was at the same club dancing and laughing and just having a good time. Nothing out of control, or creepy, or anything that would get one kicked out of the Peace Corps for... just a good time.

I'll just throw some pictures up since I'm not really in the mood to write anything worth reading. I'm a bit sick now, but I suppose that is to be expected after an entire week without a single night of proper sleep.

back from away

well it is late and i'm heading to bed.
tomorrow i will try to put up some pictures, but for now i'll just leave you with the overall impression that i took away from istanbul.

turkish men are beautiful.

beautiful.

my perception of this has nothing to do with the fact that since august i've been in a town of 2,000 people, where maybe 3 are even close to my age.

it just made me appreciate it more.

goodnight.