This day would have ended 3 hours ago if it weren't fo that damned coffee....

Part of the reason I started this blog was so one day I could look back and remember everything that happened in my two years in the BG. However, today is a day I wouldn't mind forgetting. From the moment I woke up (an hour and a half after my alarm went off) to just now when my pack of dogs, after being outside for 40 minutes, came inside and all shit on my carpet... I just want to forget it. Days like this require massive quantities of food and preferably food I do not have to prepare. But seeing how I live in a village that closes at 7:00 and has no fine dining establishments, I have to settle with my last package of faux Ramen Noodles. I guess I could have gone Na Gosti but to be honest, I don't have the energy after teaching, travelling to Ruse for a meeting I didn't understand and getting yelled at while trying to buy snow boots. I did, however, manage to buy a sweater vest which I thought was a sweater. It also looks very much like the only other sweater vest I brought with me to Bulgaria... yay! I love sweater vests...

You might be thinking that this kind of writing is the antithesis of what I had intended for this blog, and well you are right. But good things come from this as well. For example, I can now go to bed with out feeling so angry. Also, frustration makes chopping wood a hell of a lot easier (I am still trying to work on making it more masculine). I have also learned not to feed my dogs so much so late in the day and to look down before I get off the couch. See, there is a silver lining.

I almost broke down and bought a pack of cigarettes today... cold weather begs for cigarettes and/or whiskey. Instead, I voted for Beauty and the Geek: Australia, Season Two. I am not sure if I can count that as a victory seeing as its relatively depressing. My BG life is at least multi-cultural. Also on the depressing front, I wanted to run today (b/c it was finally sunny) but it was already too dark when I got back from Ruse and something freaks me out about running through a field in the middle of the night. Anyway, on days like this, when I feel I have suffered more failures than had successes, I like to think of things that make me laugh. I would like to share some of my favorite BG moments thus far that still make me laugh:

10) Anytime I get to inform people who have been talking about me that I understand Bulgarian...
9) The woman at my magazine who refuses to sell me flour because one time I said I cannot cook...
8) When, on my first day at my satellite site, my host sister passed me a note saving "My mother wants you to remove your shirt."
7) Discovering that Anagrams for my name are "Rosy Colon" or "Drowsy Canoodler" depending on if you include my middle name...
6) Being beaten by a Bulgarian at English Speed Scrabble
5) The bus driver in Byala who thought I didn't know I had arrived at my destination so he kindly yelled "AMERICAN! GET OFF!"
4) The entire 7th grade class carrying the couch from the director's office to my house and me with out my camera
3) In trying to tell Baba Nikki we were kidnapping Tanya, I kept saying we were changing her clothes
2) When asking my 7th graders what was special about our village, Pavlin simply said "I live here"... and that's the only English I have ever heard him speak
1) Everytime Baba Mladenka open mouth kissed Matt....

And being able to decide how I feel, is today's everyday victory! I am so going to bed!

Love, Laughter and Music,
CE the O