...

I miss my family a great deal; more and more as each day passes. Its especially hard on the weekends when I cannot adequately fill my time. I know for the past 7 years I have lived away from home, but this experience is so dramatically different than college. In college I was only a few hours away plus I could call them regularly. Being on the other side of the planet is so much more difficult. I go months without hearing their voices and its really strange to me. I guess I have always considered myself fairly independent from my family, but these days I tear up at reality shows when contestants are sent home and reunited with their loved ones. It makes me think about returning home and what the scene at the airport will be like. I know I will cry, but c'mon, who wouldn't.

What makes me even more nervous is thinking about what happens after the airport. Where do I go? What do I do? What happens after Peace Corps? I mean, I only have 15 months remaining which really isn't much time to figure out my life... especially b/c I am working and working in a foreign country. There are so many decisions to be made and I honestly hae no freakin idea. Part of me wants to go back to Dallas, although I have not lived there for 7 years now. I have connections elsewhere, but I don't know. Then there is always the option of starting over someplace new yet again. I just keep hoping for a point in my life where I have everything figured out, but the older I get, the more I realize that this will never happen. Which, I guess, is living. Making the best choices you can when you can and just accepting that it will all work itself out. As unsettling as that is, what choice do we really have?

LLM,

CEO

Relationships..

10 months is the longest I have gone in my adult life with out attending a church service. While there is a church in my village, it is non-functioning except for the major holidays (Christmas and Easter). I was not at site during Christmas and this Easter I will be hopefully be attending a service while vacationing in Belgrade. Seeing as I cannot easily attend church here, I have been listening to the Cathedral of Hope's pod-casts whenever I can/remember to. There is something that moves me about the sermons. Maybe its the fact that I hear the message alone in my house as if it were meant solely for me. Maybe its the fact that its coming from a congregation whose beliefs are similar to my own. Or maybe its the need to be a part of a community even in my isolation. I am really not sure why I feel so connected to a church I have never stepped foot in. All I know is that I am grateful that I am glad to have such a connection and that it helps me immensely...usually when I least expect it.

I listened tonight and Dr. Rev. Jo Hudson was preaching from the parable of the Prodigal Son. This particular story is well known and I am not usually exicited to hear anyone preach from this passage. As a man who worked for the church for several years and toured the country monthly singing at different churches, I feel like I have heard this parable 10,000 times and every pastor tries to find something new to make it interesting. They usually fail. However, tonight, I was delighted upon hearing the interpretation. Instead of focusing on the return of the younger son or the feelings of the elder son, Hudson examined the father and not the father as God, but rather as Jesus. The father sacrificing all for the relationships he has with his sons and for the relationships between his sons. All of his energy is focused on relationships; gifts given, the fatted calf slain and parrties thrown. How much better would life be if we could all devote ourselves to our relationships in such a manner?

In my life, I am struggling with relationships. I physically far away from every relationship I cherished less than one year ago. Some new ones have been made here, but I still feel that they are muddled due to all I have been focusing on. I spend so much time concerned with what I am missing, or what I cannot say, or what I have to do each day, and my relationships suffer. I am usually focused so much on the parts of myself I cannot divulge to my community that I don't divulge enough. Personally, I am really scared to let them know more of me, which is to everyone's detriment... well, certainly to mine. I hope I can find the courage to let them know me so that I can better serve them and honestly, be happier. I just don't know how...

cheerfully upbeat

SO I dont know if its been the sunshine, the melting snow, the clean clothes, or the extra oxygen I am getting due to the lack of cigarettes, but I have been in an extremely good mood. I am trying to just go with it, but its been four good days in a row. I want to trust it, so I think I am going to. Thats all for now...

CEO

I have not...

1) opened m curtains in my living room for over three weeks mainly for 2 reasons: a) I do not want to see the snow and b) I dont want the townspeople of PK to see how I live. I feel like if someone from the village were to walk into my house right now, that I would be doing Americans around the globe a grave disservice. Its not like I don't clean, b/c hey, I really do. Every Monday is clean the house day. Its just th days in between that it gets really messy again. I don't know... maybe I am just a typical 25 y/o bachelor who is living on his own for the first time. All I know is that I need to step up this up a notch and just be a bit more responsible.

2) gotten out of bed so far today. This is why I love Wednesdays.. only one class and its not until 2:30. Although today, I have an English lesson with one of my friends here at his place (i.e. his parent's place) at 7:00 or 8:00... this is about as specific as he would get when I asked what time he wanted to meet... I hope he meant at night...

3) exercised since Ingrid left. Yeah... the only excuse there is the snow, but even then I have had no excuse to let my body athropy to this point. I am just loose skin and bones right now. I need to build some freakin muscle before summer. Just something... I still cannot believe that I have lost like 80lbs... now its time to tone what's left.

4) Bought my plane tickets to Brussels... that needs to happen. ASAP.

5) smoked a cigarette in 24 hrs. This is the first 24 hours of my cigarette free life. It kills me to think that I only have a few adult friends in this wourld who have known me since before I started smoking. I don't wanna be a smoker. Smoking is really gross and I am tired of wasting my money on slow suicide. I NEED TO BE HEALTHY!!!!

For all of you wondering why I am saying all this on a public forum, its really b/c I need help motivating myself to do these things. Like for reals, yo. Some days I can, but others I can't. So if any of you folks out there would like to help, just leave me a comment or write on my facebook... I still check it occasionally. And finally, here is a really cute picture of my 7lb ferocious puppy! He is too much....

LLM,

CEO

In the bleak mid-winter

Have you ever had that dream where you are really sick and some one starts beating on your window and tells you that you have to come to school and teach English to Bulgarians even though its Wednesday and you aren't supposed to have class until 2:30 in the afternoon? Yeah, me neither, but this morning it became my reality. There is so much snow right now the bus could not make it here from Bjala and thus the 3 teachers who live in the village (myself included) got to teach all the classes this morning. I dont know why we just didnt cancel school, but so is life. It really isn't a problem, it was just an awful way to be woken up. My students laughed at me because the very first thing I said when I arrived in class was "I am sick and I was asleep 5 minutes ago. If you don't want a dvoiki you will sit down and not talk." Except it was sleep-slurred and in Bulgarian. I would have laughed at me too. We ended up playing M*A*S*H* for a while followed by hangman, categories and other time filling activities as I tried to gain my bearings. Over all it was a very confusing, mildly medicated, blur of happenings which luckily ended recently. At least I will know that this is a possibility tomorrow and can be somewhat more prepared.

This would have not been an issue if it were not for this wretched snow. I have been reading blogs from friends who live in the south saying how its just beginning to snow there. To them, I send an invite to the north where the glistening white has been blinding us for months as it chokes the life out of the ground below. The landscpe is one of shrubbery zombies who have some how clawed their way from their icy graves and are now slowly crawling over the frozen tundra that is Polsko Kosovo. Dramaitc, maybe, but nonetheless true. I cannot wait much longer until the day I can awake and see any color besides white. Come on spring. I know you won't let me down! For now, I am going to back to bed and will hopefully have a peaceful, uninterupted slumber. And when I wake, maybe I will find all the snow has gone and my dream of spring will have come true.

LLM,
CEO

The time has come...

to use this blog as I originally intended to use it; as a venue to highlight the good part(s) of my day.

1) At 3:00 this morning, as I lie awake filled with emotion from my mini Amazing Race Marathon, I heard a noise that I thought I would never here again. It started as a slow trickle and then became a thunderous gushing... you guessed it, my hot water pipes unfroze and are now flowing. Excitement does vey little justice to describe the over-whelming joy that rushed over me. Praise the Lord!

2) None of my students hate me for failing them, or if they do, they haven't been acting like it.

3) I am about to try and make peach banitsa... I am scared, but not as scared as my colleagues will be when I make them taste test it tomorrow.

4) I am really happy that my best BG friend, Malena, and her family, are ok after a pretty bad car accident this weekend. She and her husband are going to spend a little more time at the hospital but over all, they will be ok. She is the Biology teacher at my school and my occasional BG tutor.

5) One of my 8th Graders called Lady Gaga a travesty today, which in itself is funny... then my class proceded to tell me he meant transvestite... which is still funny.

Yeah.. thats it for now... BANITSA TIME followed by a hot shower and a meeting with the Mayor. I WILL BE PRODUCTIVE TODAY!!!!

LL&M,
CEO

so its been over a month and basically what I have learned is I complain alot. Some of its warranted but most of it my whining is not. Yeah, winter sucks, but overall I am loved and am pretty content with my life. Once the weather changes, hopefully so will my crappy mood. Not saying that this experience is easy, but man, a shitty attitude doesn't help.

CEO