What's new?

In the real world...my Bears advance to the Superbowl and Martin Scorsese gets an Oscar nomination today. What a year this will be if both parties end up winning!! I'm sad that football has come to an end for 2 years...this is the perfect way to go out though. I suppose I need to start following soccer now.

In my world?....confusion. Apparently this blog of mine is now linked to about 50 different Peace Corps sites so I really better watch what I say on here now. How that happened, I have no idea...the magical internet fairy must have taken care of this. Yesterday I spent some time responding to an email that was sent to me. The Ukraine office wanted me to complete a skills inventory packet to, I assume, get a better feel for where to place us. I also got an updated contact list emailed to me earlier this week. Ummmmm...somehow the group I'm going out there with has doubled in size. The current list reflects 68 people shipping out with me to Ukraine. I give up on posting photos at this point. I had no idea there would be this many people going with me, but the more the merrier I guess. I'm sure it will be nice to have a HUGE American friend base out there for networking and other things. The odd thing is that there have only been about 20 or so people chatting in our Yahoo group. Where are these other people? Is there another group I don't know about, but am supposed to be part of?? I guess as long as I am in with these 20 people, it's better than nothing. So what have we been chatting about lately? Mostly packing issues, money issues, tax issues and arguing about how much of the language to learn before arriving in DC. My last Yahoo post posed 4 questions to the entire group....
1. What is everyone doing about money out there? There was no general consensus. I guess you can store up to $700 cash in a safe deposit box in the Kyiv headquarters. Some people are keeping their funds in their American account and using their ATM card there even though it is discouraged due to fraud issues. Some people are bringing travelers checks even that is discouraged due to the local banks taking such a high percentage. Some people are bringing some cash with them and having their friends/family bring more when they come visit. Others are opening a Ukrainian account. Others are bringing just enough cash to buy a cell phone and other incidentals, but really want to live without worrying about cash and live like the locals do. A lot of people plan on just pinching their weekly allowance enough to save up for travel and other entertainment. If I understand correctly, we get a weekly spending allowance on top of our living allowance and we also get 1/3 of out "big pay-out" immediately in payments of $250/month or something like that. The Peace Corps opens a local account for us where our earnings will be deposited weekly. I know I plan on buying a guitar when I get out there as well as things like blankets and a few other essentials. Which brings me to the next topic....
2. What's this business about sleeping bags now?? Apparently it is strongly recommended to bring a warm, lightweight sleeping bag with for traveling and the very cold nights. Seeing how we can only pack a limited weight and have limited space, I am lost for words. About 90% of the group has already purchased one and the others (including myself) are considering just buying one out there after we arrive. The same goes for these things called YakTrax which strap to your shoes for walking on ice. Do I seriously need these?? I have lived through some brutal winters and from what I understand, the winters in Ukraine are similar to those in Wisconsin so I'm thinking I can handle it.
3. What about travel? Does anyone plan on doing some traveling in their free time and vacations? Everyone said yes, after we are settled in, of course. It even sounds like we have a group interested in hitting up Dracula's castle in Romania, Rome, Greece and Amsterdam. That pretty much sums up all the places I want to visit. My friend Andras will be in Budapest over the summer so I plan on hooking up with him as well since Hungary borders Ukraine.
4. (I snuck this one in there hoping to find someone on my side) Is anyone NOT bringing a laptop? Not one person said yes. So apparently, I am the only one not bringing one at this point. I tried to sell people on the points of theft (you can get cheap insurance), weight of carrying it everywhere (they sell super lightweight ones), lack of internet (everywhere has internet now), and wanting to get away from the technology of the US (fat chance...it will be extremely beneficial in our work assignments, journaling/blogging, putting pictures on CD's to send to people, watching DVDs, listening to music and so on and so on and so on.) One volunteer currently out there said that bringing her laptop was the single best packing decision she made and couldn't imagine living there without one. Okay then, I still don't see how I'm going to be able to afford a freaking laptop computer. I have exactly 2 months to go and my employment is not guaranteed at this point. I have sold just about everythign I own including my car which I sold to my friend who is letting me drive it until I leave (sweet deal). Ultimately, my plan is to just stash away as much cash as possible and see where I am at come mid-March. If I don't have enough...so be it. I figure, life won't be over and I'll survive. STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES.

I have done some shopping. I bought a really nice backpack/carry-on for the rides and short training trips. I bought some warm sweaters since all the stores are clearing out their winter clothes. I bought a small ipod that holds 500 songs. I need to carefully choose 500 of my favorites out of about 20,000 MP3s. I knew it was essential though for the long rides/flights and those lonely nights. At this point I really wish I would have asked for more of this stuff for Christmas. I got a power converter and that was about it as far as practical things I can take with me. Now I am scrounging around at the last minute buying all this junk. At least I'm not the only one stressed about what to pack and what we might forget.

That's all I can type right now. I need to upload some tunes on this ipod so I can sell my computer and then I need to try to learn this damned Ukrainian alphabet.