Buzzwords and Acronyms

Well I made it.. sort of.

I'm in Washington D.C. for Staging, a sort of general weekend-long orientation session filled with icebreaker games and policy discussions. We speak about things like synergy and sustainability from the 15th floor conference room of our Arlington hotel. I've been making it though like I usually do... that is, with a healthy dose of sarcasm and a lack of taking myself seriously.

I have been meeting a lot of people, however, and the constant togetherness has been helping us get to know each other in a relatively short period of time. From what I can gather, it's a great group with a lot of fun and interesting people coming from all around the country, so I'm pretty excited about the next couple of years. I'm the only Floridian by the way...

Tonight a group of us walked around the National Mall for a bit after our sessions were over. I've been here in DC so many times, but this was a bit different. We got to see all the great monuments just after sunset, when the fading evening light hits the marble and granite just right, inspiring a sense of awe in anyone who happens to be standing there. Standing in the center of the WW2 Memorial at sunset was a memory I'll bring with me Bulgaria and cherish as a reminder of home. I feel like they send us away to Bulgaria from here for a reason...

Tomorrow is more meetings, more policy, more "getting to know you" activities, more of everything. It's grueling and tiring and overal pretty boring, but every meeting is one step closer to Bulgaria.

Random fact of the day: The Military Marching Band has a bigger budget than the Peace Corps. Now you know...

Until next time...

My Life in Two Bags

Well that settles it... 5 hours before I am scheduled to leave to enter the Peace Corps, I have finally finished packing. I have two bags, both packed to the gills with anything I thought I might need and might find difficult to buy in Bulgaria. I still feel that I can get rid of a few extra things, but the less money I can spend over there the better (I'm probably not going to have that much money...). The larger of my bags, according to a crappy bathroom scale in this house, weighs about 75 pounds, and that was after I took some stuff (that I deemed unnecessary) out. The smaller bag, which is also a backpack, clocks in at around 20 or so pounds. Am I under the Peace Corps mandated 100 lbs limit? Will I be assessed an extra fee before boarding the plane? Did I grossly overpack? I guess I'll find out very soon.

I'm flying out of LAX Airport at 7:30am PT. After "4 hours and 2 minutes" I'll land in Chicago. After a short layover (and if everything goes according to schedule), I'll be flying from there and arriving in Washington D.C. at 5:46 ET.

Being that I officially live on the West Coast now, the Peace Corps that it would apparently be easier if I flew into D.C. a day earlier, since staging begins at 2:00 on Friday. So I get to stay an extra night at the hotel, compliments of the government. Thanks! I'm sure that this extra night will go to waste, as I may promptly fall asleep after arriving in my room after a day of traveling.

On top of that, I don't think I can go to sleep tonight. The feeling of anticipation is too strong.

Until next time...

A Small Scare

Hey all. Just got my computer back up and running after a small setback. Turns out that my anti-virus software really freaked out and shut down my wireless connection. This in turn corrupted my drive somehow, and I had to ghost my hard drive... Meaning I wiped it clean, and lost all my files, pictures, music etc. that were on here. Luckily, I had most of the info on my external hard drive from when I transferred all my files from my old computer to the laptop. Sweet! So all in all, not a big setback, but kind of a pain because I have to set everything up again. At least it happened before I left the country!

Anyway, I just got back from a great trip up the coast with my mom. It was kind of a final American road trip before I have to really get cracking on preparing for service. We went from here in L.A. up the coast, stopping in several towns along the way, to San Francisco. The first night we stayed in this little fishing town called Morro Bay. Great little town. We had planned to do some hiking in the mountains along the coast, but there had recently been some fires and so they shut down most of the trails. It was still a great drive, however, with very unique scenery - very different feel from the East coast shores... San Fran was of course great, and we spent a day just walking around the city (we found it was pretty difficult haha). I was surprised to see that the city really is that picturesque and beautiful. There's not much else I can say about it. It's just one of those places that one has to experience themselves.

Tomorrow, after a hike to the top of Hollywood Hill, I'll start really getting down to finalizing my preparations for service in Bulgaria. I have more forms to fill out, last minute odds and ends to pack, things to print out, gifts to buy for the host family in BG... a lot to do, and ever dwindling time... Less than a week to go!

Until next time...

Two Weeks...

In exactly two weeks from today I'll be flying out of LAX to Washington D.C. to start my Peace Corps service and life in Bulgaria. It sounds weird to say that, and I'm sure it will become stranger as the day inches closer and closer... Weird, but in a good and exciting way. My anticipation grows as each day passes.

As for right now, I'm still just trying to relax and enjoy this time off. In the comng weeks, other than preparing for service, I have some fun stuff planned. This weeked, I'm going to spend some time at the beach here in LA, and then go on a road trip up the coast to Monterey. I plan on spending some time at the Getty Museum here in LA and hiking in the awesome mountains around this city. I might hit up Disneyland at some point as well haha.

The move went really smoothly, and pretty much everything is in the house here and organized now, save for maybe two boxes, which will porbably get taken care of today. This place looks really good, I must say. Glad I could do something productive during my month here rather than just sit around haha.

Two weeks and counting.

Until next time...