More postings to follow, but here's my address again:

Yeh Cynthia
Chriaftei Sat
Mastacani Comuna
Galati Jud
Romania


Yay Nastia and Shawn won some golds!! Hurray for them!! I am sooo proud. I am bummed for Nastia who tied for Gold with He (from China) but the gold was awarded to He instead (confusing name I must admit).

Mini update on my being: I'm teaching kids for 1 day and 1 week, and that's it for this summer. I am honestly tired...of the class? or what I'm teaching? or the summer, I don't know, but something is bothering me. Maybe I need to take a trip somewhere?
I'm going to Bucuresti Thursday to get some shots!, that should be exciting, but I'm talking about a different kind of trip.
My birthday is coming up in less than a month...maybe I can take a trip then. Where would I go? with who?

Hum, okay...I'm taking my bike to the local magazine (small shop) for a few items before they close, so gotta go for now.

Gymnastics Women's - sooo sad

I watched it. I woke up at 4:55am to watch it...to find out that it didn't start until 5:30am.

My TV isn't great, so I was jabbing a hairpin, and using aluminum foil to get a clearer signal. I could hear it and see it, but everyone had crimps, and for a sport where you want perfect form, I wanted no crimps!

Sooooo sad. I admit it, I wanted China to fall on their faces, just to give the US a chance. US is the better team! Sure China was solid on their landings, but we've got Nastia and Shawn Johnson!! They're soo solid and they've got flair and Chrisma! and Nastia has a ballerina's grace, which I think lacks with other gymnasts these days (being a former balleria myself (I wasn't a good one) I admire those with grace and perfect extensions).

Romania won bronze, but I think they set up to win just bronze. Their routines lacked the flair and determination that China and the US had in their sets, but they were consistant and they managed to beat out Russia by one point. The US lost to China by about 2.4 points.

US is sad, they were set for Gold. I am sorry for that girl that made such big mistakes that I think may have made the US lose. She knows it too, since Nastia and Shawn both made only small mistakes in their routines.
For their sakes!!! I hope those two win Individual all arounds and ALLLLLLLLL THE individual Events!!!! (They are good enough that it's possible!!). Go USA!

Get some golds US women's artistic team!!!!! We can do it!

p.s. No sight of any beach volleyball in Romania. They like Canoeing and Judo more.

I do like how Romania, the US, and China are the main teams we follow here (go figure =D )

Competitie Sportiv [Com-aiy-tee-zi-aiy Sport-tee-eve]

I got my stuff more-or-less-so back

A cop knocked on my door Saturday morning, and he kept knocking and ringing, and even though I really really wanted to ignore him, I got up.

I had a pair of biker shorts on, and a size L tie-dyed t-shirt I had bought from other volunteers. My hair I put into a pony bun, and I had my glasses and retainers on = I didn't look good at all.

Anyway, he told me the kid's moms paid up the sum, he asked me what I lost again, to guess the estimate, and he gave me 250 Ron.
I got almost all my stuff back: sunglasses, wallet and IDs and cards, hair brush, cables, etc...

What I was still lacking: my camera case, the spare battery to my canon camera, my hp usb digital drive (to transfer photos from camera to computer through USB), and my 1gb mini sd chip. Oh, and they stole about 60 ron I think....from my wallet. The last time I looked at my wallet, I think I had about 60...but I have a bad memory for basic everyday life things. I hope I got more and not less, but I'm stupidly fair sometimes and I tried to be as close to the target as possible.

Anyway: I got money, so now I get to buy everything new again. Whopdedo. =/

p.s. WTF! I bought a Kingston 2GB card from a large store (like a Sears or Best Buy) and it only holds 1 GB?!?! I checked the whole packaging and I tried to stuff more than 1GB on it, but it would not take. I think this circumstance is poop.

I'm GLAD I got all my stuff back, and I'm glad the people here are on my side, and not on the bad kids' side.

addition: Man I made a lot of typos here, but hey, I hope people appreciate the quantity here and not the quality. =)

Olympics!!!!! and the kids' olympics too.

I am soooo stoked about the Olympics. I've been a fan since I was 7 and I saw my very first Opening Ceremony.

However, I think a small part of me died today, because I don't know what: karma, fate,...but I was working on certificates and ribbons for the kids in my village, and I didn't finish all of them last night, so only after 5 MINUTES of watching the Ceremony my electricity died!! FOR 1 HOUR!, just long enough to miss all the cool stuff =(
Alas, I did finish all my ribbons and certificates in time to meet up with my kids this evening.

In Honor of the Olympics, because I am a die hard fan (I don't know how this happened), I decided to organize a week of sports for the kids. Monday-Friday we had: Handbal, Fotbal, Golf (this did not go well, and I don't recommend unless you a.) prepare all the holes first, and have enough balls for alllll the kids, each and every one, which leads to b.) limit the amount of kids to something you can handle and help cause I had 30-40 and it was too much, some left and I was releaved). On Thursday, we were going to race in the canal (but we heard that cows poop in it and we can get skin diseases) or do tug-a-war or volleyball near the water, but we ended up doing nothing Thursday due to what happened Wednesday evening (we were going to play: look for Cynthia's missing things, but the boys fled to Galati with what wasn't found yet), and Friday we had running races: short, long and relays.
I gave the winners cute ribbons I spent all night making (I didn't have enough stuff for all (I had no financial help, so doing all this took a lot of planning and creativity), so I will try to fix that this weekend because I know some kids are sad they didn't win anything =(, and I made a certificate (that my neighbors and I colored with colored pencils cause we have no colored ink) for all the organizers of the races (the heads of each sport), and for the referees I made mini picture frames with masking tape, popsicles sticks, and colored paper, and for the water girls committtee I put seashells I got from the seashores of Constanta on their certificate with calking gel =). It was a LOT of work, but that's how much I love the Olympics.

One of my life goals: in case one of you can hook me up in the future: to help organize the Olympic games. Unfortunately, this time around, they already have enough little Chinese girls helping out =) And they are beautiful!
It's funny how the two things I'm self concious about, is amazing in Romania: the girls have long legs and gorgeous eyes of all sorts of colors: yellow, blue, orange, gold, green, etc...

No pictures =( TBPSD => To Be Posted Some Day

Housekeeping Pics

Here are a random assortment of pictures, that I've been meaning to put up forever. They each tell a bit about life/things/habbits.

Here is my bike. Peace Corps paid for it. I bought it at a Walmart of sorts, and it was worth what I paid for. Maybe I should have been a bit more ...with my money, but returning things are really hard here.
A man who owns a store in our village picked up the bike with his supplies to bring it back.
The new mayor and his secretary went out to buy the bike with me...why? because he was the new mayor and he wanted to be a part of my volunteer life. Hey look MOM! I have a reason to use the camel back you gave me!!! I can drink while ridding now!

Here is a picture of Sunday's traffic. Everyone takes out their horse drawn carts to go to the Sunday market. We aren't allowed to work on Sundays here, and sometimes on random days I don't understand. Like this Wednesday we weren't allowed to do chores: washing clothes, gardening, etc... We way don't have this in my family in America. In my fam: Saturday = errand day, and Sunday = clean the whole house day and try to relax after too.

Here's a pic of my necklace!!! I wear it almost every day! When I don't, I wear the starfish necklace Aunty Anna gave me for graduation, but most of the time I wear this. It's like my trademark, and if you look closely here: you can see that I have a star shaped untanned mark on my chest. THAT'S how often I wear it, and I love it Charm, Thanks!





I was...I do play golf while I sweeping apples up in my yard for my compost pile. They have worms already installed and ready to merge [m-aiy-rjay](go or work). I put mostly. That is a broom we use here, and they're short for some reason: the top measures a little high than my knees.





Here is the kitten, he is a brat, and he's fluffy and cute and attacks my feet when I'm not looking.

Cats stay outside.

I don't know if he's smart or dumb cause he likes to attack the shovel too when I'm using it, and I Swear he's going to lose a paw that way.

Beachy excitement in Ro....but first: boys I talked to robbed me...

What they stole: my $140 sunglasses (they were broken and unfixable, so I didn't care about them that much), my wallet with more cash than usual, my CA ID, my Romanian ID, all my credit cards and some numbers and cards, my Keys!, and my Hp sd reader and my camera's extra battery.

Set up: I was playing and teaching golf to the kids in the community. It was actually a headache because the girls responsible for helping me didn't show, and WAAAAAAAAAAAAaay too many kids were there. I was frustrated, I was tired, and I was holding on, but definitely ignoring children at a point.

I had, seriously! about 40 kids with me, just me! no one else really older and responsible (well I had this one 14 year old girl, but she was really quiet).

Anyway, we were setting up, and I had some older boys come and play, and I knew them, so that was okay, but Other boys saw us and then started pushing and beating up one of my students! He's a little slow, but he tries really hard and he's a sweet kid (like Forest Gump). I told that bigger (15 year old? 16?) to leave my kid alone. I told those boys on their bikes to move out of the way of our game. They were up to no good, they were taking our home made golf clubs, and swinging at things and at some littler kids.
They said that was public area, I told them that they can stay here, but move out of our course.
I was frustrated with the, AND I had to say this all in Romanian...gar.
They wanted to play, I said it was only for our students (I really wanted them just to leave).

Later as I help my kids with the game, those bo...I didn't see this very well, my kids caught them doing it, the boys dug through my backpack (which was about 10 feet away from me, and not far from my little kids, but they're little) and stole my stuff and fled, on their bikes.
I had my boys on bikes tear after them, NOT to stop them, but to see where they went.
My boys found my keys, and my pack of 1/2 eaten gum.
I called the local police (no one responded), I called the police police but they don't understand English and hung up on me 2 times (I was told they Do understand English, but apparently not), and I had a girl explain the situation, but they told me to call the local police.
I then had some girls Go to the police station, but it was closed (the police don't live in the village, and they apparently have closing hours).
I called my counterpart (the old mayor) and he told me to call the police.
My counterpart then called the mayor, and him and 2 cars with men in them, went after the boys.

I waited...and they kids watched the boys flee and the mayor and them not going in the right direction.

People have told me that: the mentality in Romania is that there will be a crime going on, and people around it will pretend it isn't happening. This is what I was told.

Today, many adults witnessed what was going on, but only the kids were running and chasing the TEENAGERS who stole my things. These kids grew up here, and everyone knows them.
People told me to go to their houses and speak to their parents....I will tomorrow, but I'm going to give them a chance to give stuff back.
I told the locals Who Live near those boys, that if they SEE my stuff on the Floor, to Please give it to the Primaria, because I don't care about the money, but I do care about that other stuff.

Especially my hpdrive, because without it, I can't load pictures on to computers here. My computer's disk driver is broken, and all the computers here are too old to have scan disk readers.

Even my counterpart told me: why did you call me, what can I do? (I though: you have a car, and you know the people here, you can do a lot more than I can) He did call around though, and he did come out to pick me up and then drive me home.

The most important things: my cellphone was on the strap of the bag, so it was missed, and my camera was with me, and my keys were found, so it's okay. Everything else is not AS difficult to replace.

I've frozen all my accounts and stuff, cause even those those boys are young, it's better to be safe. I've heard those boys have a record of being not good, and ....they're gypsies....which is really not good for the stereotype (I'm not sure all of the, but some of them are).

Asta este (that's the way it is).

I didn't broadcast it, but I did tell some people that this has happened to me before Once when I was in HS and someone stole my wallet out of my locker, and in College (even though 98% of the time it's soooooooo safe at Poly that I actually deserved to be stolen from at the incident at Poly). I told them this so they hopefully won't feel more pessimistic about their people, so they know that it does happen everywhere.

This incident just happened to be outright revenge, than subtle theft.
My kids (my sweet kids) and I are going to go out and look for my stuff tomorrow, and ...I'm going to limit the size of my class so I can keep a better eye on things.

No pics =(...

Let's see what happens tomorrow. I'm going to the Police station tomorrow, and again, it's not that bad really, I'm just sad (which is way normal for having my stuff stolen). I have my telephone, and the keys to my house. I'm not supppppper attached to material things) thank goodness! I don't feel like I am at least ( I won't admit it at least, to myself).

Everything else will take some time to replace, but they're replacable, EXcept the flash drive and the pictures on it. That I'm attached to, so I hope I can find it tomorrow.

Anyway, I was at CONSTANTA last weekend, and it was beautiful and fun, and I have pictures..I loaded them on my computer yesterday, so they're TBP.

goodnight.