Last Week Of Training!

Hello people! I'm starting to realize I'm not that good at this whole blogging thing. Oh well, I have two years to work on it! So what's been going on? Well, I'm currently sitting in a computer lab at a hotel in Kingston. I arrived in Kingston around 1 pm today from my site. Oh yeah...we got our site placements! For the next 2 years, I will be living in a small community very near to Mandeville in the parish of Manchester. I won't reveal the name for safety purposes. Just know that I'm in the country (said with a deep southern hillbilly accent). I love it. It's so quiet and peaceful. The weather is so much cooler in Manchester. I can hear the wind blowing outside at night, and I don't remember ever hearing the wind blow since I got to Jamaica. I will be working at the primary and junior high school in my community. It's actually one school; the primary students come in the morning until around 12:15 pm, and the junior high students come in the afternoon until around 5:15. Apparently quite a few of the public schools here are set up that way. My job, as of now, will be teaching literacy but I also plan to focus on ICT. So lets just say I'll be an ICT Literacy teacher. The grade 4 students here in Jamaica have a literacy exam coming up on June 15, so my current plan is to focus on the grade 4 students who've been identified as having reading problems. I asked each of the grade 4 teachers to give me a list those students, and one teacher gave 14 names...all boys. Apparently, there's a current trend of boys lagging behind girls in school. Are the girls just smarter than the boys? Of course not. But I've heard that some teachers here actually believe that, and of course that affects the way the boys are taught. The girls are expected to do well, and most live up to that expectation. The boys aren't expected to do well, and they likewise live up to that expectation. No this isn't the way it is everywhere in Jamaica. There are some really good schools here. And some really good teachers. A lot of the problems here can be traced to lack of resources. But you know what? I've only been here for about 2 months! So there's no way that I have a good understanding of the educational system yet. Therefore, I will continue this subject in another post in the future once I have a more informed opinion. Anyways, back to my school. There are about 600 students and 27? 28? teachers. Love the teachers. And the principal. My principal is probably one of the nicest principals I've ever met. Yeah, I've only known him for a few days. But I can tell from the way he interacts with the students and the faculty that he really does care. The students aren't even afraid to talk to him. He jokes and laughs with them. That's new to me! I have a good feeling about my school and I see a lot of potential. And it seems as if almost all of them want to find a husband for me so I won't leave Jamaica. I'll keep you posted... Since school gets out around the end of June, I've been trying to think of some potential summer projects or camps I could do. Any ideas are welcome! Oh yeah, the reason why I'm in Kingston right now is because it's our last week of training. We swear in on Friday at the embassy...yay! I'll be an official volunteer. Now, the real fun starts.

Updates!

So, I know I haven’t really updated since I got to Jamaica. Sorry! I just haven’t felt like writing. I have stuff to write about. I just haven’t really had the energy. Training is from 8 to 5, so by the time I get home, I’m just ready to eat, chill, and go to sleep. And the heat is really tiring. The air conditioner has got to be like one of the greatest inventions ever, and I am REALLY missing it right now.

Anyways, I’ve been inspired to write a new post because another trainee’s mom (shoutout to Matt’s Mom!) read my blog, liked it, and thought I should write more. So I’m really gonna try to keep this blog running. The main purposes will be to keep friends informed about my life and/or general well-being and also to help fulfill the third mission of the Peace Corps which is “Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.”  Now I know you’re dying to find out the first and second missions of PC, so here is the full quote from my handbook:
The mission of the Peace Corps is to promote world peace and friendship by:

Finally In Jamaica!

I'm lovin it! I finally made it through staging and am now at a hotel in Kingston, Jamaica. So far, everything's been great. The food, the Jamaican people, the weather, and I really like my fellow trainees. Everybody's getting along and bonding and just basically excited to finally get started with training. I have a few pictures and a video which I'll try to upload later, along with actual details of what has happened the past couple of days. We've been really busy and moving around a lot so I have limited internet time. Tomorrow we move in with our host families, which I'm really excited about. And Monday, we officially start training. Thats all for now! More detailed posts to come later when I get more time to collect my thoughts.

Sooo, What Now?

It's a lazy Saturday afternoon. Currently I am sitting in my bedroom, enjoying the sunlight from my window, watching My Girl 2, and continuously procrastinating. My brother's playing Pokemon on the Wii (what in the world is so great about Pokemon???). And my nephew somehow stumbled upon the new We Are The World song on youtube and is currently in the middle of butchering Celine Dion's verse. I mean he sounds absolutely terrible. But I love him though :)  He's 9 years old and is definitely a future performer. He loves to sing and dance and show any and everybody within his line of sight. A coupla weeks ago, he asked me if I had ever heard of "the jerk" and proceeded to demonstrate it for me. He assumed that I'd never heard of it since i'm "old" and can't possibly know about all of the current dance trends. Little did he know that a few days before, I personally looked up the jerk on youtube so I could learn how to do it. You should look it up. It's not as easy as one would think. I mastered the "stanky leg" so I figured the jerk would be no big deal. But I was wrong. I tried in my room for a few minutes before I got tired and gave up. My goal is to have it down before I leave for Jamaica. I only practice when no one else is home though...can't reveal it til I feel like it's absolutely perfect, if that ever happens.

My brother is the complete opposite of my nephew. He's 11, quiet, and a nerd. He's a mini-me, except he's male and I lost my nerdiness my freshman year of college. I remember when he came to me a few years ago and told me that pluto was no longer a planet, but a dwarf planet...thats the moment I knew it, Jay you are a nerd. But again, I love him anyway. I actually like that about him. He always makes straight A's and is the top of his class. The achievement rate here in the Blackbelt, especially for boys, is pretty low, so i'm extremely proud of him. I hope and pray he can keep it up throughout high school. I'm really gonna miss my boys. I've been able to spend a lot of time with them since I moved back home and it's finally start to sink in that I won't see them for the next 2 years. How in the world am I gonna get on that plane in a couple of weeks and just leave them standing there? It will be hard. There will be tears. But I can do it. I'm hoping that my experience will inspire them to go after something they wanna do, no matter how abnormal or strange their pursuits are perceived to be. I want them to be able to resist the stifling attitudes around them that do nothing but suppress and limit their outlook and creativity. And I want them to not place so much value on wealth and material things, but to value education and hard work and use what they've learned to benefit others. I absolutely do not want to see them here 10 years from now, driving around the projects, bragging about what size rims they have on their car. I do not want to see them 10 years from now walking up and down the street all day and night, with no job or goals, except to get the new Jordans that come out this year. And if I hear one more dude walk past my house trying to rap, I am going to scream. Whoa, I got sidetracked...

Yesterday was my last day at work, so from now until I leave, I'll have a LOT of free time to organize and pack stuff. I need to make another to-do list so I can organize my thoughts, but I've been putting it off because, well, I just don't feel like it. And since I just found out that there's a Law and Order SVU marathon on, I doubt that I will get anything done today.

We've been getting a whole lotta info about staging and our first few months in Jamaica, and I'm getting really excited. It's like it's all becoming real now. After so many months of telling people that I don't know where I'm going yet, I finally have a country! Real dates! Itineraries! Plane tickets! Concrete evidence! I remember before I got my invite, how people would ask me where I'm going and when I'm leaving, and all I could say was possibly the Caribbean, sometime at the beginning of the year. And they would smile and say how cool it was, but I knew in the back of their mind they're thinking girl, you ain't going nowhere. Not everybody thought that, but I'm sure some did. Shoot, I started to wonder myself! I have a 6 am flight on March 17 from Birmingham to Atlanta, and then a 9:40 flight to arrive in Miami at 11:48. Registration is at 12:30 so delays can not and should not occur. Looks like I might be one of the last ones to get there since a lot of people are going on the 16th. I'm excited to finally meet everyone face to face and be around people who actually understand how exciting and frustrating this whole process can be. We're all from different parts of the country with different backgrounds and personalities, but what we all have in common is this decision to take a huge risk to go live in another country for 27 months and try to make a difference, while at the same time, growing stronger and learning more about ourselves and the Jamaican people. Only 18 more days to go!

6 More Weeks Til Departure!

And I'm getting more and more excited (and extremely nervous) as the 17th of March gets closer. Many of my coworkers are talking about it too. I just love how I'm getting more random comments spoken with a Jamaican accent. "Why does everybody think they can do a good Jamaican accent?" I asked this to one of my coworkers. She replied, "Dunno mon, mus be da ganja hahaha!" Ha. Ha. Cute. They like to joke about how I'm gonna go to Jamaica, get dreads, and smoke weed all day. And of course, EVERYBODY thinks I'm gonna find a Jamaican husband, which is probably one of the very last things on my mind right now. I'll be too busy trying to integrate and adjust to the culture, which brings me to another issue...

A current volunteer recently wrote a blog post in response to a complaint by another volunteer about the party posters that he designs for people in his community. Apparently they thought that his designs were counterproductive to their mission as Peace Corps volunteers. So he wrote a post basically asking for opinions about the posters, if they're appropriate, offensive, etc. Don't know if I should go into more detail...so I won't. Anyways, it got me thinking about how I'm gonna handle my "integration" process in Jamaica. I commented on the post basically saying that I thought the posters were inappropriate and why I thought they were inappropriate but that he should just pray about it (since I knew he was a christian) and make a decision from there. I already felt a little uncomfortable commenting since I don't really know the volunteer and haven't yet encountered the culture that he's in, but I'm trying to be more outspoken, so I figured this would be a good time to practice lol. Sooo, yeah, now I'm thinking about how my boundaries concerning what's right and wrong may become a little blurred, especially when rare opportunities to really get connected in my community present themselves. I guess before I thought of my integrating as simply coming in, observing the community, participating in things I didn't necessarily disagree with, and respectfully declining to participate in things that I did disagree with or that went against my personal faith or values. And that probably will actually be the case with some issues. But for others, it may not be so black and white. There really isn't a way to prepare for this, I just have to cross that bridge when I get to it, but I just wanted it to be known that I don't plan on imposing my ideas or beliefs on anybody. I'm willing to change, I'm willing to compromise, and I'm definitely willing to learn...I mean, it's one of the reasons why I joined PC!

My Tevas are here! I bought 3 pairs: the Omnium, the Ventura Cork, and the Mush. And I got that 50% discount...yessir! And you know what I've realized? Outdoorsy shoes aren't really that cute. But! They make my extremely flat, arch-deficient feet very happy. They are probably the most comfortable shoes that I've ever worn. Style has never really been a high priority for me, and I'm guessing that will be the case in Jamaica? I've heard that girls there like to dress to impress, but this might be one integration point that I'm gonna fail at, because it is highly unlikely that I'll be walking around my community in skinny heels.

Here is the Omnium and Ventura Cork, aka water shoes and comfortable flat dressy sandal:


And here are the Mush flip flops with the beautiful Jamaican colors:




When I saw these, I absolutely had to get them. It's like they were there just waiting for me come and search the flip flop section to find them. Is it too much, too flashy, too overly-excited-about-moving-to-Jamaica? Probably. But I like em, I've already paid for them, and I'm not sending them back :)

Darn You iTunes!!!

For making buying music so easy and convenient! For adding new music to my library with just a click of a mouse! For exposing me to new music based on my personal preferences! You're killing my bank account!

Sooo, I'm ashamed to say that I bought not one, but two complete albums, a total of 26 songs. Now that may not seem like a whole lot, but for me, whose student loan payments are piling on as we speak, it's money that could have been used more wisely. Maybe I should take my own advice about wasteful spending, hehe ;) Oh well, I'll work on it.

So the artist who has recently benefited from my hard-earned money is...drum roll please...James Morrison! Have ya heard him? I think I likes him :) He's British, so he has an accent (I love accents), but you can't really tell when he sings. He has an amazing soulful, sometimes raspy voice. One thing you should know about me is that I absolutely love soulful voices and music, just plain raw talent, without all the technical recording tricks. Sometimes I wish I could travel back to the '50's, '60's, and '70's just so I could hear genuinely good music in person. This crap that they make nowadays just does not compare. Well. I think I just sounded like my mother. Anyway...back to this James Morrison fellow...I like his voice, I like his style, and I think he's original. You should click one of the links below and listen for a bit. Maybe you've heard some his songs. I still can't believe that I hadn't. Holla!

Out with the Old, In with the New...yeah, I know it's cliche

Today I read an article entitled, "Americans seek silver lining in 2010." According to a poll, nearly three-fourths of Americans think 2009 was a bad year for the country. Forty-two percent rated it very bad :(  For the country as a whole, yes, 2009 may have been a bad year, at least in comparison to previous years. The job market sucked, homes got foreclosed, the economy was a little under the weather, etc, etc. Some Americans are justified in viewing 2009 as a bad year. But others...umm...I'm sorry you can't afford to buy anymore useless expensive crap that you don't need and that you plan to trade in for a bigger piece of useless expensive crap within the next year. I think 2009 gave a lot of people a wake up call about how they were spending their money and forced them reevaluate their priorities. Now I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with having expensive, sometimes completely unnecessary things that you want...as long as you can afford it (personally, I think there are quite a few ways that money could be put to better use, but that all depends on one's personal values and outlook). Being able to charge it does not necessarily mean that you can afford it, and I think a lot of people, including me, came to that realization this year. 

For me, I would say that the year went pretty well.  Like every year, there were things that made my life more complicated, things that made my life more interesting, things that basically had me on my knees thanking God that he allowed me to experience them, and things that had me questioning God and wondering if he even slightly cared about me. I've been stretched, squeezed, emptied, filled, and molded so many times this year and although it never felt good during those times, I know I came out stronger, wiser, and better prepared. Here is a little recap of my 2009, the good and the bad:

Bads: 

- Family issues flared up (can't go into details); felt (and feel) completely useless in helping the situation

- Failed to help bring other minorities into my campus ministry; convinced myself that it wasn't my responsibility

- Got my wisdom teeth removed (actually wasn't that bad)

- Took the long, dreadful, 8-hour FE (Fundamentals of Engineering Exam)

- Countless other personal disappointments that I won't mention; I can't put all my bizness out there for everyone to see!

Goods (happy time!):  

- Broke away from an unhealthy friendship; felt what it's like to be completely free 

- Finally let my guard down, got to know a few people better, and let them see some of the real me

- Got to see the pride in my parents' faces as I walked across the stage to become the first person in our family to get a bachelor's degree!

- Successfully passed the long, dreadful, 8-hour FE!

- Got invited to be a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica!!!

As you can probably guess, I am ecstatic about the year 2010! Only 11 more weeks to go and I'll be boarding that plane to Miami to start a new adventure and see what this development thing is all about. I'll finally be able to begin something that I've felt obligated to do for over a year now. That's so crazy to me...it was the end of 2008 when I decided to completely switch gears on my life plan and throw myself into an extremely unpredictable situation. Who's knows what's gonna happen while I'm in Jamaica? I don't, but I'm taking a chance and I'm ready to go. Today is the start of a good year...