Things Fall Apart...
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

I returned Sunday from a week in Miercurea Cuic for my In-Service-Training Conference and what a week it was! While it was great to see everyone again and learn that the lumps in my throat and the back of my head were swollen lymph nodes and not cancer - the minute my body heard "sign of a virus" it freaked out and I was not able to keep so much as water in my system for 24 hours. And no I wasn't vomitting. Luckily I was better on Wednesday.

But then, much to my distress, my computer became even sicker than I was with the monitor doing this scary blinking thing and the whole system resetting itself when the blinking was too much to oh, say, write an email.

While wringing my hands and shuddering at the prospect of sending my computer over seas to be repaired under warranty, my cell phone charger took a cue from my computer and broke - although the phone charger took a more literal meaning and actually collapsed into four peices.

This is when my bank decided it would be a good time to confiscate my debit card even though they know I'm in Romania and I've used the card in March and July. Apparently due to some techno glitch someone -not me-reported my card lost or stolen. I don't know how that happens. But by protecting me, the bank actually created quite a hassle for me - having to go back the next morning with a speaker of Romanian and Hungarian because it's a Hungarian town to get it back. Luckily everyone was friendly.

So it was not a good time for Skype to suddenly trap me in one of their incredibly inconvient for law-abiding Americans in Romania security systems which will prevent me from calling home.

Even the fact that the hotel we were staying at offered reasonably priced Swedish massages with a discount for staying in the hotel (and I had a 60 minute Swedish massage) did not curb my stress level. At one point I turned to a friend of mine, ticked off the list on my fingers and said "everything in my life is falling apart." To which he responded, "how's your cat?"

So not funny.

I could go on about how since I've been back I found out the free ride I was offered to a conference is no longer extended so I have to find my own way there and pay for it - even after I already made Thanksgiving plans. Yesterday I cooked the beans too salty and the mashed potatoes too runny, I waited for two hours today to talk to a woman who never showed up, my face has errupted into a mount St. Helen's style zit, and my mom is worried my birthday and Christmas package got lost in the mail...but I can only stress out about so many things at once.

So I'd like to close with a list of things I appreciate - and that are going well, as this has been my most stressful week in Peace Corps so far.

I really appreciate how Kwarou has gotten better since getting home and is hanging in there like a true campaigner. I don't think I'll be sending him home. He's de-fragging right now and I've got some other tricks to try before I follow the HP man's advice and wipe the Hard Drive and start over.

The spinach and sundried tomato, garlic, zucchini mushroom pizza I made myself this afternoon. I first discovered sundried tomatoes - 1 jar at the grocery store in July. It was september when I bought them and I finally got all the ingredients together in the same place at the same time to make my favorite pizza. My own homemade crust wasn't bad and adding Italian seasonings to tomato paste works for sauce. you hear that Romania, sauce not ketchup. Pizza sauce.

My computer scaring me into thinking total meltdown was approaching has helped me be a lot more productive lately.

Bella, even though she's bigger, jumpier (and on to more things) and bitey as ever, I really missed her while I was away.

free hair cuts - my friend Dru cut my hair over the weekend and I didn't have to pay a nickel!

a hot water bottle - Dr. Dan brought it to me a week ago when finding one in my town could have been a secondary project. Even when I'm carefully boiling water on the stove for it I'm grateful to have it.

So that's it. The worst stress I've encountered so far and I am not beaten. Breathing. Drinking tea.
It's going to be all right.