Engagement and the next steps

As the end of March approaches, I smile at the events of the past several weeks, at the long-awaited coming of Spring, and at the next couple years of foreseeable future before me. I have been fighting off a mild respiratory infection for the past couple weeks, thanks to the final throes of Winter in Moldova, and I have been thankful for the extra time (between coughing fits and long naps) to appreciate where I am in life, and to come to grips with the mountains of work that now lie before me.

On February 13, shortly after my last post to this blog, I officially proposed to Tatiana through a fairly-elaborate, romantic Valentine's weekend surprise. Following her affirmative response, we have been busy preparing for the wedding and figuring out the complex process of marriage and visa paperwork. As all aspects of bureaucracy, the visa process is mundane, so I will omit the details for now. The wedding preparations, on the other hand, are quite exciting.

Tatiana and I have decided on July 24-25 of this year for our wedding date. The event is two-fold: first the religious ceremony, which will be at a beautiful church in Chisinau, and then a day to rest and prepare for the crazy traditional Moldovan nunta (reception), also in Chisinau. We have already booked most of the venues and players, including the church, priest, reception hall, and musicians. Items still on our check list include the photographer and formal invitations. Initially, we wanted to keep the guest list fairly small, but it looks like the event will probably be around 120 people, which is still only "medium-sized" for a Moldovan wedding. More details to come, on that.

Last week, I also received confirmation on my admission to graduate school. I will begin my studies at Bentley University at the very end of August, this year. Bentley is in the Boston area, which I have heard is a great area. My course of study will be a two-year program combining a MBA and a MS in something called Human Factors in Interface Design (HFID). It's hard to briefly explain what HFID means, but it has to do with user experience, usability, and product design. I expect the program to be very intense and fast-paced. My only concerns, right now, have to do with the short time-frame in which Tatiana and I will be arriving and settling down in a country that neither of us have been to for a couple years, minimum, in a city that neither of us are at all familiar with. It looks like I will have a lot of support from the Bentley staff, though, so I'm sure there is nothing to worry about.

I am down to the final stretch of my Peace Corps service; I can count the months remaining on one hand. Time really has flown in this second year in Moldova. As I reflect back on it, I am very happy for all my experiences here. I wish I had been able to do more, and I wish I had been in closer contact with my good friends back home, but I've had a great time.

Tatiana and I plan to make a stop in Portland for about a week or two before we head out to Boston. I look forward to seeing as many of my friends and family as possible in that time, so if that's you, keep me in mind. We'll likely have some sort of Portland reception to which you will all be invited.

One last thing: I've started putting all of my irreplaceable photos online, starting with the oldest ones and working my way up to the present. I'm up to the end of 2007, so far. Anybody who's interested can take a look: Jeff's Photos.

Changes

Wow, it has been a very long time since I last posted here. The first semester of my final school year in Moldova has flown by, and I'm already well into the second. For the most part, my work at the school has leveled out to the point where I spend most of each class either observing, correcting essays, or helping students on a one-on-one basis. I have also spent a considerable amount of time developing a collection of English language tips for native Romanian speakers, which I am now beginning to make available online (link to come soon).

By the end of last Summer, I had effectively cleared the hurdle. The hurdle. All of my time since has been spent well and with the confidence that I am gaining a truly valuable experience. I have come to accept certain truths about Moldova, as well as about the nature of Peace Corps in Moldova, and this acceptance has led to a much more satisfying experience for me. It's no longer about changing the world (or Moldova); opening one pair of eyes at a time is just as good. Success can be as seemingly trivial as finally convincing one high school student that allowing their friend to copy off of their paper is ultimately going to hurt both of them.

Much of what was unclear for me, as of the writing of my last post on this blog, has become much more clear. I have been honored to spend my time with a remarkable Moldovan woman who never ceases to amaze me, and I have never been more satisfied in a relationship. I have set my sights on a couple MBA programs, taken the GMAT, and have an interview with my first pick school (Bentley University, near Boston, MA) in a couple days. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Thanks to all of you who have made efforts to keep in touch with me during my service in Moldova. It makes a huge difference to me to receive little messages from home from time to time, even if it's just a little thumbs up on Facebook.

Sper să ne mai vedem pe curând.

Thanksgiving in Non-USA

[Note: Apologies for the delayed post. My internet was down, and I had to go to Chisinau to post, this week.]

The deconstructionist in me takes every opportunity to cast doubt on the significance of anything by examining the value of everything in every way. The romantic in me wants to feel, and in doing so works in perfect counter to my deconstructionist side. My approach to holidays is therefore torn, and end up valuing my holidays substantially, but not usually for the common reasons.

I'm sure we can all identify holidays that are important to us. Among international (not to say 'global') holidays, I'm sure the Christian flagship celebration of a certain individual's birth jumps out to a lot of people. Somehow, the 'secular' though historically-Christian-based American culture has managed to give their Christmas to non-believers by turning it into a celebration of both miraculous birth and incomprehensible consumption. Hence, Christmas isn't really my favorite time of year. I enjoy the opportunity to connect with family and friends, though. Giving gifts is a great concept, too, but I appreciate that my family doesn't go over the top on the commercial side of this holiday.

I identify Independence Day (4 July) and Thanksgiving as the two most significant American holidays. All the others are either relatively minor religious holidays or little more than weak excuses to have a day off of work or get drunk or both. The Fourth of July is a blast, and I have a fondness for the fire-risk. But ultimately, I'd have to say that Thanksgiving is my favorite, among holidays.

Whether I'm studying at university or living in downtown Portland, I see little of my family. Thanksgiving is one of the only times of the year that I get to catch up with those most important to me. We gather at the house with the largest table, labor over amazingly simple traditional family dishes (made complex only by their vast quantity), and rediscover all the qualities we love and hate about each other.

This year, I'm volunteering half-way around the world in a country which either doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, or celebrates it so frequently that it no longer considers the feast a holiday. Because it is not a holiday in Moldova, we volunteers do not get the time off. Nonetheless, several of us have banded together to create a belated feast this Saturday. There was turkey, stuffing, huge mounds of mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (if you're into that sort of thing), warm rolls, pies, and all the trappings of a standard Thanksgiving dinner. We connected with each other like some sort of family: dysfunctional and slightly estranged, but generally happy to be in good company.

In all, it was great success -- I now feel tired and weighed down by the excess of food I consumed. Look for pictures, to come.

P.S. -- my contribution was a Zundel family drink recipe: Orange Slush. It was a great hit, and I have been asked to pass the compliments along to those who shared it with me. Thanks dad!

To experience...

Adapting to a new community is difficult, no matter where in the world you find yourself. Something makes you different, and that difference is often more of a hindrance than a help, when it comes to integrating into a new neighborhood or city. For me, that something is that I am American, and that I'm just not from around here.

What does that mean? It means that I don't fluently speak Romanian or Russian, and that no significant proportion of the families in town share my surname. It means that the closest thing I have to friends in town are the 10-year-younger students who attend my English classes. It means that I can't drink the well water, because I didn't develop a resistance to Giardia when I was a young child. It means that I drink my wine occasionally, and generally only in sips. And sometimes, it means that I spend a lot of time in my room, reading or typing emails or blog posts, because "becoming a part of the community" is going to have to wait until either the temperature goes back up, or my metabolism slows down enough to allow a protective layer of sub-dermal fat to develop so I don't chill to the bone when I decide to go say "buna ziua" to random people on the streets.

But I find that the town I'm in has a way of infiltrating me, making me feel warm and fuzzy, despite the frozen water-vapor that appears before me at each exhale. Sounds wash over me as I walk to school or the community center: the sounds of bells and chants spilling out of the church, like fog, slowly filling the valley; the muffled accordion playing cheerful melodies for the children inside the gradiniţa; the clicking of scoundrel dogs scampering across the pavement behind me. Autumn, come almost to a close, still strikes me with colorful, impromptu art installations -- sometimes at the tops of trees, sometimes at their feet.

Am I still happy here? I have to ask myself this question a lot, especially after a bad day in the classroom or unprompted social drama from my fellow volunteers. I came here for change, and to do something meaningful (again... for a change). While my happiness fluctuates pretty wildly, and the challenges are often frustratingly insurmountable (can I use an adverbial modifier on this absolute adjective? Why not.), I have to admit that I am still happy. The preconceptions I had before coming over were all completely overturned, but I'm still experiencing change. And with that, hopefully growth, as well.

The First Departure

Perhaps it is a tired cop-out to quote Monty Python. Nonetheless, it seems quite possible that Judith of Life of Brian fame said it best in her dramatic coup de grace: It's happening, Stan! Something is actually happening!! (I like to think that multiple exclamation marks were used uncompromisingly in all such absurd screenplays.)

It was all just a bunch of paper work and talk until this morning, when I picked up my bags and kindly boarded an airplane bound for Philadelphia, PA. I spend a few more days here before hopping the not-so-proverbial pond for Frankfurt and, ultimately, Chisinau, Moldova. I've said my good-byes, despite their myriad shortcomings (on my own end, I must say). I felt the strain of too much weight as my luggage cut unyieldingly into my shoulders and tortured my arms. Somehow, I inadvertently managed to procure an upgrade to First-Class on US Airways -- hopefully gratuit, though only time will tell. I even successfully lost and found an important document on the way to my hotel, where I now rest in uncharacteristic comfort, thinking little more than: Oh crap! What am I getting in to?

As the great, fictional Max Cohen frequently said: 8:45, restate my assumptions. Apparently, I have joined the Peace Corps, and I am now on my way to the Republic of Moldova. This is a small country, approximately the geographic size of the state of Maryland, with a total population around 4.4 million, the vast majority of which reside in a handful of cities. The capital, Chisinau (Key-sh-new), is by far the largest of these cities, at a whopping 600,000 residents. The country is land-locked (thanks to the Ukraine), has an elevation range of 2-400 meters (about 3000 meters short of the elevation range with which I am familiar), is former soviet-bloc, and is relatively rural (think "quiet" and "perfect star-gazing"). The economy is based primarily on agriculture and has never industrialized, due to the complete lack of mineral resources or a port. As far as I am concerned, the most important result of this non-industrialization is the sustenance of Moldova's primary export: wine.

I'll be teaching English to high-school kids, most likely in a village smaller than I can honestly comprehend, right now. I have never taught, to date, but I look forward to the opportunity. Honestly, I can't begin to comprehend the experience. Any of it. But let me tell you: I'm looking forward to all of it.

These next few days are the last I'll see of my androgynous homeland ("motherland" or "fatherland"? Neither seems to work, really) for over two years. Instead, I look forward to new languages, new passions, and new memories. I'll try to put a little of each of these into this blog, and I hope to hear from those of you who read it.