I heart Ewan McGregor

Yes it’s true. I heart Ewan McGregor. I discovered this love a few weeks ago, when I watched Moulin Rouge two nights in a row (this movie is one of my all-time favorites. If you haven’t seen it, go straight to your local video rental place, or Netflick/Qwikster whatever it’s called now, and rent it. That and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Both of these movies I could watch night after night and never get sick of). My love was further re-enforced when I watched A Long Way Around and A Long Way Down. These are documentaries that aired on BBC w few years ago. They are about the time that Ewan and his friend Charley rode, on motorcycles, from London to New York and then from London to Cape Town a few years later. They are fascinating. In light of my new found love, I decided to re-watch all 6 Star Wars, to see which was my favorite and to see Ewan, of course. Below, after I report on my life in MAD, you will find an open letter to George Lucas, explaining all my likes and dislikes in regards to the Star Wars films (in short, the first 3 are terrible, with a few bright spots, The Empire Strikes Back is the best, and I totally agree with the Ewok line, as put forth by Barney Stinsen).

MAD is going well. School is wrapping up. I give my final 6eme exam next Thursday, and my final 2nde exams on Dec 13^th and 14^th. So close to the end of the first trimester. The first one is always short. I think this trimester, but the time we finally got started, was something like 8 weeks. Not to mention I had to miss a week for MSC (more on that in a second). It will be nice to have a break. For some reason, I have really needed a break at the end of first trimester, but 8 weeks into the other trimesters I’m fine. It’s weird.

MSC was a success. So much better than our IST. The sessions were actually useful and there was loads of new information. One bit of information was unfortunate. The next English stages training will be done in a way that they will become TEFL certified by the end. We can’t get TEFL certification, at least at the moment. Our APCD (head of the English sector) is looking to see if we can take the test at our COS conference in June, since we will have been teaching for 2 years by then. We are hoping that he can make that happen, but the TEFL people could say no, so right now I’m not holding my breath. Teaching isn’t in my future anyways, but it would be nice to have, just in case. I ate a lot of food during MSC. It was insane. At site, I do breakfast and linner, with a snack thrown in on occasion. At MSC, I was eating 3 meals a day, plus 2 snacks. It was crazy, but I had to eat. It was a week where I didn’t have to cook. I can’t turn down food I didn’t make. That would be silly.

Thanksgiving was not Thanksgiving, again. People need to stop posting all their yummy Turkey Day meals on Facebook cause it just makes me sad. My site mate and I made spaghetti with homemade sauce and chicken biscuits, just like the pilgrims did. I also tutored my friend, so I got to watch Mulan as a special Turkey Day treat. We had to change our tutoring session from Tuesdays to Thursdays because, when I came back from MSC, the CEG had changed my schedule AGAIN. We were what, like 6 weeks into school by this point? And 5 points for anyone that guessed they changed it to times I already worked at the high school. I was pissed. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Again. Ridiculous. I am definitely telling the next person to work only at the high school, since they have their shit together. I finally got everything sorted out, so for those interested, here’s my new, hopefully final, schedule: Monday, 10-12 HS, Tuesday, 7-12 (with a one hour break from 9-10) HS and 1:30-5:30 CEG, Wednesday , 7-12 HS, Thursday 8:30-10:30 CEG. Tuesday is a long day, but it gets easier after that. Yay!

My Christmas plans are pretty wide open at the moment. I am still trying to make plans. Im not sure what’s all happening. I’m letting other people plan my life and then I will just tag along. It’s easier that way. We will see what people come up with! And, of course, once I know what my plans are, I will let everyone who reads this know. I probably won’t right another blog post until after Christmas, so you will have to wait in suspense. I know, not knowing what I’m doing is cruel to you, but what can be done? ;)

I have found another Xmas movie to watch, speaking of Xmas. Die Hard. You might at first think, really? Die Hard? But if you remember, its set during a Christmas party on Christmas Eve, so it counts! Gots to get my Bruce Willis on. I have already watched Love Actually and 5 of the Harry Potters. I am making progress! And I am listening to Christmas music as I type this. I definitely have more Christmas spirit than last year, when Xmas was Day X (get it?). Last year was harder, since It was the first time away from my family and I hadn’t been in country that long. It’s still hard this year, but I have been here longer and I got to see my family a few months ago so that helps.

Ok so there’s my life. It hasn’t been really interesting lately. Sorry! I have just been going to school and hanging out. Below you will find my letter to George and my Book list. Toodles for now!

Dear George Lucas,

Hello. My name is Megan and I wanted to tell you I am a fan of your work, in particular Star Wars. I recently re-watched all 6 movies and I was truly blown away by the movies 4, 5 and 6. The way you brought all the worlds together and the characters you created will stand the test of time. The first 3 however, while they do have a few good moments, are overall not that great. The plot is shaky and unclear, Jar Jar Binks makes me want to jump through my screen and punch him, and the fade in and outs are overused, particularly in the 3^rd movie. It was so distracting I could barely watch the movie. Every two minutes there would be a new fade-out. I feel like you were looking at PowerPoint and attempting to use all the different fade outs they provided (and I believe you may have succeeded).

Good moments did exist in the first three movies. Darth Mauls Theme has to be one of my favorite instrumental pieces of all time and the lightsaber battle between Darth Maul, Obi-wan, and Qui-gon (sorry if I misspelled that) was pretty good. The lightsaber battle at the end of Revenge of the Sith was great. I just really liked lava. I thought it added an element of danger that made the battle that much better. My favorite of the three would probably be Attack of the Clones, because Jar Jar wasn’t in it for more than a few minutes, Yoda got to kick butt, and anything with Christopher Lee makes me happy. I am tempted to say Revenge of the Sith but those fade outs really turned me off.

A New Hope, the Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi are excellent. Empire is by far the best. There is suspense, romance, witty lines, lightsaber battles and one of the best twists of any movie. I would never have seen it coming if I hadn’t already seen the movie. I like the Ewoks, even though I know a lot of people don’t (they must have been born before May 25^th, 1973. Watch How I Met Your Mother, Season 7, episode 5 for further explanation).

Overall, you couldn’t have done better with movies 4, 5, and 6, yet, for some reason, you keep going back and tweaking them. Some of the cosmetic improvements are fine (better effects when it comes to things blowing up, etc), but some of them are ridiculous. The versions I watched have you first set of changes, but not the newest. For example, it has Geddo shooting first, but not Darth Vadars “No!”. Geddo shooting first makes no sense. If he is a bounty hunter, you have to anticipate that he knows how to use his weapon. He wouldn’t have become a bounty hunter, let alone lasted long, if he didn’t, yet he misses Han Solo from what, a foot, and by a foot. It’s insane. There’s no way that would have happened. Essentially all you did was make Geddo look stupid. You did not make Han look better, but in my opinion you didn’t need to do that. He’s a smuggler. He obviously is going to defend himself if he’s about to be taken to his death.

In terms of Darth Vadar shouting “No!” at the end of Return of the Jedi, I cannot believe you added that. Watching it without the “No”, just made my conviction that adding it was the wrong move. The moment is so powerful without Darth Vadar saying anything. You watch him realize the good within himself and stop the Emperor. Adding words to the moment takes away the poignancy of the scene.

I hope you will stop altering your movies. Unless you are trying to make images clearer, such as what you did with the explosions, then there is nothing to change. Your movies are a gift to cinema (well the last three) and they need to stay the way they are. Changing events in the movies just decreases the value of those moments. Thanks for listening George, and I hope your day goes well.

Sincerely,

Megan

Books I’ve Read

Looking for Lovedu

Expat: Women’s True Tales of Life Abroad

The God of Small Things

The Book Thief (might be my favorite book I’ve read in country. I cried. Enough said)

I’m A Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

La Le-La-La-La

I don’t have any cool fact to start this blog post I’m sorry. It would be kinda hard to top last blog entry’s beginning though. That fact still amazes me. It just doesn’t sound like any fun. I am now about halfway through my first trimester. In fact, for the CEG I may have only 1 or 2 more weeks of teaching when I return from MSC. They like to give all their exams 3 weeks before the official end of school, so that for the last 2 weeks of school we can correct the exams with the kids (at least that’s what I think they do. I didn’t figure this out until 3^rd trimester last year. This year I will have one day correcting then I will be done. I don’t understand why teachers need 8 hours to correct a 2 hour exam. One of those things I will never understand). I am not sure if everything holds true next year. I will know after MSC. They wont have figured it out til then anyways.

So my students have slid down in my esteem. They were doing so well in the first week of school, being quiet and doing their work. Then the novelty of English wore off and now they are talkative, disruptive kids. I have had to get real mean. Its like they think they can get away with anything cause I am the Vazaha (the foreigner). Nope that’s not how this works. In my 2nde classes, I have yelled at them in my scary Megan voice (the one that only comes out after I have tried repeatedly tried to be nice about a situation that’s not going well) and called out kids individually for talking. In my 6eme, I have had the scary secretary lady, who handles discipline, come and talk to my kids and, for the first time ever, I kicked someone out. This boy was goofing off in the back and had been all class, even though I had asked them to pay attention and to be quiet so I kicked him out. When I talked to the other teachers later they told me I should have hit him. So if you think I was mean kicking him out of class, at least im not hitting him. But that’s the cultural thing to do here. I told them I couldn’t because we don’t do that in America and the started laughing. The boy did apologize (I made him so it in English since we had already learned that). Im not sure what all happened once he left my class, but I do know that he had to get his parents to sign his school book (with all his registration info, school info etc, in it), to make sure they understood what happened and he was crying when he apologized. Im not sure if the secretary lady hit him and I don’t want to know. In this instance, I have to be ignorant, cause kicking someone out of class seems to work, from a showing Im serious and ya’ll need to listen to me sense, and if I know they hit the kids that I sent out of class I don’t know if I could do it anymore.

Speaking of hitting people, my neighbor tried to steal from me again. I swear he might actually be a klepto. Since last October, when he stole from me, I caught him, and then his dad hit him in front of me, he has only come into my house like 5 times, most of those times within the last month. He always came with his sisters, so I figured it was fine. They would just look through my magazines. So he came with his littlest sister and they were looking at stuff on my table, since I didn’t have any magazines. I was reading but also watching them. I saw him pick up watch to look at, among other things he had picked up to look at. Then I got up and started to make lunch, because I had to go teach at 130pm. They left and I went over to my table to move things so I could eat and, low and behold, my watch is missing. I actually said, in my house, by myself, “that motherf***er stole my watch!” I marched over to his house and said “wheres my watch?” he immediately pulled it out from his pocket. I could not believe it. So after I finished teaching I went and talked to his dad about it and told him he was not to come anywhere near my house again. Since then, even the girls haven’t come by. I think the parents put the kibosh for all of them on coming to my house. I wear that watch every day. I think he was hoping I wouldn’t notice it was missing until later, because then he could show it off and potentially sell it. FML.

On to Halloween. I had a very Hanna Baker inspired Halloween. I watched 3 movies that I know she loves and we have watched together: Hocus Pocus, Practical Magic, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I also wore fun Halloween-y socks I had been sent and ate a lot of candy. Overall, it was better than last year. For Christmas this year, I am going to actually get in the spirit and watch/listen to Christmas movies and music. Last year it was Day X and I did not do anything Christmas-y. Not this year. I am going to watch Love Actually, Elf, It’s a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the animated version), The Family Stone, The Christmas Story, all 8 Harry Potter movies (in my defence, ABC Family does the 25 movies of Christmas and they include Harry Potter. If they can do it, so can I) and any other Christmas movie I can rustle up. I also have tons of Christmas music now, thanks to Haley, a PCV in Diego. I have Glee, Josh Groban, The Trans-Siberan Orchestra, Frank Sinatra, The Love Actually Soundtrack (which is AMAZING. If you don’t have it, get it NOW), and Harry Connick Jr. None of this can start until after Thanksgiving. Even though I wont be having a real turkey day, Christmas cannot start til T-day ends. That’s the Megan rule and im stickin to it.

I think that’s about it. I have just been teaching so I’ve been boring. I should have some good stories from MSC and I will post my Xmas plans (for the actual day. I am going to be travelling somewhere, but where at the moment is unclear. My friends and I have to talk about it at MSC) as soon as I know them. Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving and Go Dawgs! (wish I could be at the Apple Cup).

Book List

Cleopatra: A Life

The Emperor of Lies

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky

The Red Badge of Courage

Have I got a fact for you

Here it is: strong evidence suggests that one of Hitler’s favorite things was to have women poop on him. Im shocked Im just finding this out. You would think something like this would have come out years ago. And by come out, I mean come out to the general public. Im sure lots of people knew. This interesting tidbit of information came from the September issue of Vanity Fair, from an article on how Germany owns Europe, do to their suave money management through the last few years. Anywho, a fact like that cannot stay buried. It’s too fascinating.

On to recent history though. School has started again here in MAD, and boy, is the administration of the CEG trying to give me a panic/heart attack. Every time I go, to teach or to check-in, my schedule has changed. It’s ridiculous. I will get to that story in a second, but first some groundwork leading up to my stress-filled days with the CEG. I am teaching 11 hours this year at the high school (4 hours for 2 classes and 3 hours for the third. I have no idea why one class is only getting 3 hours) on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. I have had this schedule set since the beginning of October. I come back to site from Diego and I go to the CEG to set a schedule with them. I stand through their first meeting, of which all I understand is that this year there are 4 6eme classes, not 3 like last year. Then we break up into groups according to grade, so I talk to the other 6eme teachers. Nothing is concluded by the time I have to leave to go teach at the high school so I tell them I will be back the next afternoon (in terms of time, this started on Monday, October 10). So back I come on Tuesday afternoon, right when I told them, and there are only like 8 other teachers there. The CEG has a teaching staff of like 30. My hopes were not high that this was going to go well. Well after dinking around for a good 20 minutes we finally get down to brass tacks. I put up a schedule on the big chalkboard and we move it around a little bit, and I end up with a CEG schedule of Monday and Tuesday afternoons, teaching 2 of the 4 6eme classes (what no one decided to tell me was that this year we are teaching 4 hours for each subject. That means I am teaching 19 hours this year, when I thought I would be teaching 17. Well really 15 if you include the high school. Its more than we are supposed to, but It’s not a big deal. I will deal).

So I leave, thinking everything is fine. Well silly me. I should have known that that wouldn’t be the case. I go back to the school on Monday afternoon and they have changed my schedule, without telling me, to Wednesday mornings and Friday mornings. I was not happy. I had specifically told them multiple times I could not teach in the morning since I was already teaching at the high school, which at this point had already had a week of school. And I couldn’t teach Friday since we are supposed to try and keep Friday or Monday open in case we need to go talk to the bank etc. So then we had to change my schedule again. Turns out the physical education teacher wasn’t there so they gave me her slot for that day (yes even in MAD there is still PE. At least 2 hours a week. And they have to walk EVERYWHERE. No wonder, and I include myself in this, Americans are so unhealthy). Then we changed my Tuesday afternoons to Thursday mornings (the reason I couldn’t teach Tuesday afternoons? Having students take the same subject 2 days in a row would make them too tired. OMG). So I went back on Thursday and what has happened? If you guessed that they change my schedule again you get a gold star. Im back to Friday mornings. Well that was not ok. So I had to talk to the vice-principal again and get it changed. Now I am teaching Wednesday afternoon, which will make my Wednesday hell, but that’s ok (I work 7-12 at the high school and now 1:30-5:30. Ya I know). The reason they didn’t want to give me Wednesday afternoons originally is they have this thing called Aps on Wednesday afternoons for all the grades but 3eme (the 9^th graders). I have no idea what that means. I assume it’s some sort of admin thing. So they took the Aps away from 2 of the 6emes (only for 2 hours), but now they don’t have class on Friday, which I would prefer if I were them.

I hope my schedule is now worked out. I only taught on Monday at the CEG this last week, since I thought I was teaching on Thursday and I couldn’t do Friday this week (just for the week to keep it at 4 hours) because I had to come to Tana for our VAC meeting, which is where I am now. I have had a headache for like a week cause of this schedule crap. It just baffles me how no one seems to listen to me when I speak. I know my Malagasy is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar from perfect but I speak it well enough that if you pay attention and inference, you can understand what Im saying. I am speaking like 4-year-old level Malagasy. The vice-principal routinely looks at me like I’ve sprouted horns from my head.

This was kinda a long rant and I don’t want ya’ll to think that everything is messed up. Teaching at the high school has been really nice so far. My students are funny and everything has been going really well. I am giving my first exam next week. This first trimester is super short, especially since I have to miss a week for our MSC (mid-service conference) in November. I only have like 6 more teaching weeks for this trimester. I have to give a test in the third week or I will only have one grade. I hope my students don’t hate me! The schools are doing a new thing this year. They are giving everyone a 5 day weekend for the All Saints day holiday (which is Nov 1). It’s on a Tuesday this year, so I figured we would get Monday off, but Friday was a nice bonus. Not that it matters for me but it’s still nice.

So schools chugging along. I can’t believe I am already into my second year. The first year seemed to go so quickly, this summer especially, what with all the visitors and going to Diego. Man I wish I could have stayed up there and taught at the university. Those students cared (well more than my high school or CEG, but it’s a new year so maybe these students will care more) and it was so nice, weather-wise, up there. I have a lot of events happening though January, so these nest few months will fly. Once Second trimester starts though, I don’t really have anything to look forward to until my Easter Break. I have some big plans in the works but I wont divulge them until they are set in stone. They are very loosey-goosey at the moment and Im afraid if I write them down then they wont happen!

So the other big thing that has happened is my birthday! Thank you to everyone who sent me something: My parents, Joe, Brian; Dolores, Dick and Colleen; Chrissy, Rachel, Katie, Bebe, Corliss, and Brenna, and Hanna (H, as Im writing this I haven’t gotten your package yet, but I know I will! I will let you know when it gets here). I really appreciated those packages. And thank you to everyone who wrote on my FB wall. This year I went into Antsirabe for the day, because the PCV who lives in Antsirabe has my Bday too! She wasn’t in Antsirabe last year, which is why last year I stayed at site. We ate a lot of food, and drank some better than expected MAD-made wine. It was nice.

Well that’s it for now. I will post again before my MSC conference, which will be in November. Happy Halloween to everyone and post pictures of all your costumes! Can’t believe I am missing another Halloween. Only my second favorite holiday , behind Thanksgiving (I mean, who doesn’t love a holiday where all you do is eat, drink beer, and watch football? It’s the perfect holiday).

Also, real quick, here is a list of things I don't need people to send me anymore, since I have so much of it! baby wipes, hand sanitizer, kleenex, lotion, body wash, razors, basically any and all bath stuff. I have tons of bath stuff!

Book List (short this time cause I have been reading a lot of magazines)

The Reliable Wife

The Rooftops of Tehran

Is America a place?

That sentence was actually uttered by one of my C level university students (a junior) during one of my classes. The assignment was to write a paragraph about where in the world you would like to visit. America would qualify, if you knew it was a place. It took everything I had not to make a remark or smirk or laugh. I just couldn’t believe she was asking me that. She later asked me, after I had told the class that their homework was to write an essay on why I should visit Madagascar and then used Seattle as an example (and by example I mean I outlined a whole essay on the board for them to see), if Seattle was a place. I kinda get the feeling that she doesn’t know what a place is.

The other blog title for this entry could have been ‘why, hello there invasive diarrhea. How nice of you to stop by’. Ya I got that. Its my first real big illness I have gotten in country. I thought I had malaria. I had the chills, my body ached so bad I couldn’t move, had a low grade fever and like clockwork, every 3 horus I had to use the bathroom. Turns out, not malaria, but invasive diarrhea, which I got from eating street food. This happened my second week in diego so no more street food for Megan after that. That was a bummer, cause the street food sandwiches are so cheap and tasty. I should have known though. Other people have gotten dysentery from that kind of food. I was just holding out hope that I would be lucky and miss out on any illness. No such luck.

So this past month (all of September), I have been in a city called Diego, in the far north of the country. If you are trying to find it on a map it might be called Antsiranana. That’s the Malagasy name and the one that is more commonly used on maps. It’s the furthest city in the north and its wonderful. I never wanted to leave. There is so much to do there, so much to see, so many cool things to buy. I was up there for a reason however, beyond sightseeing. I was working at the university. I taught academic writing to C and D level students (juniors and seniors), in a workshop style, for a month. I mostly taught the D students, but the C class got 8-ish hours of my time every week. In total, I worked about 2o hours a week, which is more than I thought I would be teaching, but it was fine.

The students were fine. I got to know my D students more, just cause I saw them so much more. I actually knew their names. Since I saw them more, they had more assignments to do. They had to write a research paper for me at the end of the month, where my C students just had to write an essay. Every class period started out with all students writing a paragraph about the topic of the day. I had them write about why they chose to be English majors, what they wanted to do after they graduated, where they wanted to go in the world, what super power they would have, yada yada yada. Then after they finished, we went over the mechanics of writing. One day it was paragraphs, another citing sources, another capitalization. Then they usually had some time at the end (these were 4 hour block classes for the most part) to work on their papers that were due. When my D students were writing their research paper I gave them class time to research, just to make sure they actually researched.

I did have to fail half of my C class. My D class everyone passed, except the 2 students who never came to class. They failed. But my C students were a different matter. 5 people didn’t turn in their final paper, so they failed and then 6 people copied and pasted information from online onto their papers. The topic was why a visitor should come to either Diego, Nosy Be (an island that a lot of people vacation on) or to Madagascar in general. So these 6 brainiacs thought I wouldn’t notice that they were writing in perfect English and that the words they were using were words I knew they didn’t know. When I talked to the whole class about this, I told them they should be making mistakes, that even great writers make mistakes and as non-native English writers there are very specific mistakes they should be making. When I don’t see those mistakes and instead see perfect English, little warning bells go off in my head. 2 guys approached me after class to talk to me about their cheating. One guy apologized and asked if he could re-write it and I said no. The second student started arguing with me about how I should have given hi partial credit cause he only plagiarized a paragraph and a half out of 5. I said no, that’s not how this works. He had lifted his whole first paragraph from one source. He kept telling me I needed to give him partial credit and I kept saying no. He finally gave up.

Diego the town is really cool. There is a brand new hotel there that has a swimming pool you can use, and I did. Twice. There is also a beach about 20km from Diego that we went to twice as well. I say we because there is another PCV in Diego who is teaching at the university. She is still teaching there through December. We did a lot of stuff together. (wow sorry my English isn’t the greatest at the moment. I guess all the intense English teaching the last month has fried my brain). I also went to my friend Jasons site for a festival. Well it wasn’t really a festival. The town was christening a new monument for women in the town. They even slaughtered a cow right in front of us. It was off to the side a little bit, so we didn’t actually see the animal die, which I didn’t want to anyway, but we saw the pieces of cow being carried off to be cooked. Yummy. We had to sit up with the mayor and other dignitaries, and it was real hot that day. Way too hot to be sitting out but at least we were under some shade. The town had a concert that night but I didn’t go. I was too sleepy.

Well below you will find my book list eventually (I am posting it without the book list cause the list is upstairs and I am being uber lazy right now, but eventually I will get up, get it and type everything out). Have a happy day!

Shock Wave

Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Hunger Games

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

Sarah's Key

Why do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? More Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Whiskey Sour

A short History of Nearly Everything

Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need

The Bourne Identity

Coyote Blue

I am Nujood, Aged 10 and Divorced

Mozart's Blood

The Irresistible Henry House

You know you had a good vacation when you gain 10 pounds

To be fair, Im not sure I did gain a full 10 pounds but I definitely gained weight. But that’s what great vacations are supposed to do so im happy and content with it. It just means I need to go back to my two meals a day schedule (which I do cause im lazy, but it seems to work out ok) and I need to start walking again. I get a little bored just walking around my town but I need to do it. Well now that I’ve confessed my deepest secret, its time to tell ya’ll about my fabulous vacations.

First up though, I had to kill about 3 weeks from the last day of school/school-related activities till my parents came. I went to Tana for the 4^th of July, which was fun. I got a hambuger and a coke for lunch, just to feel uber-American, then went over to the Marine commanders house for dinner and 4^th of July festivities. It was bittersweet since the Marine commander and his wife, who have been nothing but wonderful to any and all PCV they have seen, were leaving to go to mainland Africa a few days later for a new job. I also managed to get some work done, a few PC documents I need to do. Then I went back to site and cooled my heels for 2 weeks. I read, watched movies, typed up the 6eme guide that I am going to start working on next month, and took a few hikes. Also made a lot of food and I still worked at the hospital on Thursdays. I left 5 days before my parents came to go to Tana to get my teeth cleaned and finish all my last minute errands. Good thing I went as early as I did since my dentist appointment got screwed up so I had to go back 2 days later. Not really sure what happened but the office is close by downtown, where I had things to do, so it wasn’t a huge inconvenience.

My parents got here finally and it was so exciting to have them here! Or course their flight was late so we didn’t get back to the hotel till about 2am. And we had to get up at 530am to go to my site (I usually get up at 6am but my parents wanted the extra time just in case). It was a shock for them to see the condition of Tana and this was just driving from the airport to the hotel. They couldn’t believe the state of the buildings or the amount of trash in the streets. It is shocking if you’ve never seen anything like that before. They were happy to have made it to Madagascar though, and excited to see everything.

We had fun at my site. We walked out to the high school and up this big hill so my dad could take really good pictures and made a lot of food. Christiane, my site mate, came over to help with the food and to meet them. My parents stayed at my house and I stayed with C. there is a hotel in town but there’s no reason to go there if there’s not more than 2 extra people coming to my site. after my site we headed to Fianar, since we were doing the RN7 trip. RN7 is the major highway south of Tana. It goes from Tana to Toliera in the southwest. Lots of tourist take RN7 cause there are so many interesting things to see right off of RN7. Anyway we picked up James, my friend who lives in Farafangana, and his brother, who were going the same direction we were and we figured we would give them a ride and save them money and time. And keep their legs from dying in a cramped taxi brousse (I did make my parents take not one, but two taxi brousses while they were here. We took them to get to my site and then into antsirabe where we were meeting our driver. They were a little shocked that that was how I got around, especially when they saw the brousse station in Tana, which is awful. Everyone is yelling at you, trying to take your bags so that you will take their brousse etc. Its not to obad when you go to my site, since there are only like 4 brousses that go daily and they all work together, but getting to my brousses means you have to go through the Antsirabe brousses and that area sucks. I refuse to go from Tana to Antsirabe if I can help it. That’s how much I hate it).

Anyway we meet up with my friend Amber in Fianar and went to the really good chicken place, where you pick out your piece of chicken and they grill it right in front of you. Yummmmm. Then Amber cam with us to Anja reserve, which is about an hour and half from Fianar and about 15 minutes from Ambers site. There are tons of ring-tailed lemurs at Anja. In fact, that might be all they have there. Anyway they were awesome and my dad got a tone of good pictures of them. They are so cute! We had to stop at Ambers house on our way, since my mom had tweaked her ankle and I need to wrap it for her. I have become a pseudo expert from watching Hanna wrap my ankle all those times. Thanks girl! After the reserve we went back to Ambers site to see her house and eat lunch then we headed out to Isalo national park, which is basically halfway between Fianar and Toliera.

Isalo was amazing. I had heard only good things about it and the park did not disappoint. We stayed at a real swanky place since all the other places my mom had tried to make reservations at where full. We eventually found out that the next day was the Isalo Rock Run, where people run something like 100km and have to sleep in the park and everything. It takes the fastest person like 22 hours. Doesn’t sound fun to me, but to each his own. So this hotel was insane. The rooms were so nice and the food was amazing. And to top it off we got the resident rate cause of me. Score! We spent 2 nights there and just loved it. The park was gorgeous. It is a desert park, not lush rainforest, and had some crazy rock formations. We spent something like 4 and a half hours walking around. Our guide was really nice and informative. We saw lemurs, but this park was more about the scenery then the animals. After Isalo we went to Toliera, were we just had lunch, then headed to Ifaty, the coastal beach town about an hour north of Toliera. We were only there a night but it was nice to just lie on the beach the next day. We were thinking about going to this park nearby to see trees and such, but we were too tired and low on money (we didn’t realize our money situation until we got out there. Oops). We could have gone if we wanted but it wasn’t worth it. Then we flew back to Tana and met up with BRIAN! We spent my mom’s bday together and went to 2 good restaurants and then my parents flew to South Africa the next day. It was a great trip with the fam. The only bad thing was my parents had one of their suitcases stolen, but our driver filed a police report and we (well they) are moving forward filing a claim in America. My dad lost a lot more stuff than my mom and all their souvenirs, but I have been steadily replacing the souvenirs. I have replaced about ½ of them so far. The rest will come.

It was so exciting to have Brian here. He was here for like 3 weeks and I think that was the longest time we have ever spent together. Our relationship is weird. We may have been together 2 years now but in total we maybe have spent 4 months together. I think brian has done the math. At least we know we are really good travelling together. We are very go with the flow, though brian might say im not as go with the flow, though here you really have to be. We didn’t go as fancy as I went with my parents. We broussed everywhere and stayed in cheaper places. It was so much fun. We stayed at my site for a while and walked, did laundry, read, played cards and watched movies. We watched all of Game of Thrones, which I highly recommend to everyone. It is amazing. Brian and I are going to read the books together, since I just got like 1300 kindle books from one of the new trainees and it included those books.

Our big adventure was to Ile St Marie, the island off the east coast of MAD. It is amazingly beautiful and its whale-watching season right now so we saw a ton of humpback whales. But I am getting a little bit ahead of myself. We stopped in Foulpointe for a night on our way up, which is where my friend Bobette lives and we had crab curry that was to die for. It was so good. And it was just a split second decision to get it. We were both a little hungry and wanted an appetizer so we got beer and crab and we so happy. Fouplointe was a nice sleepy beach town and it was good to see where Bobette lives. Then it was off to Ile St Marie. We stayed at a hotel called Le Libertalia and it was so relaxing and chill. We never wanted to leave.

The first full day we were there we went on a whale watching trip, which was so cool. We saw a mom and her baby and the baby just wanted to jump all over the place. We also followed a pod of 6 whales for a good 45 minutes all over the place and one of the jumped so close to the boat I think some water splashed the side. It was crazy and no one saw it coming. The whales had all been on the left side of the boat so that’s where most of us were looking and this whale jumped on the right. We all saw it cause people shouted “whale!” as soon as it started to jump. Lots of tail and flipper slapping. Later in the week we also saw a lot of whales jumping from our hotel, which had this cool jetty you could walk out on and get a really good view of the water. It was crazy to see all these whales. Its whale mating/birthing time, which was why there were so many. Our boat was all French tourists and a French guide so we just sat there and talked to each other. Which is pretty much what happened all week. Most people we ran into were all French tourists.

We had a few days of just laying out, getting our tan on, and relaxing. It was so nice to just be for a while. We walked into town a lot, which was only 2km from our hotel. Had a lot of great food, in particular we ate a lot of seafood. We were on an island and I do not trust seafood far from the body of water it lives. As a result I don’t eat seafood at site. no thank you. Brian and I had a crazy adventure one day, though it was mostly brains adventure. We were out looking at whales and all of a sudden a pirate ship just showed up out of nowhere. We never saw it coming. They all were mean-looking and I swear I saw one who looked just like Captain Morgan. It was nuts. They had harpoons and were about to start throwing harpoons at the whales, which included a little baby. Well brian, being the lover of animals he is, just wouldn’t let that happen and as the first pirate through his harpoon brian leapt from the boat and grabbed it with his bare hand and landed right in between 2 whales. The pirates were terrified. They had never seen someone leap like that. Brian came out of the water looking very threating and started yelling at them. The pirates hightailed it out of there. The whales were so grateful they named Brian Protector of Whales and gave him a crown of seaweed. For his troubles brian did get a nasty cut in his hand which required stitches, unfortunately. The hospital was very fast though and they stitched him up real fast. And all for $25. Can you believe that happened? I still can’t

Brian and I had a wonderful time on Ile St Marie and we never wanted to leave. Alas, we had to leave and get back to Tana so brian could catch his flight. It was heart-wrenching but it had to be done. He left a few days ago and I miss him fiercely. I want him back. I don’t know when I will see him next. I enjoy being a PCV but I miss brian so much. I am down to under a year of service until I can COS (close of service) so I will be home soon. Ish. I have a to preoccupy myself til then though. I am leaving in a few days to go to Diego, in the far north of the country, to teach at the university up there for a month. I am also working with an NGO, helping them with the schools they sponsor in Diego. It will be a quick month I think. I have never been to the north and it will be exciting. Plus I will be doing work, instead of just sitting at site twiddling my thumbs for a month. I have to be back at site by no later than October 2^nd, because school starts the 3^rd. Then in October I have VAC, the volunteer meeting, then in November there’s our MSC conference for a week, and after that my friend Katie is trying to come to site to help me do a world map on one of the schools walls. I haven’t figure out which one yet, but I will do that in October. We haven’t gotten permission yet for her to come but I really want her to since she will have done 3 world maps by then and as most of you know my brother got all the artistic genes in the family. People tell me its easy but I know I would mess it up. Then its December and another xmas trip to plan. Not sure what im doing. Depends on who alls here. Then its 2012! Don’t’ have any big plans in 2012 yet. My godfather might be coming to visit and I want to do this river trip to Morondava, but those are the only big things that would be happening then. I think next summer I want to do training, helping out with the newbies who come. I think that would be fun and then I wouldn’t have to search for something to do next summer. Well unless I don’t’ get it. But I have to have the attitude I will.

Well im sure everyones eyes are bleeding by this point and I need to actually get dressed and get about my day. Gots lots to do today. I do want to add that in honor of Shark Week, which I am missing for the 4^th year in a row (I can’t catch a break!), I watched Jaws. True I watched it a few days ago, so Shark Week was already over by then, but I was on vacation. I think the sharks would understand. Hope everyone is having a great summer, kicking butts and takin names. I will post again sometime in September, before I head back to site. Later!

Books

The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty

The Virgin of Small Plains

Murder in the Marais

A Thousand Sisters

The Secret Lives of Dresses

The Other Queen

Girls in Trucks

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory

In A Sunburned Country

The girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing

Family Ties

The Things They Carried

One Day at a Time

Shes Come Undone

Where Men Win Glory: The Pat Tillman Story

Island of the Sequined Love Nun

The Oregon Trail is alive and well

Dysentery? Check. Malaria? Check. Giardia? Check. Scarlet fever? Check. Crazy animal/insect bites? Check. Daily struggle to find and clean water? Check. Not showering as often as you would like, since it’s out of a bucket and freezing? Check. The same food over and over again? Check. The only thing the Oregon Trail has over MAD is I haven’t had to circle my wagon and defend against a Native American attack, though the equivalent, taxi brousse robbery at night, could very much happen. Not that I’m expecting it to anytime soon since we aren’t allowed to ride taxi brousses at night. Man I wish I had that computer game. If anyone has a copy that would work on Windows 7 I would love to have it. Also Rollercoaster Tycoon. Two great games.

(this blog could have had a lot of different titles. It has been an eventful 3 weeks. The alternate titles? I shot the moon! (first time I have ever done that. It was so exciting! And in my first hand of the game. I have tried a few times to do it but always missed a heart or two. This time I didn’t even try and voila! Ps. This is in regards to Hearts) or Wankle strikes again! (I stepped on a rock funny. I am totally fine. Ankle swelled a little but lets be real it’s always a little swollen. I need Hanna and her ace bandage skills! Takes me back to AXO’s formal when Hanna had to wrap my ankle. Good times).

So one last little recap of Fianar. It was great! Amber and I got a lot done re-writing the 2nde guide, so it was a good trip. The next weekend was our VAC meeting which was great because Shayla, my friend who is way far away yet still part of my VAC region, actually got to come to VAC. I hadn’t seen her in 6 months so I was excited. This VAC was also fun cause we have 7 new people in our region from the March group that just finished training. They seemed cool. None of them are close to me so I don’t know if I will see them a lot outside of VAC, but its good to have more people in our region. And I think we are going to get more people after the July group finishes too. We went to a new restaurant in Antsirabe that I have seen and known about but never been to. It was good. We all went out Saturday night to the only club in Antsirabe. I use that term very lightly. It was fine. I am not a fan of drunk Malagasy’s. Most are not fun, keep to themselves drunk, at least around Vazaha’s. They tend to get rowdy and fight more than I remember drunk American’s doing and it just gets uncomfortable. It was good to hang out but I wasn’t feeling too good so I left earlier than everyone. Turns out the reason I wasn’t feeling good was that I had strep. My friend Brianna got strep AND scarlet fever. Glad I escaped the scarlet fever, though I have a sneaky suspicion that I gave her the strep. Sorry Brianna!

Faratsiho is fine. I am officially done with school! I turned in my grades for the lycee and all I have left to do is give the CEG my grades for my 6eme kids. Its exciting to be done. I have accomplished something! And though my kids don’t care, I do have a few that do and I can tell they have learned something. One girl essentially got me through the school year. She never got below a B average on any test and most of the time had the highest test grade in the class. She even got a perfect score on the last exam. I was so proud of her! It made me feel so good that someone was listening. It was exciting to have someone actually study and pay attention and learn the material. There were a few others, including the woman I tutors sister, who did pretty well and didn’t fail everything. My 2ndes were better, grade-wise, but there was still one very quiet guy who did the best who got me through the semester. He was just like the girl in my 6eme classes. I hope things stuck. I did find out that the 2nde class I teach is the bad class, the class with the worst grades overall out of all the 2nde classes (there’s 4). Once I found that out, which was sometime this trimester, it all made sense. Of course I taught the bad class. That’s my karma.

I am getting all the final reservations for my parents trip. Doing a lot of errands for it the rest of this week. I am excited that they are coming. It will be interesting to see how they like MAD and how they get along here. And exciting news BRIAN GOT HIS TICKET TOO! We are going to go to Ile St Marie. I am not sure exactly what his ticket deal is, since he texted me 12 hours ago about it and hes been at a wedding but I will find out. YAY!!!! I am so excited!!!!

One year down, one to go. That’s not really true, in terms of actually time, but that’s what it feels like since teaching is my primary assignment. I only have one more year of teaching left. I won’t know what I’m teaching next year til the end of September or beginning of October but I want to work primarily at the lycee, since this year I did mostly the CEG. Trying to make it fair. I am movin and groovin!

Book list:

The Bitch

Unaccustomed Earth

The Wedding

Let the Great World Spin

The Scent of Rain and Lightning

The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

We made mac n'cheese yesterday and it was bomb

This weekend I am in Fianar, working with my friend Amber on re-doing the 2nde curriculum guide. It needs new exercises, more explanations and more Malagasy translations. At least its better than the 6eme guide, which has nothing in it (my goal is to re-do that one this summer/next year). All the other curriculum guides are much better, even the ones for the grades we aren’t allowed to teach. I don’t know how 2nde and 6eme, the two grades PC teaches in the most, got the shaft. Amber is also going to help me grade 130 tests. Yay! For me. Not sure if Amber feels the same way but she agreed to help. Its just 6eme so its easy to grade. Just takes forever.

I am still chugging along with school. This trimester I have had a lot of days off so far. I was gone a week for the Education Program review, I had 3 ½ days off from my CEG because they were having some sport festival (and of those 3 ½ days off, I would have had class everyday but one so that was nice, even if it is putting my classes behind in my master teaching plan) and this month I have at least 2 Mondays off, one for Pentecost and one for the National Holiday, June 26^th (their version of our 4^th of July. And I think I have it off. Pretty positive). Its on a Sunday this year. My high school told me I had it off and they are the only place I work on Mondays, but then this week they told me I have to be done teaching by June 20^th, which is the Monday before. And I know my CEG is giving their finals the week of the 27^th I just don’t know which day the English final will be given. If I was a betting lady I would say the 30^th, since the last 2 trimesters its always been on the last day of finals and it looks like my CEG will have finals on Monday the 27^th. I will just be in my house though. I have almost finished the curriculum for my 2nde students so its not too big of a deal to end so early, but it does mean I can’t give them the oral exam I was planning. I don’t have enough time to prepare them. I wish I knew all this months in advance, instead of a week and a half before. Makes life a little frustrating.

Site has been fine. I had a bad stomach thing for a day that completely knocked me out. I think my body was protesting the return to food I cooked myself, since I had such good with the Mintons. That sentence probably doesn’t make much sense without the back story so let me tell it. My friend Katie’s parents and sister came to MAD right after the program review so I took my personal leave days and came to Tana to meet them. I also had this weird rash on my ring finger on my right hand that I needed to get checked out (im fine). Anyway, they were awesome people and they took me out for a few very nice meals. I wish I could have an American salary here because you can live like a king. I got delicious duck one night and it was $8. Ya you read the right. Crazy! The Mintons are from Baltimore so we knew a lot of the same places. It was a great weekend. And it was great to see Katie, who I talk to a lot but hadn’t actually seen in 5 months.

I also am tutoring another woman and her friend, though the friend hasn’t come yet. She speaks pretty good English and just wants to practice since next year she is going to work at a school in the area teaching English. There is a shortage of English teachers so even though she doesn’t have a teaching degree she is going to teach. Like me ;). She also told me a really interesting fact about the schools in Faratsiho. They are not that hard. She wants her son to go to school in Antsirabe because the schools there are so much hard/better.

We got our dates for our MSC (mid-service conference) and the dates aren’t till the end of October, more than a month after our actually halfway point. It sucks cause its another month I won’t see people and I have to miss the first 2 weeks of school to attend, so my first trimester will only be about 6 weeks long. And I want to go to our MSC. I want to hear about other teachers first year and get some new ideas for exercises, group work, etc. It will all work out though. I hope. And to be fair, I don’t actually know when school starts next year. They haven’t set the date yet, im just going based off last year. They also want us to bring our counterpart, our person in our towns that is supposed to be our contact person for any town related issue, but I know mine wont be able to go to MSC if its the first 2 weeks of school. Hes the principal. He can’t just take off for the first 2 weeks of school. And there might be trouble for the health sectors counterparts because my friend Katie says her counterpart, who is the doctor for her town, can’t leave town cause hes the only doctor around. Theres no one else and he serves like 8,000 people. We will see what happens.

[****NEWS UPDATE*** so apparently they have moved our MSC date to Nov 6. which is still bad since it still means missing school. I am unclear how long it actually is and whether its with the health sector. If its not with the health sector I am going to be very very unhappy and displeased. ]

The big news in my life is that my parents are official booked to come see me in MAD! It is so exciting. I have a crazy time planned for us. We are going from Tana to Toliera and back. Yay! Then my parents are going to South Africa so they can do a safari outside Jo’burg and then on to Cape Town. Wish I could go with them cause it sounds amazing. Brains trip is still being planned, but we will figure it out eventually. He has to figure out what the best time would be for him with work and all. Im confident that in a few weeks his ticket will be booked too.

Here are some numbers I thought everyone would find interesting. I will post some more numbers (6eme numbers) next time. Enjoy! Also my book list is below the numbers. And also if you want to make a comment about my blog please do. I like to read comments and it lets me know that people are actually reading my blog.

2nde Class

46 total days teaching

69 total hours (25 2 hour classes, 17 1 hours classes, and 4 30min classes)

Started: October 18^th, 2010

Ended: June 20^th, 2011

9 Units (material covered)

53 students started school (26 girls, 27 boys)

49 students currently (26 girls, 23 boys)

Oldest student: 20 (birthday August 8^th, 1990)

Youngest: 14 (birthday January 1^st, 1997)

Faratsiho

47km from my town to RN7, the major highway. All dirt

78km to Antsirabe, my banking town

5,000 people (approx. in Faratsiho)

12 hours (amount I teach per week)

1 morning (I work at the hospital with my site mate)

4 pounds of brown sugar I have consumed since being here (and I didn’t start eating it til like February or March)

1 time a week (how many times I thoroughly clean my house)

2 paintings I own

1 time a month I have a person wash my sheets/towels/big items

0 times I have ridden my bike (I am going to give it back to PC)

3.5km to my high school (walked twice a week)

#### of books I’ve read (you will have to count them, but it think it might be in the 60s)

Book List

Beatrice and Virgil

The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa

Me Talk Pretty One Day

The White Queen

One Day

Emma’s War

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Glass Castle

The Imperfectionists

The Guernsey and Potato Peel Pie Literary Society