My fingers are cold

It is freaking cold here right now! In fact, my fingers are so cold that it's making typing difficult. Luckily, my host-family adopted a baby and, since they obviously want the baby to be warm, they fixed the heat in our house and now it's almost too hot at times. When winters first hit, it was really fun to slide around on the ice and pick snowball fights with my students and random kids in the street, but now I'm tired of almost falling on my ass every time I walk to the outhouse. Plus, who wants to haul food from the bazaar in such treacherous conditions? Let's just say I've been resorting to an old favorite and eating peanut butter out of the jar. Another thing that frustrates me is the little boys who like to perfect there aim by throwing snowballs and ice chunks at your head. On Saturday morning, I was walking past the Uzbek school when some kid hit me square in the back. I was so pissed that I snapped, "F--- you!" I yelled, in English, of course (passion just can't be translated into Kyrgyz). "That's right! You're ugly! Yeah, your face is ugly," and I ran away like some junior high girl that just got her pants pulled down at the Spring Fling. Afterwards, I was ashamed for yelling those things, but the only thing that kid understood was, "Man, that girl is PISSED!" He probably thought it was funny.
My boss is coming down from Bishkek this afternoon to interview us about our sites. She's also bringing packages that have been sitting at the embassy for three months - I can't wait to see what I get. I know that one of my packages has Christmas tree ornaments in it, which is a little late in coming, but maybe I'll decorate anyway. I listened to Christmas music just the other night and got all wistful, thinking about home. In one of my most recent packages, I got a pair of slippers to keep my feet warm in the house. The funny thing is, they are the slippers that Mary, my favorite schwuarma stealing roommate, bought in Spain! After she left, I kept them, took them back to the states, and then my mom sent them to me. They have been more places than I have.
Well, other than getting hit with snowballs and new slippers, there's not much to say. I miss you all and can't wait to talk to you again. Oh yeah, wish me luck on my job interview this Wednesday! I'm trying to work with the Central Asian student exchange program for two weeks this summer, so I would be teaching Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tajik, Turkmen, and Afghan kids English before they leave for their year in the United States. But apparently there are only two positions and my experience is definitely lacking. We'll see what happens. Talk to you soon!

My New Blog!

Dear friends and people I've never met in my life - welcome to my new blog! Well, today is Friday, it's 11am and snowing outside. Winter is, supposedly, almost over, but Peace Corps volunteers from my group are dropping like flies. We lost two during pre-service training, two a month after we swore in, and now it seems that two more are going home. I also have a list of about five people in my head that will most likely follow soon after. These are probably the people that never quite mastered the bucket-bath and, therefore, were always feeling dirty and unhappy. As long as I can be clean I will be somewhat satisfied. It's really, really cold today. So much for this "childare" business. Everyone was saying that there were only forty days of purgatory-like winter left. Strangely enough, the childare was more like spring and, now that it's over, winter appears to be starting. This is the backwardness that is my life - it's cold when it should be nice, the post office is closed when it should be open, the electricity is off when it should be on, etc. Aside from this, I've been really busy lately, teaching classes and working with clubs. So far I have two regular English clubs, one dance/American music club, movie club, and, of course, basketball club. My basketball skills have recently been discovered and, I think, are and will forever only be appreciated in Central Asia where most people are shorter than me. As for my host-family, my host-mom, a former geography teacher at our school, just adopted a baby boy, so she quit working and now we bond over discussions about which class we dislike the most. The general consensus is 10B. Last night an argument almost erupted as we sorted the rice for plov (eye-destroying work, let me tell you) over who disliked teaching 10B more. I think I probably win - those kids give me a headache. In other exciting news from my life, I just finished reading Lonesome Dove which turned out to be an excellent book. Also, Schindler's List is amazing if you can get your hands on it. Clone is ending this week and we are all chewing our fingernails, trying to figure out what Latin-American program will be dubbed into Russian next. I hope it's something steamy and involving men named Diego and Paco. I can't wait to visit Spain this summer! Well, that's about it for news from Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan. Hopefully my next entry will be more interesting - I will actively look for adventures, just so I have something funny to write about. Bye for now.