That's me in front of good 'ol Hogas High. The snow's been melting this week, but I'm sure that it will return with a vengence one of these (soon to be) February days. I never thought that 3 degrees celcius would be so balmy. I actually walked around comfortably today without my polartec scarf.
A couple of milestones to mention: Last week was my 8 month anniversary in Romania. I'm about 1/3 done with my service now. Semester one ends this Friday, finally.
As I think I mentioned before, I've got a week break and then it's back to school. I'm going to head to Codlea for the break, as I haven't seen my Mama and Tata for almost a month now. That's much too long. However, I do think that spending all of this uninterrupted time at site has allowed me to adjust to my situation here a bit more. I've also solidified some relationships with my colleagues Oana and Brandusa and their husbands Radu and Ovidiu. The four of us have been hanging out quite a bit, making dinners, having drinks and watching movies. We're all approximately the same age, so it's nice to have people around that you can relate to.
I'm trying to get a project going with Ovidiu at his high school. He's a German and History teacher at the economics high school here in Piatra and has a history club. We thought that we'd do something called "History Nights" one a week for 2-3 hours. I brought 2 sets of DVD lectures with me, complete with outlines. These are complete college courses, one being the History of the United States, while the other is called "Interpreting the 20th Century: The Struggle Over Democracy". The lectures are given by some of the top academics in their fields and should prove to be a valuable resource to all of us. I hope that we can have discussion periods after we watch the lectures. This is an opportunity for interested students to take advantage of U.S. college level instruction at no cost. Brilliant! I'm sure Ovidiu and I will learn a lot as well. We're going to hook up my laptop to a projector and let it rip. I'm pretty excited about this.
What else is going on with me? Not much really. I've been getting my fair share of soccer lately as the Africa Cup of Nations has been on TV for the past week and a half. I do enjoy it. The Romanian season should be starting up soon. Piatra Neamt's team. F.C. Ceahlaul, is the top team in the B division and may get promooted to A next season. This means that the top teams will come to town, which will be cool, even though Ceahlaul will take some massive beatings. I hope that Victor and I can take a train down to Bucharest sometime in the spring and catch a Rapid game. That's our team and the stadium is near the train station. I think that we could go to a game and come home in the same day. Ahhh, c'mon spring!
So I guess I close now. I've got plenty of planning to do while in Codlea this weekend. I've got a whole new semester to prepare for. Oh yeah, my birthday's coming up soon as well.....hint, hint. Anyone need my address? Ha!
Scott
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