Thursday, April 23, 2009

Yes, it's been five months since my last posting, or so it seems. Facebook has taken what little time and energy I have for online postings, unfortunately, and I've neglected this space.

Quick updates:
My Albanian training ends next week. Woohoo! I won't be fully comfortable in Albania, but I feel I have enough of a grasp to get around. I'll have two weeks of intense pack-out work and last-minute purchases and then depart.

Boots will be going to live with my sister-in-law and her family soon. We have to work out the details soon. I'll miss her more than I care to think about, especially when we get to Albania and I'm alone each day while Emily is at work. It will be odd. Boots has been with us for over 14 years now. We'd love to take her, but don't see any scenario where a 15 year old dog, that has never flown before and doesn't like kennels/cages, would survive the long trip.

I'm getting used to my new laptop. It's the first time I've ever had to use just a laptop, so it's a bit of a learning curve. My old Powerspec PC is nearly ready for my brother. I plan to deliver it this weekend.

I just received my DVD of "Reclaiming the Blade" today (finally!). As with the majority of the movies I've purchased since I returned to the States last summer, it'll go into the "watch in Albania" pile, which is substantial. I still need to pick up a few more movies that I missed while in Mexico or just after we got back, but I've made a good start.

Once I arrive in Albania, I will resume my full-time student activities, either with NVCC or another institution. I also plan to spend some time developing a personal website as well as some practice/play sites, just for practice.

We will definitely be doing some serious traveling while in Albania: Albania itself, Monte Negro, Kosova, Macedonia, Greece, Italy - and maybe Croatia, Bosnia, and Slovenia. Mostly for fun, but we also want to scout out Macedonia, Italy, Kosova, and Monte Negro for possible future postings. Italian is pretty easy and I'm sure Emily could pick it up very quickly. Kosova is an Albanian post and both Macedonia and Monte Negro have Albanian as a minority language.

Well, time to run. I have to prepare a short presentation on human rights in Albanian for tomorrow.

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