Promise

So I've been re-reading my past posts, I'm avoiding any and all "work", and I've come to the following conclusion. My blog sucks. Not that I don't mind all the dots and the dark blue background. Its just that I started this blog on such an upbeat sort of way. I was all "look at me I'm trying to do the Peace Corps and this is whats going on in my process"!

Then at some point reality hit home and my blog started to show only one side of my personality and/or frustrations. Which isn't really fair to myself seeing as I know other people read this. Who are these other people? I've no idea. I've not had any contact with B for quite some time, Kat may look at it one day, as might Julia, or other group members. But the fact is that this has been my release of all the frustrations I've had. Instead of pouring out my inner thoughts to people I just put them here. Which is a comfort and a vice.

So on a positive note I promise to make a correction of that. Which can be seen earlier today with my post of ten things. I didn't know just HOW frustrating things would be with Peace Corps until rather recently when I reflected. My advice for those considering the Peace Corps, do it for the love of helping others but realize it's not easy. It's more like a sugar coated tylenol than a sugar coated piece of chocolate (aka M&M). The idea is great but once you get the ball rolling...it turns into a giant snowball that chases you through a busy San Francisco street picking up more passerbies until it rams into you. The snowball equals all the paperwork by the way. It's a necessary evil...I get it...doesn't mean I like it but I get it.

But there's a lot going on in my mind that made me freak. I'm going to Ukraine, not Azerbaijan. That alone was hard to decide and even harder to do in one day. I called almost everyone I knew to ask for advice. Throw in my parent's somewhat support, thats changed because of the location. Toss in a little time to get prepared, and then WHAM one more unexpected hurdle just tossed me for a ride. I mean I was all gravy until the whole CD only being on Windows. Crazy that a CD just broke the camel's back.

I handled it somewhat like a champ. I was grumpy last night and made the post and then proceeded to kick and punch at my punching bag on and off for about an hour. (My thighs hurt still.) But in the end I realized it wasn't impossible. I downloaded Boot Camp on my Mac and I'll just get a copy of XP to put on it and then I'll have both Windows and OSX on my computer. Crisis averted for the time being.

On a lighter note. A much lighter note that doesn't involving me freaking out.

A co-worker (only four years older...second closest to my age) told me about a Ukrainian she dated and told me to watch out for a weird Jello dish with meat on the inside. The idea of jello with fruit in it makes me gag. I mean I like jello and I like fruit. I do not like them together. I mean who really wants a hunk of banana in strawberry jello?!?! So this idea of jello and MEAT made me almost barf in my mouth.

So I did what any American with time on their hand would do. I googled it. Turns out the dish is called studynets. There are two types of studynets, kholodets and zalyvne. Zalyvne is jellied fish and kholodets is jellied beef. A big lesson learned for me is that they don't use jello. That changes a lot for me. Instead the jelly comes from broth and gelatin. So basically its a cold meat dish with the fat congealed around it. Thats liveable. It doesn't sound amazingly appetizing but it doesn't scare the crap out of me. Okay mildly scares the crap out of me. If you're reading this do the following; open google, type kholodets (copy and paste if you must), and click images instead of pressing enter. You'll see a green...glob with meat on the inside.

On another culinary side I'm looking forward to borscht. I've never had it. Doesn't sound terrible either.

I'm now both hungry and turned off by jello...amazing.