As with A-100 classes, each Peace Corps cohort in a given country gets a number. I was part of the B-11 group, and it turns out my fellow B-11s have been pretty busy lately.

It seems one of my fellow Bulgaria PCVs has written a whole book based on his experiences there. I tell you, it was only a matter of time. I just found out about the website today, and since I know absolutely all of you are fascinated by Bulgaria and the Peace Corps in general, I thought I would share it with you.

If you liked that, there’s more: PC-Bulgaria’s very own Chantel Sloan has also had a short (but mostly true) story published in a book called “So Far and Yet so Near: Stories of Americans Abroad.” Definitely some fun reading.

So for all of you who always wanted to know what it was like to be a Peace Corps volunteer or to live in Bulgaria, there are now some ways for you to find out. And there are sure to be more - it’s just a matter of time.

Seoul City Hall decorated for Independence Day.

Down the street from work.

Wandering about on the web, I have come across a few things that may or may not tell us more about ourselves, but are nonetheless an amusing way to burn some time. The first is a fill-in-the-blank thing that you can write your own name into, send out to your friends and family, and (theoretically) see what people really think of you. Mine would be:

I ____ M.
M is __________.
M needs (to) ________.
I want to ________ M.
In one word, I would describe M as ________.
I can see M being (a) ________ someday.
If I were alone in a room with M, I would ________.
M reminds me of ________.
M can be ________.
The worst thing about M is ________.
The best thing about M is ________.
One thing I would change about M is her ________.
Someday M will ________.
If I could tell M one thing, I would tell her ________.

The second is just a fun little Google trick. Go to Google, type in “(your name) needs,” and you can get a list of entries from all over the web about what you need. What do I need, you ask? Well, apparently:

– M needs more than the humble income she gets. (agreed)
– M needs to tell him what really happened, but will he listen? (I’m in a soap opera?)
– M needs the info from the 8th graders. (hmm…)
– M needs a more complete answer. (definitely)
– M needs to reveal her true identity to him, but is concerned about the consequences.
– M needs someone like Conlon in her life. (I do?)
– M needs more touch, is sensitive to smells - textures - environments, and prefers not to be alone.
– M needs to eat.
– M needs to call her girlfriends about their plans tonight.
– M needs sleep and a foot massage. (I do!!)
– M needs to act her age. (Aww, do I have to?)

If you already know what you need, but you aren’t sure yet what you are, check out Googlism, which does all of the hard work of searching your name for you. Some samplings of my results from this:

– M is one of a handful of women dedicated to breaking down the walls of silence.
– M is six years old.
– M is a beautiful sexy girl in her 20s.
– M is now two years old.
– M is a slight Japanese woman in her late thirties.
– M is an Argentinian journalist.
– M is like a master magician revealing her secrets.
– M is a rock star.
– M is in London.
– M is spoiled.
– M is at once youthful and timeless.
– M is terrified.
– M is sure.

Wow - who knew I was so versatile? Perhaps I should go seek out some 8th graders now - maybe they can tell me who Conlon is and how I came to be a spoiled Japanese-Argentinian journalist of indeterminate age in London.

I’ve been having one of those weird weeks wherein one’s perspective on things changes in the blink of an eye, prompted by nothing at all except perhaps being tired or finding a great little restaurant or smelling that ever-present fishy smell. All of this swinging from high to low has left me a little bewildered and off-balance, but things here are progressing nonetheless.

This evening, two of my neighbors decided it was time to come say hello. One has been on a temporary assignment elsewhere, and the other is someone I’d met in passing but hadn’t really talked to. The first offered to lend me his car should I need transportation (everyone needs transportation around here), and the second brought me some “welcome to the neighborhood” cookies. Mmm, cookies. Chocolate chips, no nuts, and freshly baked to perfection by a mother of three.  Maybe Mayberry/North Korea is not so bad after all.

I’ve made it out into Korea a few times now. I’ve gone to some of the legendarily fabulous shopping districts and found them to be nice, but probably not worthy of being so legendary. I’ve also found a few good restaurants for Korean cuisine, as well as some good fusion food places and one actual non-Koreanized Italian place. Making progress, slowly but surely.

I’ve begun what will probably be a long-running war with the bugs in my house - I’m the invading army, but they’re mounting a pretty determined insurgency and they’ve been using the strategy of trying to overwhelm me with their sheer numbers. I will not give in. I will keep my vacuum and other accoutrements at the ready until the insurgency is defeated and I am able to establish a true dictatorial household. I refuse to be swayed by the arguments of those who declare the situation to be hopeless and who urge me to give up. I will stay the course for as long as it takes.

In the meantime, I will eat cookies. Mmmm, cookies!

Great Site: My favorite new-to-me site is Pixel Press. Photojournalism and amateur photography and photos as integral parts of creative writing and poetry, all focused on human rights-related themes. Some are more clearly human rights-related than others, but they all fit the definition in one sense or another. Definitely right up my alley.

The Blogosphere Grows: I heard through the grapevine that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has begun his own blog. Yes, really. You can find it here, and I understand it’s supposed to be pretty interesting, though I’ve not checked it out in great depth yet myself. For those who don’t speak Farsi, you’re in luck, because apparently it’s also translated into Arabic and (poorly) into English. I wonder: will we be hearing about a “George W. Blog” next?

Expanding upon a theme that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and that was raised so eloquently the other day by Diplodocus: 

“We may forgo the community of friends and family that we have shared our lives with and we may forgo traditions that have built up over the years, but we do forgo an ordinary life.”  - FSO

Looking Back (some of my wanderings on my last full day in the U.S.):

Looking Forward (Seoul):

My new place. I live in half of a duplex. Embassy housing here on the army base in Seoul is affectionately known by its inhabitants as Mayberry. It’s split by one of the main roads on the base into “South Korea” (the larger area containing the majority of embassy housing) and “North Korea” (the much smaller area). Little did I know I would come to Seoul and end up living in North Korea.

An inside view (from the dining room looking into the living room). There are a lot of large blank white walls, which is more than a little depressing when living in a new place alone, so I’m really looking forward to getting my shipments so I’ll have things to hang on the walls and put on the shelves.

A random unnamed street in Seoul, not far from the base. Of note: it doesn’t look a thing like Mayberry. Also of note: this is one of the larger streets - a great many of them are little more than alleyways where two people would find it difficult to walk side by side. Seeing the discrepancy between the environment we live in and the environment nearby Koreans live in, it’s little wonder that they’ve been eagerly awaiting the day we give up our big military base in the middle of the city.

I am safe and sound in Seoul, Korea. I was somewhere over the Pacific Ocean when the news broke, and it’s a really good thing, considering my carry-on was full of shampoo, conditioner, liquid face soap, perfume, toothpaste, and the like. I actually didn’t find out until this afternoon, since I’ve been pretty disconnected from the outside world since leaving San Francisco - don’t worry though, I’m working on that. More substantive posts to come soon.

Having largely finished my mandatory consular consultations with our Homeland Security friends in San Francisco, I have the following to say to any other FSOs who need to do similar consultations:

– Stay at Club Quarters. It charges per diem rates, it’s clean and comfortable (even if the rooms are smallish), and the staff are all really great. And perhaps best of all, the location (two blocks toward the water from the TransAmerica building) means your walk to the San Francisco DHS offices is less than five minutes. There is also a shopping center kitty-corner from the hotel for anything you forgot to pack and a Starbucks and a restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel’s building.

– The consultations themselves are more useful and more interesting than I was led to believe. Don’t think of it so much as yet another box that needs to be checked, but rather as a golden opportunity to become futher enlightened. You might even get to be there when someone hears that coveted sentence, “Your green card should arrive in the mail in the next two to four weeks.” or witness a group of people becoming U.S. citizens. A moving experience.

– Sometime while you’re in San Francisco, do yourself a favor and pick up some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. The bread’s the best part of it, though the chowder holds its own (I still can’t say it compares to Ivar’s clam chowder though).

– Do some wandering. Go and enjoy the diversity that San Francisco has to offer (i.e. Nob Hill for some ostentatious wealth, Chinatown for an early immersion experience in things Asian, North Beach for some great Italian food and to hone your romance language skills…), and even spend some time in the touristy areas like Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, and Fisherman’s Wharf. Wear comfortable shoes.

– Treat yourself to a good dinner. I went back to a place in North Beach (curiously, no beach anywhere nearby) that I’d wandered past earlier in the day and sat at the bar and had a really good Italian meal, complete with a couple very enjoyable glasses of wine. There was a table of four older Sicilians sitting behind me by a window, and they had drunk just enough wine that some of them were singing unabashedly. They were surprisingly good singers, though, and they were singing some of those semi-melancholy old Italian love songs that evoke such vivid memories of the Mediterranean. All in all, a great last dinner in the U.S.

I get on a plane tomorrow after a morning spent with the Customs and Immigration folks at the San Francisco airport. My next post should, if all goes as planned, be from Seoul.

My brother came up to Seattle for a few days to visit before I head off across the ocean. We had told my mom he wouldn’t be able to get the time off work to come up, so when he met us at a restaurant on Thursday night it was a great surprise for her. Our efforts in keeping the secret for the past month were well rewarded.

He took the “because I can” approach to a lot of things for his few days back home, and among these was his rental of a convertible. You learn a lot of things riding in the back seat of a convertible. For example, whoever decided a convertible was a cool car to have (a) didn’t have more than one friend or family member and (b) was definitely not fair-skinned. You also learn just how much pressure your ears can comfortably take, the best way to semi-securely tie down long hair (hint: use a combination of methods), and why those speed limits that usually seem so unreasonably slow are actually on the very upper end of what they should be. We spent all day Saturday and half of Sunday in this convertible, stopping here and there along the way for a whirlwind tour of some of our favorite places in Seattle. A rough estimate of Saturday’s driving route (stops at the Pike Place Market, a Mariners game, Foster Island/the Arboretum, University Village, and Ezell’s along the way):

Some of the images from the past few days (including the ones during which we logged several hours in the convertible):

The Market

Mariners Game. Yes, I actually watched the game - we had great seats.

Montlake Cut & Foster Island

The Animals

On Elliott Bay

Sunset Reflection on Mt. Rainier