A Chronicle of my Changing Times.

Cleaning Up

My parents used to tell me when I was in college that they could tell how I was doing simply by if I mentioned I needed to clean my room when I spoke with them.  If my room was dirty or I felt like I needed to clean it then they knew I was in trouble.  After considering that for a while I realized they were dead on with me. (Pictured above: Poker night at my apartment last winter)

 

You can tell how my life is going by how my apartment looks (since I’ve never owned my own home – although the internet spammers apparently don’t know that).  I’ve noticed that it can be broken down even further than that.  If my living room is clean, then I usually appear to being doing well to others.  If my bedroom is clean then things truly are going well with personally.  If my kitchen/bathroom is clean then I’ve spent way too much time eating out, have just cleaned or am expecting guests.  I hate doing dishes and my bathroom is almost always tidy, but never really clean.

 

So I spent today cleaning my apartment.  It hasn’t been really dirty since the first day or so I got back from Liechtenstein – but even then the mess was more to craziness of having guests right before I left and unpacking from my trip.  My home has been cluttered, but not dirty by any stretch of the imagination.  Today’s cleaning was a deep cleaning, as my fellow PCV friend Melody called it as she did the same thing.  It has been more about sorting stacks of papers, emptying out my fridge, wiping down shelves and cleaning out cabinets.

 

If you want to look at this as a reflection of my current mood and state of mind, I’d say it has something to do with being excited and organized about this last 10 months here in Bulgaria.  I know what to expect from my job and the people I work or teach at school.  I have a fairly good idea of what I can and cannot accomplish with regards to projects.  I’m also excited about my prospects with regards to my post Peace Corps plans.  I’ve mapped out a schedule of tasks and hope to have everything done and ready by January.  So this deep cleaning is just a reflection of my peace of mind with where I’m at and what I have yet to do.(Pictured: My front room as it looked the day I moved in - it's not nearly this stoic now)

 

Or it could just have something to do with the fact that until Thursday I have very little money until payday at the end of the month and needed to do something today that wouldn’t cost any money.  Or maybe it’s the roaches I have seen lately in my building.  None have been in my apartment, due in part to the boric acid my parents sent me to get rid of them.    But it’s a good idea to get rid of anything that would attract them.  Also it’s a good idea to get rid of the same ‘food’ that has attracted my latest roommate.

 

I noticed right before I left for my last trip that a mouse had chewed through the only window screen I have.  So I put up a small spare piece of metal in front of the hole.  I also noticed around this time a few mouse dropping in random spots in my apartment.  I guess the bar of soap I have to wash my hands tasted pretty good too because there were a number of mouse sized bites in it.  Before I left for Liechtenstein I closed up my window just to be safe. 

 

I must’ve pissed off the mouse because when I came back there was a new, much larger hold in the screen and it had gnawed the heck out of the base of my window making a bit of nest there.  Thankfully my refrigerator has random strips of metal that just don’t seem to fit with it, so I’ve covered that hole as well.  After payday I’m probably going to go to the local hardware store and try and buy some more screening to cover up the holes properly and maybe even to cover a couple of my other windows.  Until then, all I can do is keep a lookout for my not so happy mouse (any name suggestions?) since the weather is too perfect of late not to have my window’s open – at least not whilst I’m in the apartment.

 

The only bad thing about this deep clean that I’ve done today (and am still doing) is that I came across an old backup pack of cigarettes.  I’ve always kept packs of smokes in my apartment, usually brands that I don’t like, so that I have something in case I run out.  Well, I found one of these today luckily with only 1 smoke in it.  Which I felt obligated to smoke.

 

But then I found a whole unopened pack of my normal brand buried under some papers.  This posed a problem – to smoke them or throw them away.  I confess that I just couldn’t bring myself to throwing them away and thus am slowly smoking them.  It’s frustrating, but the guideline I use for quitting is smoke what you have until it’s gone and then go from there.  I’m trying not to smoke in my apartment since I’d already cleaned (including my old ashtrays).  We’ll see if that holds up at 1am when I don’t want to walk downstairs.

 

Sigh, such is life.

 

Posted by: mjmarble at August 27, 2006 23:33 | link | comments (2)

Smoking Insomnia

Ok, in attempting to avoid the "went here, did this, then that, then etc." I'm taking forever writing up the Liechtenstein post.  It will come, along with other travel diaries.  One of these days I'll figure it out.  Just not tonight (at now 5am).

What I have accomplished tonight is catching up with the Venerable James, who with his better half - the Magnificent Mandy (better name pending when I'm not so tired) now reside in Cairo.  they've got a new blog - check it out.  For those playing along at home, that means he's now in the same time zone and thus communication becomes less problematic.  It also means that Michael has another trip planned within the next year involving sand, pyramids, and everyone's favorite current-nonwar-zone, craddle of civilization Islamic country.  I'm looking forward to it.

Also, in dicussions with my very favorite Canadian - Lisa - I managed to figure out what American TV shows are worthy of attention this upcoming fall.  Yes, this is not your father's Peace Corps.  Outide of complaining when your CNN goes on the fritz because that means you only have 8 English language channels on your TV, you bring y our laptop so you can download your favorite shows or have wonderful friends from America send them to you.  The current lists (Lisa approved) of can't miss shows include The Amazing Race, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Veronica Mars, and Battlestar Galatica.  Yes, I suffer greatly here.

I'm not sure if it's these chats that have led to my insomnia tonight or something else.  I've just got a lot of nervous energy.  Good news, my Tribe managed to win this evening . Yes, in another example of just how rough I have it here, I've bought earlier this spring the MLB.com's radio package so I can listen to games like I was in St. Louis, Seattle, Boston or Cleveland.  Just instead of a crackily radio, I get the crystal clear internet radio (which strangely sounds a lot like AM radio with this package).

On the non-smoking front, it's now been four days since I last bought a pack of cigarettes, 3 days since I finished said pack, and about 9 hrs (as of posting) since I last bummed a smoke from Kalina.  Ok, good and bad things.  Still bumming the occasional one or 4 smokes whilst out with specific friends (who have more than taken a few of mine over the last year).  But the evenings and other times spent here in my aptartment are smoke free.  And I've gone from smoking around 20-30 cigs a day down to 2-3.  Not bad as a step.

Ok, off to be before the sun rises.

Posted by: mjmarble at August 26, 2006 23:52 | link | comments

The Medium...

So instead of the post on Liechtenstein, since I’m not happy with what I’ve written (or not written) thus far, we’ll move on for today.  After a restful morning of sleeping in, a common occurrence during the summer months here I woke up early enough to go to lunch with Kalina, my best friend here in Haskovo.  Well, ok it was a late lunch around 1:30 – but what is a person to do after staying up until 3am playing Risk on my computer and foolishly signing up for NFL Fantasy Football?  (An aside, if anyone has any recommendations for someone stupid enough to sign up for Fantasy Football after not seeing a single ‘American’ football game in nearly 18 months – go ahead and drop me a line.) 

 

So after a brief lunch of Duners, and a pit stop at my favorite café Egoist to put out the flames from the overabundance of Chili Sauce on mine with a Coke, Kalina had a wonderful idea to go get our fortunes told by a local woman who can read the residue in coffee cups.  Kalina had a personal issue which vexed her and wanted to see what this medium would say.  So after fending off my protests of wanting to be lazy and not go anywhere, we jumped in a taxi for a ride out to this woman’s house. (Pictured: Kalina and I last winter)

 

The house itself was typical Bulgarian, although the medium is a Turkish woman, with a bathroom entrance outside under some steps going to the second floor and a tidy little garden/common area behind an iron gate.  Our friendly neighborhood medium is apparently a popular woman because she’d turned the garden/common area into her own little waiting room with purple plastic chairs and a couple of well used ash trays.  After knocking on the door, we heard a clamor inside of dishes and were asked to wait 10 minutes for her.

 

I bring up the dishes because after we were admitted I noticed the coffee cups of previous clients still littered the table, albeit neatly to one side.  The room itself was your typical middle class home here in BG and lacked any signs that a fortune teller worked there outside of said used coffee cups.  I actually spent most of my time there looking up at pictures of the woman’s daughter and grandchild. 

 

I assumed that Kalina would get her reading whilst I waited but apparently my friend wanted me to go first.  So I drank about half of the cold horrible coffee and gave my glass over to her for my reading.  And in the only apparent concession to being your cliché spooky medium she squinted her eyes, looked into my glass and began to speak to me in a raspy whisper translated by Kalina.  The beginning went something like this:

 

Meduim woman (MW) takes my cup and begins to pour the remains of the coffee into the saucer.  She pauses, looks at the cup intently, looks at me, the saucer, me, the cup, and me before saying, “You have a BIG heart.”

 

Me: Oh?

 

MW (in all her raspiness): YES!  Bigger than this table.

 

Me: I guess so.

 

MW: It serves you well, and will help you in the…. future.

 

Everyone will be glad to know that I have an older sister who is very much in love and should really be a lawyer.  My mother is having ‘leg problems’ which are really related to her back somehow – but my mom is a great person (Yay mom!).  I am going to have a job that makes me a lot of money but requires me to travel at least once every three months – which I will apparently enjoy.  I will be in the ‘center’ of the road – whatever that means – with my career, and employ other people whilst trading/selling something.  What impressed this woman the most about me somehow is that not only will I have a couple cars, but also my own house with a yard – this of course being a relatively foreign concept here in BG.  Maybe she’s seen a lot of American movies because she wanted me to be impressed with this. 

 

I am currently four fingers away from love – which Kalina explained to me meant that I’m close but not all that close.  Don’t really get that part.  I will however find the brown hair, dark skinned love of my life and marry her in three years and we eventually have a 3-4 Kilo bouncing baby boy.  Oh, and a daughter after that.  Mine will be a great love and I really shouldn’t bother with ‘simple dating’ until then.  This of course all came from my coffee cup.  My saucer said that I will not have any type of catastrophe or general malaise in the foreseeable future.  So life’s good apparently.  (Pictured: A coffee cup in my apartment)

 

Now, the funny part about all of this occurred just before we got to my saucer reading.  MW got a knock at the door and the next thing I know we had guests joining my reading.  By the reaction of MW these were long lost family suddenly come in from the wilderness.   The spooky serious tone of my reading went out the window as she hugged and kissed the arriving guests.  Let’s just say it was with great joy that she told me that I am catastrophe free.  She veritably bounced and giggled through Kalina’s reading – which thankfully allayed her fears.

 

On a side note from today – I didn’t buy any smokes.  But I did panic and buy a pack before I even ran out yesterday.  I was on my way to a café to say goodbye to a friend who is studying in Winston, NC (of all places – I’ll see her at Christmas) and I just got nervous.  So as of now I’m down to a paltry 3 cigarettes.  Oy vey!  Whoever thought this was a good idea needs to be shot. 

Posted by: mjmarble at August 24, 2006 21:20 | link | comments

Posting Ponderings

Ok, where to begin.  Every time I consider posting I get a bit overwhelmed with all that’s going on that I’m not posting about.  I mean, where to begin – what to say to catch up all 3 (Hi Mom, Dad and TPorter!) people who still check this infrequently updated blog.  When frequently posting, writing becomes easy and I have a style that emerges.  But when I post as I have been over the last 6-8 months all continuity is lost in my writing style and I end writing dull, brainless banter like this. 

 

It’s not like I have a lack of things to talk about here in Bulgaria.  I’ve lived a rather eventful last 4 months in many aspects.  I’ve traveled (in order) first with my parents around BG and then to Italy, then to Liechtenstein and later Hungary for the Youth Center, then around BG again with my friend Lisa from Canada, and then again around BG with my old college friend Brian.  After this was a trip out to the coastal resort town of Sunny Beach with Pauna before finishing up my travels this last Saturday by coming back from the two week camp in Liechtenstein.  Mix in amongst all this the return and now leaving of many of my original friends here – Bulgarian students in American Universities.

 

When you toss in renewing my residency card for Bulgaria (an ordeal in and of itself), working on my plans for post PC life, movement towards quitting smoking (believe it or not), and general maintenance of friends who have remained here in Haskovo for the summer (a daily/nightly event) – my life is full and more times than naught rather hectic.  So that’s there are my excuses for not writing more in a way.  Personally I don’t find the excuse of being busy and having a hectic life as acceptable though.

 

This blog was supposed to be “chronicle of my changing times” and “an open diary of where I was, where I am and of course where I hope to go.  It’s a record of the daily trials, tribulations, successes and distractions of my journey.”  In the application and spirit of this statement I’ve failed.  I’ve been wrestling with this a bit over the last few months – even if I haven’t been posting.  The more people I’ve invited to read this the less I feel comfortable sharing.  This is truly odd feeling for me since I consider myself to be an open and honest person.  Actually I take more than a bit of pride in this.  In all honesty though, knowing my Grandma gets printouts gives me pause in saying some things.  Knowing that members of the Youth Group back at my Church in Charlotte check in periodically makes me consider what I share.  Peace Corps staff here in Bulgaria have made comments to me (both positively and negatively) about content which forces another filter on what I feel I can and cannot say.  Plus I wonder if some of the things I contemplate posting open myself up too much – that it show a side of me that is vulnerable and weak.  I privately have considered starting another personal blog to be shared with only a few people but have pretty much discounted this since it goes against this mission statement (if you will).

 

A couple things have countered this growing tepidness in posting and rekindled my desire to post more.  It’s let me to want to say damn the consequences and try and dump the filters – this is more than anything a diary for me.  I’ve just invited you to share it with me.  The first thing was watching events fly past me over the last few months.  I know that I am already forgetting the details and interesting anecdotes that made things interesting.  Another event that caused my renewed interest was actually the conflict this summer in Lebanon.  I spent a lot of time reading first hand blog accounts of what was going on there.  I had (have?) aspirations to post a comprehensive explanation/analysis of what was occurring complete with referenced links.  I might still do that.  I also began reading friends blogs again.  My friend Sarah, who is now in Jakarta posts regularly.  The ever venerable James just moved to Cairo and began a new blog with his girlfriend.  The final reason is I want to get back to writing.  It’s something I enjoy to a certain measure and I hate being out of practice.

 

So with this post I hope to become recommitted to making regular entries.  I have so much pent up to say, I don’t think there is any lack of ideas.  Besides the aforementioned write up on the Middle East, I want to talk about my travels this summer.  I want to discuss the friends and people I know here, the differences in American and BG culture, what it’s like to teach, and how I feel I spend most of my time here in PC nurturing relationships instead of actually doing tangible work.  I have had an increasingly hard time not having regular church services to attend (I tend to avoid attending Orthodox services opting instead to just spend some quiet time in prayer each week at my local church).  I really need to write about the status of my post PC plans.  There’s of course my continued frustrations with the BG language since I can communicate but can’t hold a real conversation.  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I’ve changed in the last 16 months and what type of person I want to be.  As any of my friends can attest I can always talk about women.  I’ve struggled with the notion of being here another 9 months instead of moving on to “what’s next” since I feel ready and anxious to be there already.  Another concern is my difficulties managing money.  Every month I surpass my PC allowance and dip into my American reserve funds (ie my retirement savings).  This doesn’t bode well for a future poor graduate student.

 

But let me start you off on a rather straight forward yet important note.  A few months ago when my parents were here to visit I noticed they weren’t in the best of shape, they weren’t following certain diets they should be, and my mom’s knee was truly hurting her.  Well, I made an agreement with them shortly after their return home that if they would work out, eat better and mom would make an appointment to have her knee looked at that I would quit smoking.

 

They have done most of those things by what they’ve told me.  And I’m still sitting here smoking – literally.  But about a week ago I marked today as the day I would quit.  So in accordance with what’s been successful for me in the past (but really how much success have I had if I’m still smoking) I have bought my last pack of cigarettes.  Whenever I finish whatever smokes I currently have I will be finished.  I’m not doing this with a lot of fanfare here – I don’t want to raise expectations amongst those with whom I hang out.  So I’m sitting here counting the remaining ones I have and trying not to freak out.  We’ll see how it goes.  Maybe I’ll channel my extra nervous energies into another post tomorrow on the camp in Liechtenstein.  I’ve already uploaded the pictures.  Wish me luck on all accounts.

Posted by: mjmarble at August 23, 2006 16:49 | link | comments (3)

From Vienna this time...

So it seems like I only post when I`m not actually in Haskovo.  It´s kinda true.  I have just been so busy lately that I haven´t had time.  I also led me to missing a month for the first time since I began this blog years ago.  I´m more than a bit disappointed in myself.

Anyways - here I am in Vienna doing PC work again.  I´m on my way to Liechtenstein again to have the camp that I set up two months ago.  There are three kids and another 'leader' on the trip and we had time due to our travel schedules and decided to spend it here.  It´s been a fun day spent looking around beautiful Vienna and going to a local amusement park.  For the kids on the trip it was their first real amusement park and rollercoaster ride - so that´s been fun to watch.

Outside of traveling outside of the country I´ve spent time either in Haskovo seeing all my summertime friends or at Sunny Beach haveing a blast.  One of my closest friends, Pauna, is out there working (or trying to work) so I might get out there again before the summer is over.  When I say life´s been crazy, I mean it.  I´m averaging around 3-4 hours of sleep a night which is starting to wear me down a bit.  You know it´s bad when you look forward to the overnight train as a way to get a 'proper nights sleep'.

But between the discos, hosting friends, kareoke, MySpace sign up, bar hoping, beach bumming, international travel, and amusement parks I am having a summer to remember.  I even had a web publication ask to use some of my photography of Bulgaria.  I was quite honored.  Life´s good and I hope to be able to post something about it all soon.  I´ve even made a few decisions about what to do post PC regarding grad school and getting ready for it.  All good things.

Hopefully (no promises this time) I´ll post again soon.

Posted by: mjmarble at August 08, 2006 20:48 | link | comments