January 2005
27th	Today was the remnant of the full moon; it must have been because the day just seemed to be full of odd events. Nothing I can put down but several of us at work seemed to agree that today was unusual. Our Staging package arrived today and we now have a departure time and date. We leave Feb 25^th at 1:30 so we will be in Chicago Friday night. The question comes up now, do we contact relatives nearby or just spend the time with the group. Decisions, decisions. The big down sizing yard sale is this weekend and right now I just want to get rid of it and get on with life. The weather forecast for the weekend is of course Snow and Ice so more than likely we will be stuck with it all for ever. TOO MUCH STUFF.
26th	This past week has been a whirlwind of activity at home and work but we still managed to spend an evening watching the Russian Ark. I have to admit that even with sub-titles it was a bit confusing as to what was going on. I look forward to the day I will be able to watch without the subtitles but I feel that I will still not know what is happening in that movie. Two characters lead you through 300 years of Russian History in one continuous shot as you flow from party to party inside the Hermitage. One of the characters is obviously the cameraman because he is just a voice. Costuming was outstanding, the set was magnificent and the acting was lost to me. Our language CD came today and I thought I would be able to download it to the MP3 player and listen to it at work but it is a VCD and requires a computer or DVD player to run because a good portion of it is visual. Time in front of the computer to read the lesion is scarce but I will try. I have a very old language tape in Russian that will help even if I have to learn Ukrainian again when I get there. The visual lesson will help with the writing because that scares me. I will have to learn to read it and eventually I will have to learn to type in it if I am going to be any good on a computer in Ukraine. The major part of the financial arrangements came through today so now it is just a matter of taking care of the remainder and the little stuff that will stop when we leave. 30 days from now we will be through with our first day of orientation. 32 days from now we will be in Ukraine and starting a new chapter of our life.
23^rd	This is where the journey begins as they say. It looked like such a simple thing a year ago when I told my wife I would be glad to quit my job and figure out how to pay for everything for 2.5 years so we could join the Peace Corps. Although it had been her life long dream to join, I never even considered it for real because I was educationally challenged (no letters after my name) and thought that the lack was a disqualifying factor. It turns out that I was wrong so here’s the story: I won’t go into much detail but a few years ago our son died in a motorcycle accident. This is the trigger event for me and I’m sure a changing point for my wife. I had always lived my life with happiness as my goal instead of riches and this event affirmed that in my life. My son died living his life to the fullest and for that I am proud of him. Why wait for tomorrow to do something special. Grab your partner and give them a kiss from your heart. So when my wife asked me to attend a Peace Corps meeting, I quickly said yes. We went to Anderson South Carolina and spoke with Keith West, a recruiter out of Atlanta, and he made me feel welcome and ready to apply. So we did. Now after a year of tests, weight loss, tooth repair and new glasses; we are ready to sail. The process found the pair of us with high cholesterol, too many extra pounds and for me diabetes. Learn, research, practice, cut back and cut down, I learned to control our medical problems with diet alone. This so amazed our Ex-Marine Corps doctor that he actually offered (jokingly I’m sure) to lose the original paperwork and send in only the last tests. We sent in the last of the paperwork in the middle of November and a nice man at the Peace Corps headquarters told us on the phone that we were too late for the March group so we not even are considered until at least May or June. We spent our long walks in Phoenix discussing the ship date and decided that May or June would be good, the house sitter should arrive mid-April, school would be out for me, and I would get to help the spring flowers get a good start on next year. Three days after we returned from Christmas Break we got a call telling us to expect exciting news in the FedEx pouch. I had a conference in Myrtle Beach that weekend and we had to leave before FedEx arrived. With all of the things n the way, it took until Monday afternoon to get the package so my wife called me at work and opened the package over the phone. The Ukraine, in 45 days, I must tell you my heart stopped. I came home and played with numbers, made lists and we came to the conclusion that we could do it. It is a hard road, but worth the effort. I look forward with trepidation to learning a language where I can not even identify the letters in the words, let alone expect to pronounce. My experience with languages has been disappointing to say the least. I spent 10 years living in Spain and my Spanish progressed to the level of a four year old with an impressive vocabulary. No grammar but lots of words.

T