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February 2005 |
28th |
We got the luck of the draw which ever way you look at
it. We are still in |
27th |
Staging is over.
All of the names on an E-mail list are now familiar and I have met
some very nice people. They gathered
from all over the |
22nd |
Presidents day, storage room moved, boxes packed, almost
everything done. Well at least it
feels better right now. Tomorrow we
load up the van for the dump run, pack out the garage so Jim’s proposed
sports car will fit in later and go bowling.
Wednesday morning we are going out for that southern breakfast of
grits and the associated stuff that goes with it. We then head out to For my birthday I received today a two disc set and book
on the Ukrainian language that I can listen to as I walk and work. It should help me. Then I received a book called Back to enjoying a little TV. |
20th |
The day is getting close. Yesterday was my birthday and we went out for a good steak. I was disappointed with both the service and the preparation of the steak. I had never had bad service or food in an Outback before but last night was very disappointing to say the least. It is a shame that it will be my last experience for quite a while and I will have to remember them badly. Enough of that. The preparation is smoothly running along, Jim is here to get setup for his moving in so we did all of the utilities and such on Friday. He did throw us a slight curve because the room we stored the junk in was a room he would like to use. I’m glad he told us in time and it really allowed us to pack the room up better because we had gotten a little sloppy in our packing. We had just shoved it into the room to get it out of the way. Putting it in some kind of order would have been harder than moving it. A note of fun. I took someone’s instructions off the e-mail to turn this computer into one that typed in the Ukrainian script. It looked great but I never could figure out what was what on the computer keyboard. I got up to do something else and the computer went to sleep. When I got back it asked me for my password but would not accept it, I tried everything I could think of, I even tried the other accounts that I had set up on the machine. Finally I rebooted the machine to find the same results. Eventually I figured out that I no longer could type my password so I dug out my password removal program and stripped the computer of all passwords. That worked but I had to change back to English and reinstall all of my passwords. Next time I try that I will set up an account with no password protection just so I can get back in to fix it. My last day at work was the 17th and it was the hardest thing I have had to do in a very long time. I feel like I abandoned my program, my kids, my students, and my friends. It was very hard to do and I do not want to do it again, but I know I will have to because it is a fact of my life, I move on eventually. I thought that this location would be different because we bought our first house, we were older and ready to settle and just because I wanted to delude myself. The leaving brings home with crashing reality the looming date to leave. I am ready to get there but the leaving is still hard, once I turn the car keys over at the airport and move in to wait for the plane, it will be better, until then I am still getting ready. Once I reach the airport I will be ready, or else I won’t have what I need and it will not matter. Yesterday I put together cords and made sure that each electric item had what it needed when it got there; man that is a lot of cords. I found that by doing it that way I was able to get rid of some cords due to duplication but I still have too many to feel comfortable with. I just know that security will have a field day with this bag because of the wires and boxes of electronics that it contains. I think the banjo belly in there will have them in fits. Well the rest of the house is getting up and I must have my coffee so I will write later. |
14th |
Today is Valentine’s day and it has been too long since I last wrote. We have been very busy getting ready to go. The day gets closer and the list seems to just get longer; then the PC advisor has the nerve to tell me I should be spending an hour each day on the language CD. My problem with the CD is that it is only available when I sit at the computer and I can not sit at the computer every day for that extra hour. If this program had an audio only portion I would be in heaven studying 5 hours a day. I have enormous amounts of time to listen as I walk the dog or work on restoring the aging computers at work to their best behavior. Somehow it feels like I will never get ready to go. I can not seem to get the house packed up, the garage is ready, the picking and choosing is taking forever, The house sitter (My friend Jim) is coming in two days and we are ready for him but not ready to leave. He comes Thursday; leaves on Wednesday we come home and finish packing on Thursday to leave on Friday morning, ready or not. Next week will be a real storm of paperwork, packing, repacking, and of course partying. I am looking forward with great joy to this coming week. This entry is more of a ramble then I like but I am going
to leave it in. I packed up the truck
last week and put the camper on it.
Sewed a cover for it and put it on blocks for the next two years. The jeep cover is made but it will not go
up on blocks until next week. The van
is the easy part because we are donating it to South Carolina Public Radio;
we drive it to the airport and meet the Lowrider’s at |
5th |
I try to write at least three times a week but it has been
so busy right now that I skipped too many days. Getting ready is taking too much time and
it seems that there is always something else to buy to get ready to go. I spent today working hard outside the
house getting it ready to turn over to the house sitter. I moved the old car I had outback and got
the truck and camper ready to store. I
sewed a cover for it and have it ready to install tomorrow. I also get to make a cover for the jeep I
am storing, but that process will have to wait. I am having trouble getting my doctor to
extend my diabetic testing prescription so I made an appt for Wednesday that
I should not have to make. It is no
wonder the medical health system costs so much because they just make you do
or visit more often than needed. To
get into the Peace Corp under the current health care system it took almost 7
months of visits to complete the basic physical and now one more just to get
the required 6 months of supplies.
This week I arranged to give away the van. We bought the van just to use while our
grandkids were here for the fall semester and the trip to phoenix from Work is actually making me work hard this week and next
but I do get to take an enjoyable trip to This week I am finishing a video for the principal that will be helpful for me as well because it can be a look at the school I am coming from. It is a marketing video for the school. I will post it on the school’s web site and maybe I’ll put it here or at least a link to it so you can all where I came from. Enough for now. Mark |
1st |
There are a few mile stones that mark the impending move
indelibly on your conscious mind, one of them are the changing of the month
to the one in which you leave, and another is the expiration dates of your
grocery purchases; bread, milk, and the like.
During the last week we saw many such milestones as dates passed that
we will not see again in our house.
Now we have passed over to the final month. One month from today some of us will be
winging our way to Next week the bread will have an expiration date after our departure and very soon the gallon of milk I buy for my breakfast will sail past our departure date. Each event a fresh reminder of just how much we have to do before we go and a reminder of the passage of time. I can not tell you what this trip means to me inside but outwardly I am calm and assured about the changes and the journey. I want to start. I want to be on the way. I want to devote all of my time to getting ready to leave but I must work and get ready to leave that to someone else. The hardest part to leaving is putting the programs I started in the High School into the hands of someone else, no matter how good a job I know they will do. I created this program, or at least I made it into what it is and I hope I brought it far enough along to see it continue without me. I will miss working each day with these kids, watching them grow up and learn. It is a revelation to me just how much I have come to enjoy teaching as I had always thought I would not like it. Life is full of surprises is it not? msp |
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