Almost done!

Last Friday I took my comprehensive examination for my Master's degree, which was (as you might expect) a Big Freakin' Deal. Essentially, if you don't pass, you don't graduate. While I never thought that failing was a possibility, I was still pretty stressed out over it. Not to worry; I passed :-) I have not yet received my official score (one can fail, or one can receive a low pass, a pass, or a pass with distinction), but I have been unofficially told that everyone who took the exam last Friday received a passing score. Official scores should be out by the end of the week. Now that comps are over, my to do list has shrunk to an amazingly small size: finish writing a paper (it's almost done; all I have to write is my conclusion and then proofread the thing), teach one class, attend one class as a student, and administer a final exam to my students. And find a job. 

I thought job hunting was stressful back in February. Now that it's April, the stress level has increased exponentially. There still aren't many jobs in TESOL in the US, the positions are very competitive, and I am developing an ever increasing urge to punch the people who design some of these job application websites. (The last job I applied for required me to submit a US state, zip code, and telephone number for each of my former jobs... a bit of a challenge for those positions in South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. In order to get the website to accept my application, I had to enter false information... and then click a checkbox certifying that all of the information I had entered was accurate. Grrrr.) 

I'll be moving out of Orlando and back 'home' to Georgia at the beginning of May, where I will remain until I find a job. Moving is an expensive and annoying process, and I would have loved to move straight from Orlando to the location of my next job, but unless something appears in the next two and a half weeks, it seems that wherever I end up, I'll be getting there by way of Georgia. Whatever happens, though, the graduate school phase of my life is nearly over; time for a new chapter to begin!

Cat Lady Spring Break

The first week of March was Spring Break at the university where I both study and teach. It's a bit early for Spring Break, in my opinion, although perhaps The Powers That Be felt that we Floridians should be given our Spring Break before the college-aged masses from across the country descend on our state later in the month. Who knows. It had been t-shirt weather here in Orlando for the last two weeks of February, so when I started packing for my trip to southeast Georgia, I initially only threw t-shirts into my suitcase. I added a couple of sweaters as an afterthought, and it's a good thing I did as it was pretty cold the entire time I was there - and rainy most of the time I was there. As such, I spent a lot of my Spring Break huddling under the covers with my animals, keeping warm and dry. I didn't really do a damn thing blog-worthy, although I did take a good number of animal photos, especially on the dry days. Let's start with the dogs:

Wolfie is a little obsessed with his food bowl. He continually prances around with the damn thing, all the while looking incredibly proud of himself. Below is a video of Wolfie showing off his bowl-carrying skills.


I was going to take a cute photo of Viktor... then he did this.
Nadya now must be kept on a running tether at all times, because otherwise she gets loose and runs around the neighborhood. As she's one of the three cat-killers, we really cannot have her getting loose. She doesn't seem to mind the tether, though. It's pretty long, and she's still in the yard with Viktor and Kali.
Kali: Fat, lazy, adorable, shy, sweet, and occasionally kills cats. Sigh.
I swear Brin gets greyer every time I see him.
This is not our dog. She has apparently been running free through mom's neighborhood for the past couple of weeks - although she's not thin at all (and turned up her nose at a bowl of food), so she must have a home somewhere. Unfortunately, mom's dogs go nuts when she shows up. Brin even attacked her on Friday... perhaps after that she'll stay closer to her home.
Mochi being his adorable self, with Bagira in the background
My mom really didn't want me to post this, but is is seriously one of the most adorable photos ever, in my opinion. And it works well for a transition from dogs to cats.
This is Stranger. He showed up out at mom's land back in January. And by "showed up" I suspect I actually mean "was dumped" - he's a full grown male, but young. Super friendly.
He loves to roll over.
Watch Stranger in action:

This is Buddy. He was trapped as an adult feral cat in 2009. He didn't start allowing humans to pet him until January of this year.... and he has discovered that he loves it! Although if you watch the video below, you'll see his feralness rear its head (or its claws!) a few times. You can also clearly hear him purring :-)


Charlie, being all ladylike.

Bagira, who is always ladylike.

Echo, our oldest cat. We found her as a kitten in 2002.
And now for some rainy photos to show you what most of my Spring Break was like:
Merlin

In the distance you can see one of the kitties (Solly, I think)
Honey, Merlin, and Solly

PLEASE HELP! Dogs need adoption in southeast GA!

I’ve written at length (numerous times) about the problems of being one of the fairly small number of folks in Southeastern Georgia willing to take responsibility for animals no one else wants. My mother and I like dogs (I have Mochi; she has eight – and you may remember that we picked up six puppies in December), but we are cat people. Cat rescue is our thing. My mom has roughly 25 cats (all rescues, all spayed/neutered and vaccinated).

Cats and dogs do not always get along. Luckily Mochi is great with cats (I’m fairly certain he thinks he is a cat), and mom’s three indoor dogs (two little ones and one pit bull) are also great with cats. The dogs in mom’s backyard, however, are cat-killers. Specifically Kali, Viktor, and Nadya. It’s not their fault. They were all full grown when we found them. Kali and Nadya (found separately) were starving, and probably hunted whatever they could to survive. Viktor was most likely a lost/dumped hog-hunting dog, whom we found injured and on the side of the road in the absolute middle of nowhere. Whatever hunting instincts they had when we rescued them were already fixed into their brains. Mom has had Kali since 2009 and Viktor since 2012. During that time we have lost several cats to the backyard dogs. Most of the cats know not to venture near them. I picked up Nadya last New Year’s eve. We’ve lost two kittens in little more than a year, once they’ve gotten big enough to venture out the cat window. Kittens who didn’t know that the backyard dogs were not friendly like the indoor dogs. We lost little Sunshine today. It was probably Kali that got her (apparently she had a scratch to the face), although we don’t know for sure.

Rest in peace, poor, sweet Sunshine.

WOULD ANYONE BE INTERESTED IN ADOPTING A DOG? (Or if you're a dog rescuer with some cats that don't fit in at your place, would you be interested in trading?)

Perhaps this isn’t the best way to introduce the question of adopting these dogs… But we really need to find homes for them. We’ve wanted to find homes for them ever since we found them, but they’re not the easiest to place (especially Kali and Viktor). Viktor and Kali couldn’t go to anyone with cats or small dogs. Viktor can’t go to anyone with male dogs (he’s viciously aggressive against male dogs), and Kali has in the past been aggressive towards female dogs. However, they get along great with each other. I wouldn’t want them to go to someone with little kids. They’re not aggressive towards humans at all (they’re quite friendly), but they might view a small child in the same way they view cats and small dogs and I wouldn’t want to take that chance. What they need is someone with a fenced in yard, no small children, and no other animals that might wander into said yard. They are both very sweet and love attention. Kali is actually passive aggressive; when you try to put her in her kennel, she will often roll over on her back and refuse to budge until her belly is rubbed to her satisfaction. Nadya is incredibly sweet, and could go to anyone with a good fenced in yard and no cats. (She's great with small dogs.) I’m sure she’d also LOVE to be a house dog.

Viktor

Viktor

Kali

Kali

Nadya

I’ve mentioned before that my mom is 69 years old and lives alone. She has about 25 cats, in addition to the eight dogs. If I get offered a job in the US, I will take Viktor and Kali off her hands, but my future is (as I mentioned in my previous post) rather up in the air. I might be living in the US after I finish my Master’s program, but I just as easily might be living somewhere like Kyrgyzstan. (This also, of course, depends on me being able to live somewhere where I could have large dogs. For example, I would not be allowed to have them in the place that I am currently renting.) Additionally, right now half of my mom’s cats live out at her land (where there are no dogs). When she moves out to her land (once the house is finished; probably in June) she will be bringing the eight dogs out to the land. While she plans to have dog ‘yards’ out there as she does at her current location, there are about 15 cats out at her land who have only ever met Brin, the cat-friendly pit bull, and who are used to having free reign across all her of her land. She is terrified of what might happen to her cats if she brings Viktor, Kali, and Nadya out there, and so am I.

These dogs are cat-killers, through no fault of their own. We took these dogs in because they were abandoned and mistreated, although since we are cat people, it is proving quite a heartbreaking hardship. If anyone is interested in adopting them (or knows someone who might be), please leave me a comment and let me know. All three are fixed, have had their shots, and are on heartworm preventative. Please share this post and help me get the word out. 

Showing my Floridian roots.

I took Mochi for a walk down along the Little Econ Greenway yesterday. The high was 52F. I wore a couple of sweaters, and this is how Mochi was decked out:

Honestly, Mochi probably would have been just fine without the coat (having a built-in one and all), but here in Florida, I rarely get the chance to bust out my own winter wear, let alone the dog's. That's not to say that I'm feeling overly nostalgic for cold weather. I mean, I was excited when the polar vortex made it cold enough to actually wear my lovely little dark green riding hood coat a few times... but I am already ready for this Florida "winter" to be over and done with.

It really is a rich dark green and I am really not a funky shade of orange; the lighting in my bathroom is terrible. Also, I need to clean my mirror.
I'll be graduating with my MA in a few months, and as such have started looking for jobs. Given that I am looking for teaching positions, this isn't really the best time of year for job postings as most fall-starts aren't going to be listed for a few more months yet. Or at least that's what I tell myself. Last fall I submitted my application for a really good 1-2 year position overseas. There are a large number of positions available, so even though it's competitive, chances are good. Still, as I selected the former Soviet Union as the region to which I would like to be sent, I just keep thinking how cold it will be. So I've started applying for jobs in the southeastern US. (I figure I'll go with whichever good job offer contacts me first and let fate deal with the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go problem). There aren't many full-time positions in the ESL field if you're looking to stay out of the public school system, and I really am hoping that there will be more openings posted in a couple of months. Still, in the past couple of weeks I've applied for four jobs (three in Florida, one in Georgia), all of which would be good jobs (although two would be most excellent). I've found myself browsing real estate in the areas where these jobs are located. Real estate! Looking for jobs stateside? Browsing real estate ads? Longing for warmth? I seem to have gotten old overnight. Not that a job in the US would stop me from vacationing in places like, say, North Korea...

Southeast Georgia: Animal Hell… Animal Hope?

Someone in Florida asked me something the other day along the lines of ‘Is the situation with animals in your part of Georgia really as bad as it seems from your facebook posts?’ Sadly, yes. Yes, it is. In fact, it’s probably worse. Animal Control services in this area are limited or non-existent (depending on the county), shelters and rescues are overwhelmed, and one has to drive an hour or more to access low-cost spay/neuter clinics. But the real problem, in my opinion, is the culture. My mom was speaking to some sheriff’s deputies the other day about this and they said ‘We’ve got a real dog problem around here.’ Her response was ‘No. We’ve got a people problem around here.’ And it’s true.

In early December my mom emailed me about a disabled dog that had appeared in her yard (its back legs were paralyzed, although it could drag itself about with its front legs). She called local Animal Control and was told that they had already been called out because of this dog and had spoken to its owner. They said they would come out later that day and talk to the owner again. They told my mom where the dog lived and she took it home. The ‘owner’ told my mom that the dog had been abandoned with her by someone who was now refusing to take responsibility for it. The dog appeared in my mom’s yard the following week and she again returned it to its ‘owner.’ On December 19^th, I found the dog sitting in the middle of the road about half a block from where I knew it lived, and I carried it back to its ‘home.’ The poor thing was sweet as can be, but had absolutely no use of its hind legs, and had raw spots on the back legs from where they dragged the ground.

I went back with my camera… the ‘owner’ came out shouting at me about how I needed to get the hell off her property right then because I was trespassing (I was outside her fence on the public right-of-way). My response was that she needed to do something about the dog because keeping it like that was inhumane. She told me the same story she had told my mom about the dog being abandoned with her, and said that she had no money for vet care, or a wheelchair for the dog, or even to have it euthanized. I offered to take it and have it euthanized, saying that I would pay for it. She hemmed and hawed and said she didn’t want to do that because it was such a sweet dog. I offered to share its picture on facebook with my animal rescue connections, and she agreed.

I shared the dog’s pictures on facebook with the following caption: This dog was abandoned at the home of one of my mom's neighbors, and her owner refuses to take responsibility for it. My mom's neighbor is broke and unemployed and while she is feeding this dog, she can't afford any vet care. The dog is elderly (in her teens) and has lost all use of her back legs and has no muscles in her back end, so it is atrophied as a result. She drags herself around, and has rubbed her back feet raw doing so. Mom's neighbor does not want her euthanized (I offered to pay if she did). Local Animal Control is aware of this and have been out several times. Mom's neighbor doesn't want it to be taken by local animal control because she knows it will be euthanized. This dog is incredibly sweet, and really needs a loving home where she can live out her final days with quality care. Unfortunately, neither my mom nor I are able to take her. CAN SOMEONE HELP???? At the very least, please share this album. Thank you.

Notice how I didn’t mention anything about how the dog was always out in the street or in neighbors’ yards, or about the woman’s confrontational attitude. I didn’t even mention her name. Well, this being a small town, one of my friends is one of her facebook friends, so she saw the post. And totally flipped her lid. Here I was trying to help her, and her response was to post on my friend’s thread about what a liar I was and how I had never offered to help her and how she did really want to have the dog euthanized, but didn’t have the money. (In my opinion, if you have the money to chain smoke your way through a 30 minute conversation, you have the money to pay for euthanasia.) She then sent me two incredibly nasty facebook messages calling me a liar and a bitch, accusing me of slander, and threatening to have me arrested if I trespassed on her property (*cough* public right-of-way *cough*) again, and sent an equally nasty facebook message to my mom. The messages did, however, say that she would have the dog euthanized the next day.

We saw it on December 26th, nearly a full week later, sitting in a different neighbor’s yard.

It’s not an animal problem; it’s a people problem.

On December 23rd, as I was driving from my house to my mom’s, I saw a sad, skinny puppy sitting in the middle of the road in the rain. I pulled up next to it, and got out. It shrank away from me in terror. I coaxed him over to me and picked him up, and he clung to me. I went to three houses in the neighborhood. One house said they thought the puppy lived at a place down the road. I went to said house to be told no, it wasn’t theirs, but they’d seen it around the past couple of days. I went to the place across from them; no, it wasn’t theirs. They’d called Animal Control, but no one had come out. I took him home.

Loki at his first trip to the vet.

Loki in my room

I took him to the vet, got him his shots, had him de-wormed, got him some antibiotics for the infected cut on his rump, and posted pictures of him on facebook. Through the modern miracle of social networking, I was able to arrange for him to be adopted by my uncle’s ex-wife, a woman I had not had any contact with since I was an infant. Sometimes people can be the solution, if only they are willing to try.

Christmas morning as my mom and I were driving back from feeding the horses (meaning that we were out in the country), I spotted a Budwiser box on its side, with puppies huddled in a pile in the weeds in front of it. We stopped and went back. Yep, they’d been dumped. Five skinny little puppies, about six weeks old, dumped on the side of the road in a Budwiswer box on Christmas morning. This isn’t a dog problem; this is a people problem.

The five puppies when we first got them home.
I’ve mentioned before that my mom is 69 years old, lives alone, works full time (as a teacher, so she does NOT have a lot of money), and already has a ton of animals (two horses, eight dogs, and about 25 cats – all rescues, all fixed, all vetted). The addition of one puppy to the mix was stressful but doable. Five was not really feasible at all, but we couldn’t just leave them there. I posted a quick picture on facebook with a short, panicked rant about our situation. By that evening a local rescue (BARC) had contacted me with an offer of assistance. They offered to pay for vet care and to try and find foster homes for the puppies. Within three days, the puppies had gotten their first shots and had been wormed (and boy did they need that wormer, wow), and four of them had been placed in foster homes. And puppy number five? My dad had seen her picture and decided to adopt her. (If you're interested in adopting one, please contact BARC.)

The puppies after 3 days in our care

The puppy my dad is adopting

People can be the solution. My mom and I could’ve just driven past those puppies. Between the worms, the lack of food, and the cold, wet weather, and their proximity to the road, they would probably be dead by now. But we didn’t drive by. Instead, they’re healthy, cared for, and on their way to having loving, permanent homes.

People can be the solution, but right now those of us who are part of the solution are hopelessly outnumbered. Just take a look at some of the animals found by local area rescues in the same time period during which I was dealing with six puppies and a paralyzed dog:

This one was abandoned at a loca apartment complex. Apparently its jaw had broken and had never been set, so it ‘healed’ like this. (From here.)

This is one of three Great Danes surrendered by a backyard breeder who decided she didn’t want them anymore. They had apparently never been to a vet before. (From here.)

This one was rescued from a local Animal Control facility. (From here.)

Another starving stray found on the side of the road. (From here.)

This poor injured cat had been dumped in this condition in a convenience store parking lot. It had to be euthanized, but at least it is no longer suffering. (From here.)

And that’s just a sample of what went on down here in just ONE WEEK.

There are some wonderful people (such as the ones working with the animals posted above) who are working their tails off trying to help as many animals down here as they can… but they can only do so much against the tide of indifference and cruelty that animals down here face. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. If you drive past the starving or injured animal you see on the side of the road and do nothing, you are part of the problem. If you do not get your animal spayed or neutered (for ANY reason), you are part of the problem. If you abandon an animal (for ANY reason), you are a part of the problem. If you have an injured animal and refuse to pay for vet care while spending money on cigarettes, you are part of the problem.

How can you become part of the solution?

Don’t just drive by abandoned/injured animals. If you can take them in – even temporarily – do so. With modern social networking technologies, you may very well be able to find homes for them among friends, family, and acquaintances, or you may find an animal rescue willing to take them. Another option is to set up an appointment to bring them to a local animal control facility. If the animal is severely injured, $35 will end its suffering. That’s how much it costs to euthanize an animal at my vet. I hate to see an animal die, but it’s even worse leaving it to die a slow and painful death on its own. If you cannot pick up the animal (and I do understand that it is not always possible, although keep in mind there is a difference between ‘impossible’ and ‘inconvenient’), call local animal control. (Keep in mind that in many areas – such as southeast GA – animal control facilities, shelters, and rescues are limited in size and funding and tend to be overloaded. Rely on them as a last resort.) If there is no animal control in your area (or even if there is), use your phone, take a picture of the animal, and share its information on facebook. Provide local and nationwide rescue organizations with the animal’s location and picture; spread the word amongst your family and friends that there's an animal in need of help.

Support local animal shelters, rescues, and humane societies. A while back I wrote a really long post about how to donate and support local shelters wisely, click here to read it. (Don’t just give money blindly; do your research and make sure you’re supporting an organization that will make good use of your money. You can also support local shelters, rescues, and humane societies by volunteering your time, either at their facilities, as a foster, as a fund-raiser, as a webmaster, as a photographer, and so on.) Do not donate to the Humane Society of the United States; donate locally to ensure that your money goes to the animals that need it.

SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS. I cannot stress this enough. If you can’t afford the surgery at your local vet clinic, do a google search for low cost spay/neuter services in your area. Even if the closest service is an hour or so away (as it is here), it is much cheaper to make the drive than to deal with the expense of puppies or kittens later on. In some areas there may also be local services that provide transport for the animals to low/cost clinics for those folks who can’t take the day off work to make the drive. Even if you’re keeping your animal inside at all times and it is not around animals of the opposite sex, you should still get it fixed. I love cats and dogs…. but cats in heat are loud, obnoxious, and pee on everything. Dogs in heat bleed. Intact male dogs and cats spray EVERYTHING. Get your pet fixed, and you won’t have to deal with these problems! Not to mention that if something happens and your ‘indoor only’ pet gets out… Well, you can figure out what happens! I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘Well, he can’t get pregnant, so I’m not going to waste the money.’ True, he can’t get pregnant, but how do you think all the female cats and dogs get knocked up? If you’re not getting your male dog or cat fixed because he can’t get pregnant, you’re part of the problem.

A spay/neuter message for Game of Thrones fans :-)

And for the love of god, do not abandon your animals.

If you are in Southeast Georgia, I highly recommend the Brantley Animal Rescue Coalition (BARC) as a wonderful organization to support, whether via donation or through fostering or other services. If you need to get a pet spayed or neutered, The Humane Society of South Coastal Georgia in Brunswick, GA and No More Homeless Pets in Jacksonville, FL offer low-cost spay/neuter/vaccine services, and the River City Animal Hospital  of Jacksonville, FL provides a mobile spay/neuter/vaccine clinic which serves northeast Florida and southeast Georgia. If you are in or near Waycross, this lovely lady can help to arrange transport for your animals to the nearest low-cost spay/neuter clinics.

And to leave this post on a high note, here’s an absolutely hilarious picture of Mochi playing with the puppy that will soon be living in Clearwater, FL with my uncle’s ex-wife: 

3/4 Done!

My third semester in the MA TESOL program has just come to a close. I have just one more semester and I will have my MA and be done with school for a while.

This semester I taught my first university level classes: mainly juniors and seniors; mainly education majors; all native or fluent English speakers. I had worried that while I loved teaching EFL/ESL, I wouldn’t enjoy teaching future teachers about second language acquisition and how to teach ESOL students. I needn’t have worried; I loved it. I had a really great time with my classes, and I hope I have students next semester who are as fun to teach as these guys were. I should also have a much lighter workload next semester, as I won’t be making PowerPoints from scratch for every single lesson; I’ll just be tweaking the ones I made this semester.

My experiences teaching this semester have changed my outlook on the future a bit. I used to think, ‘Why bother getting a PhD? I don’t want to be a university professor.’ Except that now I kind of do. And I didn’t go the thesis track. It seems that everybody says, ‘Oh, if you want a PhD, you absolutely must write a thesis for your MA’ and maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not. The thing is, I don’t want to get my PhD in TESOL. If I were to shoot for a PhD, it would be in Sociolinguistics – and it would be at a different school. I didn’t want to write a thesis for the MA because I came to this program wanting to learn more about how to become a better ESOL teacher, not to conduct research. Oddly enough, this semester I took a sociolinguistics course, and ended up getting really into my research on language policy in Kyrgyzstan – and I’m hoping to get my paper published. Here’s hoping that if I do apply for any PhD programs and I get dinged for not having written a thesis, a published article will suffice. You know, assuming it gets published. I guess we’ll see what the future brings. Were I to apply to a PhD program, it wouldn’t be for a year or so anyway.

I’m heading up to GA for the next three weeks. I’m actually going to be pretty busy designing a curriculum for a baseball-themed EFL program for a major league baseball team’s training center in the Caribbean. Which should be interesting, given my general lack of knowledge of baseball. I’m also taking a fairly large dog up to GA with me, in addition to Mochi and Charlie, as I’ll be pet-sitting her over the break. That’s going to make for an interesting car ride there and back, let me tell you. Sigh.

Lastly, vimeo seems to be letting me keep my Kyrgyzstan-is-Middle-Earth video online, so check it out:

Of sunsets, kittens, euthanasia, and head colds

I went up to GA for the Thanksgiving holiday break. In some ways it was not what you’d call a happy holiday, although I’ve certainly had worse. Two of our elderly cats – Tuffy and Grey – had to be euthanized. Both of them had chronic illnesses that had plagued them for years (and for which they had been treated for years), but they had finally reached that point. Tuffy was 13, and we’d had her since she was a kitten. Grey showed up, fully grown, on my doorstep in the fall of 2009 and had been part of our lives ever since. We have a lot of animals, my mom and I, and as a result, we experience animal deaths more frequently than people who only have one or two pets. I’d like to say that it gets better with experience, but it never does. It’s been five days since we buried Grey and Tuffy, and I’m crying typing about it. They will be missed.

Grey and Tuffy

But there’s never a shortage of homeless pets.

This is Sunshine. My aunt (who lives in an assisted living facility not far from my mom) found her in the woods by her home, and brought her to my mom. Our home is not the best place for her, as we do have several cats with feline leukemia, but when the only other option is tossing her out on the street (don’t even get me started on the local animal control situation…) I guess it’s the best chance she’s got. She’s been vaccinated against feline leukemia already, although she’s also developed a head cold, which we’re keeping an eye on.

For Thanksgiving proper we drove down to F’s house at Dekle Beach. The weather was beautiful: chilly (for Florida), but with bright sunshine and crystal clear skies. The sunset was pretty spectacular. I promptly developed a rather nasty head cold and spent the time feeling rather wretched.

I’m back in Orlando now for the tail-end of the semester. I have one presentation left to give and I’ll be done. I don’t even have any finals. (I know; it confuses me, too. Don’t get me wrong, I like not having to take finals, but not having finals just seems wrong somehow.) And speaking of finals, I can’t leave Orlando for a few more weeks because my students most definitely do have finals. I don’t control their official exam schedule, and the school has decreed that one of my sections will take their final on the very last day of finals… and I can’t leave until they’re done. I’m hoping that the extra free time I’ll have before going back up to GA will enable me to get a head start on my Christmas vacation project: designing the ESL curriculum for a major league baseball team’s training program in a Caribbean country. I should probably point out that I know sweet fuck all about baseball, but hey – I did order both Baseball for Dummies and the Idiot’s Guide to Baseball. I have to have this done by the beginning of January, so it’s definitely going to be my project for the break – unless I can get a good chunk of it knocked out beforehand.

I only have one semester left before I AM YOUR MASTER. Er, before I have my MA in TESOL. I’m still feeling fairly ambivalent about whether I stay in the US or go back overseas. I’ve applied for a pretty prestigious and rather competitive position which would definitely involve going back overseas (most likely to somewhere in the former Soviet Union), and if I am offered said position, I will most definitely accept. (There’s more than one ‘position,’ BTW, and chances are good – especially as they have a hard time filling their positions in the ‘stans.) Unfortunately, even though I submitted my application last month, I won’t hear from them until sometime ‘between early April and late June.’ Great. Meaning that if I don’t get it, I’ll be in a bit of a bind. June is a bit late in the year to be applying for teaching positions. However, I really do not want to be in a position where I am telling others that I cannot accept their job offer as I am waiting to hear from someone better, so I’ve simply decided to hold off on the job search until I find out one way or the other. However, I do think I will be confining said job search to the southeastern US – maybe even to FL – if ‘the position’ falls through. I guess we shall see.

Lagging

I’ve been back in the US a little more than a week. Honestly, I’m not feeling any reverse culture shock at all. What I have been feeling, however, is jetlag. I think I’m mostly over it at this point, although obviously not completely as I woke up before 9am today without an alarm. Trust me, that only ever happens when I’m jetlagged. While it’s not as bad as jetlag from Korea to the US, it’s still rough. It took several days before I could make it through the day without passing out mid-afternoon or waking up around 3:30am. Unfortunately, I’ve a lot that I need to be doing, which makes the fact that my brain has been so time-scrambled for the past week or so kind of a pain.

For those of you interested in my Kyrgyzstan adventures, I have indeed been posting them over on my Kyrgyzstan blog, so go check it out!

My post-Kyrgyzstan adventures haven’t been quite as interesting. I’ve written a syllabus and put together a course calendar for the undergrad course I’ll be teaching starting in a little more than a week. I’ve also started putting together the course website. Yawn. I also have to take several hours of boring online modules, as well as a full day of face-to-face training to “qualify” me to be a TA. Like I’d never taught before or something. Hah. I also have a very part time job (happens only a few days a year, but hey it pays well) which will be taking up pretty much all of next week… meaning I need to get my course stuff and online modules and whatever taken care of before Monday rolls around. In other words, this weekend is going to be pretty much the opposite of exciting.

I drove up to Georgia on Sunday and came back yesterday. Mom and I then drove back down to Florida – albeit to a different part of the state than where I live – in order to help her boyfriend, F, move his sailboat from his dock in Steinhatchee to his new house in Dekle Beach. I’d like to say that we were successful, but alas, the boat never left the dock. We essentially did a lot of driving, a lot of sweating, and accomplished a whole lotta nothing. But hey, the scenery was great. We also celebrated my mom’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! Back in Georgia, I helped my mom with the mowing (and the towing of the mower from one property to the next), which also involved a lot of sweating. The southeastern US will do that to you this time of year.

Mom and F and the sailboat...
Mom on the boat. Her hand is bleeding, having been thwacked by the centerboard crank.
And this would be the reason we didn't move the boat - we needed to motor it down to the ramp, but alas...
But hey, the view was nice.
F's new house
The view from F's new house
We went for a walk in the marshy area along Yates Creek
Happy Birthday!
Back in GA, Honey and Merlin anxiously await dinner.

Of course, by the time I made it back to Orlando on Thursday and was still sweating, I realized that I needed to have my AC looked at. I’d gotten a new compressor (up in GA) back in April, so there was no reason for me to be sweating in the car. Well, either the guy who installed the compressor forgot to add freon, or the system has a leak. I guess I’ll find out which if my car either remains cool or goes back to being a sweatbox.

In addition to the kinda pricey freon + oil change, I gave in and went to LensCrafters to get an eye exam and some new glasses. I don’t even want to think about the amount of money I had to shell out. And I won’t even get my glasses til next week, as they have to special order my lenses (as I bloody well can’t see) – although at least I made it through one more checkup without needing bifocals. Hah. The doctor said I’ll probably need to get them the next time I get a prescription. Since I’m going from having four pairs of glasses (black, brown, pink, and green) plus prescription sunglasses to just having one pair plus sunglasses, I went with tortoiseshell lenses as those are both black and brown. They’re super cute, but I don’t get to post pictures until next week or whenever they arrive.

So yeah. This post has been disjointed and probably not the  most interesting. Go visit my Kyrgyzstan blog – it’s far more coherent and definitely far more interesting.