I'm Going to Europe!!!

Monday, November 27, 2006

Saturday, November 25, 2006

This was what a Saturday should always be like. I woke up leisurely at 8:30 (because I’d gone to bed the night before at 9:30). I took a shower, read a little and then found out that language lessons had been cancelled. Melissa’s computer wouldn’t turn on, so we all prayed, and it turned on! Yay! Church is true! I didn’t get an email back from Campus Lane, but I got emails back from 2 other places. One was the Avenues and that one isn’t going to work out and the other was an apartment at Omni, which was probably my seconds choice and which sounds like it could totally work out! I think I’ll wait and try and see if the Campus Lane one works out (because that’s really where my heart lies) and if not, I’ll just go ahead and take the Omni one. I’m not too worried about it being taken before I act, because the girl is going on her honeymoon like, tomorrow and will be gone for like a week. Around 11 Shannon and I went off to run errands for her. She needed to go to Podul first to talk to Abbi. On the way we were both just in the best of moods! The morning had been leisurely, we’d gotten out of the apartment by exactly the time we’d wanted to, the day was gorgeous and everything was looking promising! I made the observation that it was one of those times that everything in your life looks as if it’s going right! Like, I had hopes of getting the best apartment ever, I had hopes of getting glasses and of having a great day and just having everything work out great. I knew that chances were not everything would work out the way I wanted it to, but the great thing about that moment was that nothing hadn’t worked out yet. It was all still intact and life just looked wonderful! I told that to Shannon and was like, “you know what, I could not get the apartment and I could not get my glasses, etc., but right now, I don’t know that I won’t, so I’m just going to take this moment and milk it for all it’s work, because these moments don’t usually last.” It was great. After Podul we went to Hala. While we were getting groceries we heard some kids singing and it sounded live and like it was coming from right upstairs, so we decided to go check in out. By the time we got there the concert was over, but there were kids eeeeverywhere. It was seriously such a happy moment. There we were, standing in this mall with Christmas decorations, freshly hung, all around us with hoards of laughing, screaming kids running all around us. I took some pictures. I’ve definitely learned more about true joy and true pain here than I ever have before. I’m so glad I came! Well, when we got home, Megan and Jess were already back and I took a nap for a little while and then the three of us went over to the Palat to see another one of the museums. We decided to go to the Art History one and I actually really liked it! I think I may even want to go back! I really wish that all of my homework wasn’t on the computer, because one of my favorite things to do is to take my homework and go somewhere special to work on it. And I’d love to be able to just go to that art gallery and sit there and do my homework surrounded by it all. First we looked through all of the international art. I was very impressed, because they had both a Reubens and a Vernet! I was so surprised to see the Vernet, because he is one of my favorite artists and I just totally was not expecting for him to have this random painting here in Iasi! I quite enjoyed that section and wrote down a bunch of paintings that I really liked in my notebook. At the end of the hall they had a section will copies of Greek and Roman sculpture. It was set up like this. If you’re standing there starting at it, there the Dying Gaulle in front of you, athletes on your right and left and then in continues on in a circle, with different gods making up the circle, including the Venus de Milo, and then right in the middle of the circle was the head of Zeus. Pretty cool. They also had a Romanian section. Some of it I didn’t care much for, but there were a few artists who I just looooved. I wrote them down and I hope I can find some of their stuff online or something. Lastly, they had a special exhibition, which opened yesterday, of a Romanian artist named Corneliu Baba who I just looooved. Like, he seriously has to be at least one of my favorite artists! His work is just so stark are real and INTERESTING! Like, every piece I turned to I’d just love. Well, on our way out we ran into Marina and Bri who’d just finished with the Archeology museum. Then I got home, took another nap (J) and then Shannon and I walked to Gima. It was quite the enjoyable walk actually. We talked about music and then when we’d just crossed the street at the foot of the hill we walk up to go to the hospital, we saw this gorgeous pink sunset right above this pink building and it was just so beautiful. We both tried our best to capture it with our cameras, but the lighting was just so that we couldn’t get the coloring quite right. It was either the pink building or the pink sky, but not both L. As we were there snapping shots, a cute old man walked by said something we didn’t understand, pointed up at the sky with his cane and smile and I just tried to say “da” that happiest I could! I could tell he must have been saying something about how beautiful it was and I was so glad that he appreciated it too and wasn’t just annoyed that we were taking pictures. Once we got to Iulius Mall we went looking for a heated blanket. We had great fun looking, but found no blanket. I wish I’d known how nice the mall was before! It really was just as nice as a mall at home and I can’t say that about much of anything here! You could also get so many things so easily! Like, there was a store with school supplies and one with toys and one with books and one like bed bath and beyond and everything! It was amazing to me, because before that I’d always found it sooo hard to find all these ordinary things. We’ll have to pass the tip onto the next group. We also ended up getting shaworma from the food court and sharing a soda. See, they had this adooorable little cokes in these little glass classic bottles with straws. It made us happy. Finally we went to Gima and I got stuff for the peach cobbler I’m making for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and stuff that I plan to take home with me. We took a taxi home and then couldn’t get in, so we sat on the step to wait for someone to open the door to the building. While we were sitting there we starting talking about the taxi ride and Romanian driving and the fact that it’s rude to wear a seat belt. Well, Shannon got offended at something I said, and it surprised me, because I wasn’t meaning to be offensive and I said so. Well, since Shannon and I have this whole friendship thing well enough worked out, we didn’t get in an argument, but instead had another session of psychoanalyzing Sheri. It was fascinating! Really, we have deconstructed so much about me since being here and I love it! Listen to this. We’ve decided that my personality and my mind do not go together! Let me explain. See, my mind is incredibly logical and analytical and causes me to be great at math and great at debating and such things. I am so logical and analytical that I analyze everything and just feel the need to be logical about even the tiniest of things. It’s a part of me and I hate it and love it at the same time. On the other hand, my personality is a combination of free spirited adventurism. I’m incredibly curious and enthusiastic, artistic and carefree. This is not the case with most people. Most people that are very logical and analytical are very strict and square in everything they do and they fit a certain type. They may debate all the time, but since this is their personality, people expect it of them and it doesn’t tend to be much of a problem. Most people that are very carefree and free spirited do not tend to be intensely logical. They are artsy and more concerned with emotion than logic. That is not to say they are not intelligent, no, they are just two different kinds of intelligent. They rarely get in arguments either because, well, they just don’t feel the need to argue things, or if they do it is only because one of those really analytical people forced them into it. This combination of the two makes me one conflicted person – something I’ve always known but that I’ve never known the “why” of. In everything I do I have these two sides of me pulling me opposite directions. For example, while one part of me will whole heartedly want to just spend a day doing whatever in the world comes into my mind, the other part of me has this intense desire to make a list, or a schedule, and follow it religiously. As a result, I am rarely satisfied. That also explains why I want to be a writer and yet am so much more skilled at something like math, though I have no desire to go into math. Now let me explain why that makes it so that I tend to get in arguments with people over stupid things. See, the analytical side of my mind makes me very observant and causes me to ponder a lot of things. A lot of the time, I’ll bring up something I’m pondering about and get in a discussion about it with the person I am with. If they disagree, that’s fine with me, but I’m so logical that I feel the need to debate it from a strictly logical standpoint. I am not upset, I’m just going through the motions. Usually at the beginning of these discussions, the person I’m talking with is totally fine and has no problem with anything. At some point, however, it turns into a debate. They usually don’t notice the transition, but they generally notice at some point that somehow we’ve arrived at a debate. One of the reasons that they don’t notice the debate until we’re right in the middle of it is because I’m so carefree and curious that it resembles the other side of my personality because it sounds like I’m just being curious. Well, anyway, at some point all of a sudden the fact that we’re in a debate suddenly hits them and they become disoriented. People aren’t used to having to deal with the two different kinds of people at the same time and so they don’t know what to do. If I were just the carefree kind of person, the conversation wouldn’t be offensive, because it wouldn’t be taken as serious or important or what have you. If I were just the logical kind of person, it would be expected and non threatening, but when it’s a mix of the two people don’t know what it is or how to react and yeah. Yeah, I’m sure it makes a whole lot more sense to me. But seriously, what a cool thing to figure out! Yeah, I’ve always known I was different. Anyway, so later in the night I cooked my peach cobbler for tomorrow. Shannon was in the room cooking too and she introduced me to one of her favorite bands, “Indigo Girls” who I’d heard of but never listened to and who I think I really like. While I was listening, Marina and Abbi came over to use the phone and I chatted a little with them and used the computer!

Friday, November 24, 2006

This morning I woke up early, like I have been lately, and started using the computer at 6:30 and was able to use it for a good 2 hours before I had to get ready, because I was going to Penilla again and didn’t have to be ready until 9:15. Penilla was good, but not quiiite as good as last time we went. I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’m probably the only one of the group (aside from maaaybe Holly) who has figured out exactly how to get there and even know several ways. We were with the gruppa mic (little group) today, where Maria and Catalin from Dacie 3rd floor are. They were so cute! I’d say the age range was anywhere from 1 and ½ or 2 to 5. When we first got there they were in the play room with the ball pit and I kind of wasn’t sure what to do. They were already all playing, they were all kind of scared of me, aside for Maria and Catalin who were playing with Shannon anyway, and I was scared of them too, so I just reverted to my old trusted friend, tickling. It worked better than anything else I could think of would, but I still kind of looked like an idiot. Luckily the play room was almost over though, so soon we were off to a different room with desks. The teacher had all the kids sit down in a circle and taught them Christmas poems, while Shannon and I sat at her desk and wrote American children’s songs for them to learn. We decided to throw in a couple of children’s church songs too, just for good measure and because we couldn’t think of any other ones J. While we were sitting there writing the songs, we’d occasionally look over and gaze at the little circle of kids and be like, “*sigh,* they’re so cute!” This was especially satisfying because Shannon’s mom had a daycare and she used to be totally not like that and take pride in the fact that she wasn’t one of those girls and there she was going right along with it too! Well, after a while we finished with the songs and went and sat with them for a while before we all went back to the desks to paint! The kids were learning about the color orange, so they were given a piece of white paper and they were supposed to paint it all orange. I never knew there were so many ways to paint a page orange. The kid I was sitting next to had a very specific method. He would dip the paint brush in the paint and then paint in a very concentrated area, probably the size of a 50 cent piece and then, though his brush was still completely filled with paint, he’d redip it and put a tiny bit more on. He was obsessed with getting every little piece of white on the areas that were already mostly orange, but didn’t seem to much care about the huge spaces of white. He was definitely the last one done. I loved it. Child after my own heart. I think his name is David and I noticed that he and this other kid named Paul tend to still together like superglue. Paul is one of the youngest kids (maybe 2) and he’s probably the cutest one (strictly looks wise), but pretty petulant. He’s wary and moody and shy. David on the other hand is really even tempered and has kind of a quiet strength to him. So, even though Paul has the strooonger personality, he’d really be nothing without David, who basically watches over and protects him. You know you’ve been working with kids too long when you talk like that. Provo is going to be such alien land to me! People are going to be like, um what are you doing? Eh, I’m over it. Ce sa faci (what can you do)? So, anyway, while we were painting, the teacher was helping this one really little boy do his painting, but she’d occasionally help someone else too. Well, one of the times, she went to go help someone else and by the time she came back, this little kid had paint just aaaaaall over his face. It was hilarious! Painting with babies – never a good idea if you like everything to be clean! Well, after painting we got all the kids changed into basically their snow clothes, even though Shannon and I were outside in our t-shirts and were absolutely fine. I started off swinging with Maria, then after a while the other kids came out, including Catalina from Dacie 7th, and I swung with her too. I’d been hoping to see Georgiana from Dacie 7th too, because I don’t think she’ll be at Dacie from now on, but she wasn’t there because she was with her new mom. After a while we went and did a bunch of other things too (half of them involving tickling of course). My favorite playground moment was this. I’d started chasing Catalina and tickling her and in the process I’d tickle any other kid in the immediate vicinity too. So, after a while I was just running around tickling all kinds of kids. Well, at one point Catalina was running up the hill and I go to chase after her and I look back and there are probably like 7 laughing, screaming little 4 years olds chasing me. It was soooo cute! Another interesting observance I happened upon while I was there was that Andre (the more verbal of the 2 wheelchair boys) is like, the cool kid on campus. All the kids always want to play with him and he just leads them around in his little wheelchair. I don’t blame them, he’s pretty personable, and I think it’s great! I mean, how fabulous of a place is it where the kid in the wheelchair is actually cool? Later on, I was stationed at the see saw for quite some time. I don’t remember how exactly I procured the job, but somehow I came to be in charge of it. A kid would come up and I’d ask them if they wanted to get on it and they would always say yes. So, then I’d put them in the seat and strap them in and manually operate it (because, well, kids aren’t all the same size and they definitely aren’t all highly functioning enough to push the ground and get the thing going by themselves). Claudio, the down syndrome kid was in it the whole time because, well, let’s face it, down syndrome kids are usually kind of off in their own world and are generally content with most anything, and so since he was content to sit in the chair, I was content to leave him! He just sat there and chewed on his hat the whole time and I’m still not so sure he was even aware that he was going up and down. Well, after that we all went back inside and took everyone out of their jackets and hats and shoes and washed their hands and had gluing time! The teacher cut all their orange pages into strips and, the kids ripped the strips into smaller pieces and then they were supposed to glue them into a shape that resembled a flower. After that, they were shown how to draw a stem (Maria, who I was helping, chose to draw about 5 stems) and then they glued on a leaf as well. It was high art. After that, all the kids had a little bit of time to just play with toys and then it was time for lunch and we left. We had to go home before going to the hospital, because I was going to try to get my glasses prescription and I needed to print off my prescription at Podul and Shannon had a bunch of things to do at home before going to the hospital too. After we got home, I decided I just wasn’t going to go to the hospital, because I just wasn’t feeling it and I’ve decided that I think I tap out at going 4 times a week, especially since I go to Dacie on Tuesdays and Thursdays too. You know what bothers me? Part of the reason why I don’t go to the hospital is because I have so much homework to do and not really any time to do it, what with Dancu, Dacie, the orphanage, church stuff and everything else. So it bothers me that the homework I have actually really interferes with the experience and actually takes my focus off the kids. Shouldn’t it compliment it? I mean, I just feel like I can’t do both and so neither of them get my full attention. Anyway, so I stayed home and was actually incredibly productive. It’s always horrible when I stay home from something and am not productive anyway. I looked for an apartment online and made sooo much headway. I now have a list of probably 15 apartments that I’d be ok with staying in if everything works out the right way, so now I’ve just started emailing them, starting with the ones I like best, until I find one that works out. The one on the top of my list is a town home at a place called Campus Lane. It’s aaaabsolutely adorable and looks really nice. I would have a master private room (woot!) and possibly my own bathroom (don’t remember). The place even has a washer and dryer and I think it might be more than one level! On top of it, it’s pretty close to campus and is south of campus (which I wanted) at 582 N 500E. As far as I know it costs either $295 or $300 a month not counting utilities, which is way good for such a nice place. I cannot even express how happy I would be if I could get this place. I mean, the place I live and how pretty and clean it is has a huuuuge affect on how happy and optimistic I am and I’ve always wanted to live in a cute town house. Plus, I’ve had enough problems with roommates that I think I deserve to have a private room for once. And it’ll make it so much easier for me to be not stressed and be able to focus on school. Back to the original topic, another reason why the computer time was great was that I was listening to the classic Christmas music station on launch cast! Anyway, so at 7 we all went to the missionary fireside put on by the soras. I dressed up all nice in my nice pants and such because, well, I like dressing up on Friday nights, especially when I wear scrubs all week. For the missionary fireside we all made gingerbread houses. We were separated into groups of 3 or so and given supplies and left to go to work. My group was Marina, Madalina and I, with Marina being the chief architect. Our house was the boooomb. It was really pretty and orderly and creative. We made a bush out of this green glob of marshmallow and even made it look like it had Christmas lights on it! I was pretty impressed with everyone elses though too. Like, I don’t even have a favorite. And it made me so happy that Sora Lydia’s was pink! She’s so great. Oh, and as a shout out, I love Madalina too! What a sweet girl! Mmm….yay for outreach girls! The missionaries were really funny the whole night because they were all so happy and just going around taking pictures of everyone and everything. Like, at one point I looked over at Dubling and he was just standing there looking around with this HUGE grin on his face and I was like, “hey Dubling, ya happy?” and he’s like, “Uh huh!” Favorite part of the night though was with Toomie. He’s a total greeny, is from England (has a killer accent) and looooves Justin Timberlake and other rock and pop people a liiiiittle too much. So, someone was saying something to him in Romanian and he had noooo clue what they were saying and so one of the bilinguals translated for him and he just looks back at the person that had been talking to him and in a very Elder Toomie kind of a way that I really can’t explain through words he points to them, winks and just goes “da.” Like, wow, it was just such an Elder Toomie moment. And one of the other girls told me a funny story about Hackett. I guess Toomie was talking to a bunch of girls because, well, he’s just entertaining (it’s great, because I loooove to watch him, but am not attracted to him at all) and Hackett comes in and is like, “ooh, look at Elder Toomie, talking to all the girls!” Then, understandably, everyone was kind of awkward and quiet and Shannon goes, “good job Hackett, Sorensen has officially worn off on you.” And he’s like, “yeah, but not completely or else I would’ve then said ‘don’t blush!’” Ah, I love Hackett, and I love that he totally sees how awkward Sorensen is like we do. I totally plan on hanging out with him in Provo when I get home because he gets home in December too! But again, not attracted to him either! Woot! So, after a while I got a little bit of a headache and we left, all 5 of us together. By the time we’d gotten home my headache was pretty darn bad and so I just had to go straight to bed.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

You know what? Today was a good day! As Joey would say, Dancu, good; hospital, good; Dacie, good; outreach, gooood! Even this morning before I ever even left home, it was pretty good. I got up early to use the computer and I was actually pretty productive! I finally emailed Roberta! I also updated the blog a little, which made me feel a bit better. Shannon was feeling sick, so I made the decision to go to Dancu by myself. The thought scared me a bit, but I wanted to. Anni and Nuti were working and it was great! One of the reasons why I was a little worried about going without Shannon was that I almost never work with Iuliana and I was afraid she’d throw a fit and I wouldn’t know how to calm her. She was great thought! When I first got there I spent like 10 minutes with Petrica. Then, I spent quite some time with Mihai and had a ball. We crawled along the floor (since they aren’t aloud on the floor, I lay on the floor and put him on top of me and slither around, usually camping out by the toys), looked out the window, and read among other things. When I was reading to him, I couldn’t find the normal “Catelusi Veseli” book, so I had to use this one that they have that for some reason is in French. But, instead of reading the French, I would just tell him whatever I wanted to tell him and I used it as an opportunity to just pour out all my feelings for him. Roberta mentioned in her “closure” assignment to tell the kids your feelings for them, even if they don’t understand and that was the perfect opportunity for it. After Mihai, I spent some time with Iuli and it went fabulously! First, I jammed with her, singing and patting her with the beat. Then I tickled her, and then I just held her and rocked her and sang to her. While I was doing that, the workers came in for a while and just played with the kids. Anni came in first and saw Mihai leaning over the chair backwards about to slide headfirst onto the floor (his constant goal) and she just slid him down and let him be on the floor! Then she proceeded to play with him being on the floor and would practice having him pull himself up! It was sooo perfect! Then, if I was hearing correctly, I think she and nuti had a little argument about whether or not the kids should be on the floor! That may sound like a bad thing, I mean, it’s an argument, but no! It was so good! Finally, one of the workers realized that it was a bad them for them to never be aloud on the floor! I may be wrong, but I think Anni was saying that if they’re never aloud on the floor, they’ll never progress and I think Nuti was just arguing that it’s bad for their health. Well anyway, after they left I was with Iulia for a little longer and then went in with Costica for while and then back out with Petrica. While I was with Petrica, the workers came back in and put Mihai in the little wheely chair thing. You know, those things you put babies in where they can just walk with it and push themselves around. Well, it kind of worked, like he could push his legs from the front to the bag, but he wouldn’t bring his legs back up again. It was really cute though, watching both workers trying so hard to get him to do it and just having so much affection for him. I worked with him on it a little bit after they left and with Petrica a little took and then I went and had lunch! It wasn’t as bad as usual! The soup had no galuste (cornmeal ball things) and lots of potato, and the bread was fairly normal! At the hospital, I started off with Nicu on the 6th. He was crying when I came in (I can see institutionalization starting already) and I changed his diaper and then rocked him for a minute. Pretty soon the orderly came in and gave me a bottle, but right before I could give it to him, a nurse came in to inject something in his IV, which is in his foot. When she started to inject it, he started crying and screaming bloody murder, so she was like, “un pic moment” (one minute) and took him away. When she brought him back in, his feet had little shot punctures in them and the one that had the IV in it had a big lump that looked like an enlarged vein and she wanted me to keep pressure on it with a cottonball that had alcohol on it. It hurt, so he cried til it stopped bleeding and I took the cottonball away, but he calmed down real quick and almost immediately started to fall asleep. Like, in between taking off the cotton and sticking his bottle in his mouth, so I blew on his face a little to keep him away and successfully got him to finish the bottle. He, of course, promptly fell asleep right after and I handed him off to Bri! Then, I went with Marina to the 3rd floor. She was with Iliuta and I was with Daniel, who are both in the same room. I’d never been with Daniel before. He’s like 14 and has Down Syndrome. He’s incredibly skinny (you know, like the malnourished kind), he’s blind (you can tell because of his cloudy white pupils), and has scabs on his neck because of scratching himself (typical of the blind kids. He doesn’t talk and is really out of it and he likes to move his head, jerkily to one side and clench his jaw each time. He just likes mashing his teeth together and making that noise I think. He got surgery on is stomach and so I could see the tip of a very hastily sewn (Romanian stitched) wound because his shirt wasn’t fully buttoned. It’s amazing how strong of a stomach you can have when you need to have one. At first he was laying down and I’d just hold his hands or tickle his armpits (love his laugh). After he heard a bunch of nurses and orderlies come in, he sat and then stood up. When he was sitting he would get really excited and try to basically pull me in. He would grab hold of my watch and use it as an anchor to pull me in. I was pretty good about derailing it his efforts, although I did get one scratch close to the watch (he digs in with his nails). I also got a little scratched on my face, because I wanted him to feel my face and he just grabbed it and dug his nails in. After that I had him touch my face with the back of his hand. Ok, so I also have to mention an interesting scenario that I came across. Marina left after a while to go visit another kid, so Iliuta was by himself. He’s institutionalized and therefore pretty bad tempered. He has a ton of toys on his crib, but he always wants more. He came to the edge of the crib and started point at my bag and asking for more toys. I said I didn’t have any and he got upset and went over to the other side and started just whining/crying. So, I’m sitting here looking at this kid and I’m wondering what to do. On the one hand, my mind says “he’s institutionalized and is just going to get upset no matter what I do. There’s no way I can just keep giving him toys and that’s not really going to make him happy either, it’s just a quick fix. I know the only way he’ll be comforted is by giving him a toy and so I would feel silly leaving Daniel, just to probably make him more upset.” On the other hand, my mind says, “ok, institutionalization or not, this is just a poor little four year old kid who is feeling lower than low and I can tell. He’s got a burn wound and is stuck in a hospital all day and other than that is stuck in an impersonal facility without a mother. Give up all your excuses and just go try to comfort him.” What’s the answer? Well, after a while, I left them and went to the first floor. I took over for Abbi, who had been with Ionut. He didn’t look so good. He has a net around his head (like a hair net), he looked really uncomfortable, kept squirming, had reeeeally dry skin and kept spitting up. Sad child. I think he’d be so much happier in heaven and that’s really his only home, because his condition can only get worse. There were two other moms in the world. One had a child of about a year who had Hoffman’s disease. I’m not sure exactly what that is, except that it makes your muscles weak, so you can’t really move much. The other mom had the most adorable twin girls Lois (after Anthony’s grandmother in the Bible) and Sarah (Bible again). I spoke with her a lot because she spoke pretty good English and found out that her husband is a Pentecostal preacher and she’s from around Vaslui. Jenna came in and talked to us too and we held her girls and put these little animal hats on them that Jenna brought for the Dacie kids. It was adoooorable. We met Melissa at 4 and took the tram to Dacie. Along the way, the tram ran into a taxi. As in, the taxi was too far to the left on the road and so when the tramvie went by in scraped along the side of the taxi, right below our window. I’d say definitely taxi’s fault. Either way, the driver got out and was all mad and yelling and they were arguing. Then he got back in and slammed the door shut and sped off. A little while later, somehow we caught up with him or something and he got in the tramvie and started arguing with the driver again. That makes one pedestrian hit by a car, 3 car accidents, and one fist fight over road rage that I have witnessed in these 2 and a half months. Remind me again why people here don’t believe in seatbelts? Oh yeah, it’s Romania. Dacie was fabulous. I sure love those kids. We had them all try on the hats that Jenna brought. They included one moose hat, one bear hat, on princess headband thing and one green eye mask. My favorite combinations were these: Costica with the princess headband, Marian with the moose hat, Viorel with the bear hat and Mihai with the mask. Apparently Georgiana is getting fostered, like, tomorrow, which is crazy. I’m really happy for her and it was great to see her so excited about it, but it’s hard to just say goodbye just like that. I love leaving Dacie because the kids all go to the table to eat, but try as the workers may, they never eat much til after we leave. They just peak through the kitchen door at us putting on our shoes and such. Even when I don’t pay attention to them in an effort to get them to focus on their food, I still hear the occasional, overexcited “pa!” And when I look over they all ring out in an enthusiastic chorus of “pa’s” and “te iubesc’s” and “sheri’s.” It’s just precious. Jenna, Melissa, Shannon and I all happened to catch the same tram to outreach. I was the last to walk out the tram doors and just before I stepped out, Jenna asked me to look back to make sure she left nothing on her seat. I turn to do so and turn back just in time to see the doors shut in front of me! I panicked for a second and then pushed the button and luckily they reopened! We had quite a good laugh after that and I had flashbacks to the New York subway (that one’s for mom!). Outreach was fabulous too! I spent the first little while talking to Raluca and Sora Wright, who were making pumpkin pie, while Stefana did my hair in a crazy hippie braid thing. After that, Jenna and I (and sometimes other people) started talking with Elder Toomey, our cool new British elder. He’s so fun to listen to! Like, I think I could be entertained for hours by just watching him, even though I’m not attracted to him an all. Like, the way he talks is just so cool! I’ve decided I could never marry a Brit, because I’d never really be in love with him. I could never take him seriously and would just constantly be like, “hehe, coooool.” So, I was fascinated by his utter Britiosity (cool new world, thank you very much) and he got an incredible kick out of the fact that I’m from Orange County and have the last name of Money on top of it. Oh, and on top of the fact that he has a great accent and says really funny things, his name is Ashley! That, quite possibly, just completely made my day. During our conversation, Elder Sorensen would occasionally pipe in with the occasional awkward comment. You know, I really don’t mind him at all any more and I think he’s really quite entertaining in a very interesting sort of way. I never really diiiisliked him, persay, but he’s always been weird and I think I’ve learned how to fully appreciate that. At the end of outreach, we all tried on the hats (everyone loves them!) and took pictures! Yay! Um, hehe! Ok, so I think I finally reached the end of writing about this day! Now that like 2 hours have passed! Hey, it was worth it!

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

This morning, Shannon and I actually got out on time! Actually, we got to Dancu early! Dada was working all by herself today for the first time in a long time and it was good! The kids were really low key again today. I spent a lot of time with Petrica, as usual and just sang him Christmas songs and such. I also spent time with Costica, just rubbing his back and cuddling with him. And with Mihai I just did a bunch of random things. The day went really slow. But the kids were dressed really really cute! Dada also fed us lunch….lots of lunch! We had soup, bread (normal actually, not nasty) and a whole plateful of what she called spaghetti. From what I could see it was angel hair pasta (kind of) with a reddish orange sauce and there was so much sauce and the noodles were so soft that it was just this big orange, odd tasting mush. Nice of her though. At the hospital, I stared off with Nicu and I fed him (very difficult, but I succeeded!) and then lay on the bed and took a nap with him. While I was doing so, Marina came in and switched with Shannon who’d been with Vasilica and she decided to go see Iulia. Well, a little time passed and I was still napping with Nicu (who was finally out cold) when Shannon came in the room looking highly distraught. We asked her what was wrong and she said “Iulia died” and just started crying. I slipped my arm out from under Nicu and ran over to and just held her (Marina came too). It was such a surprise and I had such mixed feelings. Iulia has been with us this entire time. I’ve spent so many hours with that girl and tried so many things to make her happy. She broken my heart over and over and I’ve put so much into her. I’ll miss her and it’s a shock, but at the same time, I can’t say that I’m actually sad. I’m actually really happy. For a moment while I was holding Shannon I thought about Iulia and George in heaven, walking and talking and looking beautiful and just being happy and I started smiling. I mean, I’ve NEVER seen Iulia smile and to think that she’s smiling now – I just can’t explain what that means to me. You know, her situation was one of the saddest that I’ve seen and I’ve actually had many times when I went it her room and just prayed that she would die. I mean, she had no joy in this life, no future and was always in pain. I want one of my kids to have “Iulia” for a middle name. Well, anyway, Shannon was really upset and decided to go home. Marina and I talked for a little bit about Iulia and then Melissa came in and we told her. We left Melissa with Nicu and Vasilica and went down to go make sure that Iulia wasn’t just moved to a different room. Shannon said that she’d gone down there and no one was in Iulia’s room and it was all nice and tidy and cleaned up. So she asked a nurse “Unde este Iulia?” and the nurse pointed to the room and was like “in there!” and she’s like, “no she isn’t.” So then the nurse asked around and one of the mom’s said that she’d died the night before. So we went down there to make sure the mom was right and that she wasn’t just in another room. I was pretty sure, but Marina wanted to check. It was kind of traumatic because Iliuta, the little boy in the room next door wanted us to give him attention and the nurse always tries to get us to play with him (not that we don’t want to, but sometimes we can’t) and so she tried to and we asked her where Iulia was and she didn’t know that she’d passed away either and that same mom just casually was like “she died. She died last night.” And I felt really bad because the nurse looked so sad about it like we were. The traumatic thing was that this whole time the nurse was changing Iliuta’s pad because, well, let me explain. He has this big huge wound (bigger than a really big grapefruit) on his stomach. I saw it for the first time today and it was the worst thing I’ve seen here so far, aside from the dead man in Bucharest. It’s pussy and has these big red globs. One of the globs looked like it had slid down to his side. It looked like a really mushy, bright red cherry. Later I found out from Megan that he’s a burn victim and the cherry that I thought had slid down is actually always there. I didn’t have my contacts in, luckily. But they had to change him because his pad was soaked and it had soaked through his church which had a big wet spot on it. Yeah, so this whole time she was changing it and he didn’t seem to be upset or hurting at all and was just being active and trying to get our attention and we were just not able to give it to him. We didn’t stay with him either because not only were we not up to it, but we wanted to try and find Holly to talk to her about it. We went down to the first floor and found Abbi instead, who told us Holly wasn’t there yet. I decided to stay in that room with her. She was with a baby named Andrei or Adrian or something and there was another baby who’d just woken up that I went over with. He was reeeeally adorable and we found out his name was Gigi, but we weren’t sure whether he was a boy or a girl. We asked the moms, knowing they’d laugh at us and they did and we found out he’s a boy. The shirt he was wearing was way too small and his tummy was hanging out, so I gave him a shirt that was his size. He was reeeeally shy and just looked at me like I was huge and scary and tentatively played with the toys I gave him. I wasn’t really quite sure what to do with him and then Abbi left, so I went and held the other baby who started crying. I wasn’t too worried about Gigi, because I could see the other mom’s loved him and gave him lots of attention. After a while a nurse took Gigi and all the moms left the baby (who we’ll call Andrei) fell asleep. So I put him down and went to go try and find Megan or Jess to see when they were leaving. I couldn’t find them, but on the way out I found Bri, Mihai, Jenna and Holly who were all just getting there. I talked to them for a while and then discretely told Holly about Iulia and she told Bri and probably the others later. It was pretty sad and after that I walked home alone. On the way home, I started jogging to get across the street before the light changed and this street dog saw me and started running at me and snarling. I immediately stopped, didn’t look at him, acted calm and kept walking, paying no attention and amazingly he didn’t bite me. I was really surprised, because he was so ferocious and he was right at my heals. The look in his eyes said he wanted to, but he didn’t. When I got home Shannon was still there and didn’t look so good, but went to Dacie shortly thereafter. After a while Megan and Jess came home too and I spent a lot of time on the computer looking for an apartment and planning italy. About the time they left to go to Outreach, Shannon and Melissa came home from Dacie. Shannon didn’t feel well and got right into bed and was tossing and turning and moaning. Sad day. I eventually switched computers and have been on here ever since.

This morning I was kind of frustrated with Shannon. See, last night when she didn’t go to the hospital, she asked if I had any money and I gave her a 50 on the condition that she buy me some bread. Well, she came home and fell asleep until after the bread lady was gone and didn’t get me bread. The reason I need bread is because making sandwiches is the only way I’ve thought of to have something substantial during the day. So, she was like “I’m really sorry I’ll wake up early and go get you some tomorrow morning, I promise!” Well, she forgot and slept in late, as usual, and didn’t get it again, so I was frustrated because not only does she make us late all the time, but she didn’t follow through because of her inability to get out of bed and that bugged me too. So yeah, I brought it up and we talked about it and it wasn’t like hoooorrible, but it wasn’t good either and I was pretty annoyed with her by the end of the conversation, so I went into Dancu a little upset. While at Dancu, we talked about it again though and had it lead into a whole conversation on friendship, and now I’m fine…as long as she’ll wake up now (she said she would)! The kids were even sicker, which made them really docile and sweet. Even Mihai wasn’t being real active and would let you just sit there and do nothing with him which he neeever lets you do. Half way through the day this really nice neighbor (we think) came over and was sooo cute and just was so excited over the kids and was making them laugh and stuff. She also left us these little applie pie things. Like, apples, enclosed in a pie-ish round thing. They were good! We found out later that it was because apparently Ceausescu’s daughter died and they were funeral cakes. They didn’t seem real sad. Though, apparently she wasn’t that bad of a person. She and one of her brothers were educated in London and when they came back they realized how horrible their parents were and spoke out against them (the son fully disowned them). Their lives are quite miserable though, understandably. After Dancu, Shannon went home and I started on the 6th floor with rooster baby. This time the adventure was trying to feed her. She’d suck, but nothing would come out and I spent a good 45 minutes trying all different kinds of things and probably only got her to drink about 10 grams, and all of that was probably just milk that spilled on us. After a while I switched with Abbi and let her have a turn at it. I took Vasilica from her. He’s cute, but I just don’t get him as much as I do other babies, so I had a hard time with him. After a while I just switched with Marina because she does really well with Vasilica and I do really well with Nicu, the baby she had. By way of explanation, Vasilica is somewhere between 6 months and a year old (hard to tell when they’re institutionalized) and is from Donald Duck. He can’t sit up or anything like that. He’s got a big upper lip and looks like a little Englishman. Nicu is a newborn and I’d been with him the day before too. He’s really sweet looking and reminds me of Ionella who used to be at the hospital. I’m pretty sure I just stayed with him until it was time to go. I walked with Melissa and Holly to the tramvie station (holly came because it was Mihai’s bday) and we rode to Dacie. Once at Dacie, we discovered that they weren’t celebrating his bday til the next day, but they gave the two of us cake anyway – it was nasty J. Holly and I had a lot of fun, especially with Viorel, who always says “oweeoweeooooo!” because he can’t really talk yet. We decided when we see each other on campus in the future we’re going to hail each other by cupping our hands together at our mouths and going “oweeoweeooooo!” It provided the theme for the rest of the night during which we’d just yell it out every once in a while. I brought these little cardboard animals with holes in them that you put shoelaces through. Basically, you sew around the edges of the cardboard animal. I thought they were kind of lame and that they wouldn’t like them, but they kept them occupied the whole time! Those kids are just so great. Like, it took me a little while to get to this point, but now, I look forward to going there sooo much. It’s like a treat. I mean, Costica is so cute and hilarious and cuddly. Viorel is such a sweety and he just melts my heart and is one of the sweetest kids ever. Marian is a terror, but just sooo cute that you can’t help but love him. Mihai is just so smart and I respect him so much. Catalina is so vulnerable and tries so hard and my heart just goes out to her. And Georgiana is a little bit of a black sheep and I feel bad for her because of that and want so badly to help her because I see how happy she is when she does something well. Anyway, after Dacie, we all met up and took a tram to tirgu cucu and a taxi to Little Texas for Jess’s birthday. It was sooo much fun! The place is great. It has all these Old West decorations, including a lifesize cutout of John Wayne and it has such nice food J. It’s American J. I got a salad, enchiladas and shared a brownie with icecream and an apple pie with Jessica. The conversation was great and I loved it especially because I feel like right now I’m getting along with everyone and that everyone is getting along with everyone! What a great feeling!

Monday, November 20, 2006

This marked the first morning of Melissa and I’s new plan where she wakes me up every morning except for Wednesdays and I used the computer from 6:30 til 7:30ish and on Wednesdays she wakes up and uses it and I don’t get up til 7:30ish. I’m doing really well so far at actually getting up and doing too which makes me really happy. It’ll be nice to be able to go home and just use the computer for however long I want. Dancu was really really hard yesterday. The kids were more sick than ever and it made them pretty grumpy. Mihai wasn’t happy almost no matter what you did and if you weren’t playing with him he would just cry and cry. Iuliana was really moody too and screamed a lot and Shannon couldn’t figure out how to make her happy. Costica cried a lot more than usual and even if you did things that would usually make him happy, he’d still cry. Petrica was just loud J. Yeah, so there were times when we’d just be like, “aaaaah! I give up! There’s nothing else I can do!” As a side note, Anni and Nuti were working. At the hospital, I started off with Iulia because I hadn’t been with her in a really long time. She didn’t look so good because she had some brown residue on her face and some of her spit had a brown hue and there was a tube in her nose that emptied into a jar and the jar was filled with this nasty brown pussy liquid because every time she’d blow out of her nose, brown stuff would come out and go down the tube. At least she cried less than usual! After a while she fell asleep. About that time, Marina came downstairs and we decided to try to go to the 6th floor. Well, 3 girls were already with Radu, Vasilica and a little newborn boy who’s up there, but the nurse told us that there was another baby, so we went in there. Well, it turned out that it was none other that rooster baby! She was back! When we came in she was wearing this nasty dirty jumper and so I was like, “hey, I wonder if I have any clothes that would fit her!” So, I looked and the only thing I could find that would fit her was this yellow thing that had long sleeves, but didn’t cover the legs. Well, we figured that’d work, because we’re not paranoid about babies getting cold like Romanians and, well, the hospital is stifling anyway. So, we take the poor girl out of her clothes and put her in this and then the mom is like “nu nu nu nu! E frig!” (no, it’s cold!) and we’re like, “well, how bout if we wrap her in the blanket?” Well, she didn’t approve of that either. So then we’re like, “well what do you want us to do?” While we were trying to figure that out we discovered this other jumper lying on the bed that would cover her arms and her feet but then the mom was like “no, that belongs to this other mom.” Well, we were really skeptical because it looked way familiar and the mom’s sometimes (like, all the time) steal our clothes, but we didn’t want to just take it, so finally we were like, “whatever, what do you want us to do?” So eventually the mom is just like “put her back in her regular clothes.” This, of course is all being communicated through histrionics and broken language. So we start putting her back in the old clothes, then the mom is like “no, put the new clothes under!” So we undress her and start to dress her again when the other mom walks in and is like, “no, this outfit actually isn’t mine.” So then we realize we can put her in that and undress her again and start to put her in that. But of course the mom wanted the new outfit under it this time too, so we undress her again and dress her again and finally she was just dressed!!!! Yeah, by the end we were like, “how many times does it take two BYU girls to dress a baby?” Well, shortly after that Abbi came in and was ready to switch, so we went in with the other babies and I took the newborn (this is the kid I was with on Friday where I had to hold Radu and this kid at the same time) and Marina took Vasilica and Megan was with Radu. It was really great, because I just listened to Marina’s ipod and stared at this beautiful little baby boy as he slowly fell asleep in my arms. He’s seriously such a sweety, like possibly my favorite newborn so far. I don’t know what it is about him, but he just seems really pure and he also is a smiler. Well, after the hospital Marina, Jess, Megan, Melissa and I went to Gima. It was fabulous finally being able to get all these things that I’ve needed but that Hala and the corner store just don’t have. I was in heaven. There’s nothing better than coming home from shopping and having all this food. Well, after that I had a little bit of computer time after getting home and then went to FHE. We were supposed to be playing this game called “Fugitive”, but it didn’t really happened, so we all just talked. I talked to Stefana, Elder Hacket and Raluca the most. I love Stefana and I think she should go to BYU when she graduates. And yeah, I love all three of them. They’re all favorites. Mihai walked me home and we had a nice chat. He’s an ok guy. Like, yeah, he’s awkward sometimes, but he’s got a good heart and tries really hard but just gets misunderstood sometimes. The rest of the night was a little frustrating because I was going to use the computer after Jess, but while she was on in I fell asleep on the couch and then tried to write and just fell asleep again and had to go to bed. Romania is tiring!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

This morning I went to church with Shannon and Megan. I was pretty early, but didn’t want to choir, so the only other option was being late to church by going with Shannon and Megan. I missed the first song, so Marina had to conduct and apparently it was hilarious. Elder Sorensen, Marina and a man from the Mission Presidency gave talks. When the guy from the mission presidency got up, he started talking really excitedly and pointing at Marina and Elder Hackett (who had translated for Marina’s talk). Marina was just like, “ah, why is he pointing at me!?!” Then, Hackett told us that he said that he’d really liked Marina’s talk and wanted to get it translated and put it in the mission magazine and also wanted President Popovici to have a young adult fireside and to have her give it then. She was like “wooooah.” Imagine if I’d given my talk while he was there – hehe. He was a really great speaker too and he told this really cool story. Before the revolution he was a really famous Pentecostal preacher. Somehow he got like 500 smuggled Bibles and he started passing them out secretly to people. Well, while he was out passing them out the police arrested he and his wife. They were in jail for two days and the whole time he was really worried about his kids and how they were going to eat and stuff. After two days they were released, with no other punishment (veeery unusual) and just told not to do it anymore. When they got home his kids were sitting at the table and the table was filled with all kinds of food. Apparently when he converted he converted his entire congregation too. I’d have loved to talk to him more. During Sunday School I looked through this mission cookbook that Elder Hackett had with a bunch of recipes you can make from the stuff that they have in Romania. I also started thinking about the Italy trip, which Shannon and I need to get working on. The man from the presidency joined us in relief society too and at one point he got up and like went off on something having to do with the lesson and he was just such a good speaker and I just really liked him. He was such a good guy. After church Holly, Jessica, Abbi, Marina and I went to Sora Genoveva’s for lunch/dinner. It was…interesting. For one thing, it was really awkward, because you could tell she had no clue what to do with us and we had no clue what to do with ourselves afterward. Plus, she didn’t eat with us, she just sat us down in the family room (where he son was right next to us playing computer games the whole time but never talked to us) and served us. And at the end when she did come in, we’d try and talk, but it was really awkward and difficult. Plus, she’s no ordinary Romanian. Like, with most Romanians, you eat everything they put in front of you and offer lots of praise and tell them it was amazing and everything. Well, we’d tell her that and she’d be like, “well, would you have the courage to tell me if it wasn’t?” Ha ha. Fun times. She’s like cynical and very outright with it. Also, I ate soooo much food. Welcome to Romanian meals. To start of with she gave us bread with this stuff called “Salata de Finetti” that you’re supposed to spread on it. I had like 4 or 5 pieces of that. Then, she came out with soup, which I had two bowls of. Then, she gave us each a plate with liver (ick) and mashed potatoes. Then there were also some pickles, prajitura (kiiiind of like brownies, but not) for dessert (they’re little and diamond shapes and I had about 6 of them) and lastly, flower juice (which was a lot better than it sounds and homemade) which I had 3 glasses of. And I’m small. In between being served, when she would walk back into the kitchen, we’d all talk and discuss it and encourage each other to just keep eating and such. Like I said before, after eating she actually came in for a while and talked to us and we had a nice awkward time of it. Finally it ended and we all went over to Scala for dinner (which none of us ate) and our meeting. The meeting talked a lot about money, our schedule this week and plans for leaving. We will probably also take a trip to somewhere in Transylvania (likely Cluj, Timisoara or Sibiu) in the very beginning of December. Tuesday next week is Mihai from Dacie 7th and Jessica’s bdays. We are going out to dinner at Little Texas right after Dacie for Jessica’s. Thursday is Thanksgiving, but we are going to celebrate in on Sunday instead. Each of us is going to make something and bring it to the Villa after church and we’re going to eat around the Ping Pong table. I’m bringing Peach Cobbler. Ok, so the program is ever quicker coming to an end and it’s really weird. I am excited and dreading it at the same time. I wish I could just go here and there whenever I want to. Since Marina can no longer go to Italy early with me I won’t be leaving Iasi til the 16th and I will then leave Bucharest on the 17th. That week everyone will be living in Scala and Podul will only be used if we want the internet. We can all still go to the hospital and the apartments, but the girls at the orphanage won’t be going. It’ll be so hard. And I feel like I have so much to get done before then. So many little things aaand so many big things. I want to have pictures of everything, I want to have learned as many Romanian songs as I can, I want to go to Copou again and the cemetery again, I want to learn how to make certain Romanian foods and just so many more things. I also want to get as much homework done as possible and I need to plan Italy, and look for a job and an apartment I Provo. I hate this feeling. I want to just have a leisurely experience and be able to get out of it what I want to get out of it instead of what other people want me to get out of it because of homework.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

I woke up this morning at 7am and got ready to go to Bacau. First we all met at Tirgu Cucu and took tram 6 to the Gara. Then we waited for a while and took a two hour maxi taxi ride to Bacau. It was really foggy, so you could see much out of the windows and my legs were on the hump, which was a little uncomfortable. I sat next to Abbi and I read “Each One a Miracle” the whole way and almost finished it. When we got to Bacau, there was a missionary and a Romanian man waiting for us. All they said was that we were going to a park for 30 minutes and then a museum and then the Villa. We were really confused as to why exactly we were going to a park and a museum, but we didn’t ask questions and just followed them around the city. The city looked pretty much the same as Iasi. We got to the museum, and walked through a tiny street corner park across the street from it, but all they did was check the museum’s hours and then we went to the Villa. Theirs looks a lot like ours, but is nicer and bigger, even though Bacau actually has less members. Everyone else was already there, so we quickly reunited with them and then ate breakfast. They had pancakes! They weren’t the best I’ve ever had, but they were still sooo good. After that we stood around for a while and then decided to go to the museum. The museum was really interesting and I walked around it with Raluca and kept asking her questions. At the beginning it was a lot of biology stuff and species of animal and stuff. Then there was this random room with like, Romanian artifacts, kind of. It had some Orthodox stuff, some gypsy stuff and then different spices. With the Orthodox stuff, there was this cake that was white with sprinkles and a coco cross on top which Raluca said was really good. It was only for funerals though. And then there were these covrig things that she said you had to have specially made and I can’t remember what else. She told us though, that there are special days, usually like certain Saturdays, that people reverence the dead and they will go to their graves and bring food for other people who come and give food to the dead. Then, there was some stuff about gypsy magic and then she just read off what all the different spices were. I also thought it was interesting that in the species part, there were these moth cocoons and the caption called them “gogosi!” After and before the museum Raluca and I also talked some more. Once we got back to the villa, they had a bunch of games set up. I wanted to play risk, but no one else did, and eventually they just replaced it with something else, so I played UNO instead. Melissa won twice and then that was over. I saw that risk had been reassembled and that people were playing with real cards right next to it, so I decided to do both, since risk can be kind of slow. Bri, Holly and Jess were playing Nerts on teams with the cards and I would go in and out being on Jess’s team and we still won. Risk never really got off the ground. Like, we set up and explained it and put our pieces out and started playing, but by the time it was my turn, the game was over. Lunch was actually really good. We had this tuna pasta stuff and Salata de Beuf. Oh, and while we were playing Nerts, this really weird Romanian kid came up and started talking to us. He like got way to excited about everything and was waaaay too obvious about the fact that he was in love with Jessica and Holly and was just aaaawkward. Like, he was obsessed with the fact that Jess was from Las Vegas and was like “you’re a shiny girl from a shiny city! Ha! Shiny girl from a shiny city! Ha ha!” and we’re all like, “ha…ha…yeah…wow.” There were many more very interesting comments like that the whole time. And while we were sitting there trying our best to concentrate on the game he kept just being like, “Holly, holly, guess what? I’m your cheerleader! Holly, holly, guess what, you’re a pretty girl. Holly holly…” He was nice and all, but soooo awkward. After lunch we played do you love your neighbor. After that we Shannon and Jessica kiiind of taught us to do the cha cha and swing, but there were only like 2 or 3 couples and it didn’t really work. Then we all took a taxi to the maxi taxi and went for another 2 hours! This time I had to sit up front with the driver. I was in the middle, on the hump with my purse at my feet and my jacket and books on my lap and another lady next to me. I was sooo uncomfortable because there was no where to put my feet and I was feeling claustrophobic and nauseous. Then, lastly, we took a tramvii home. I reunited myself with Shannon on the way because we hadn’t talked in like…gasp…a day.

Friday, November 17, 2006

One month left. This morning Shannon was too sick for us to go to Penilla, so I went to Donald Duck with Holly. It was really weird because I’m so used to going to Dancu now that it felt totally different. Like, even going to the hospital felt different because I didn’t go with Shannon and I didn’t come from Dancu. When I first walked into Donald Duck, I came in by myself because Holly was talking to someone, most of the kids were gone! Like, there were only 4 kids in the first room, no kids in the second room, 2 kids in the living room and one kid in the back room. In the middle room where there were no kids, they were cleaning all the beds. Well, right when I walked in I saw a kid all the way at the end of the hall (fuzzily, since I can’t wear contacts) and from what I could make out he looked like he had a big grin on his face. So, I called to him saying “hai la mine!” or “come to me!” He ran up to me and help up his arms, so I picked him up and just carried him around as I went to the different kids. Welcome to Romanian orphanages, where random kids that you don’t even know attach to you immediately. Sometimes I feel like a holding machine. At first I just wandered around with him on my hip trying to figure out what I wanted to do first. I walked in the living room and Matteo was sitting in his chair, so I bent down to give him some attention, but as soon as I looked at him he started working up to crying, the way kids do, so I was like “oh shoot!” and just ran out so he’d stop so the workers wouldn’t get mad. Eventually Holly came in and we got to work. I held almost all the kids sometime throughout the day. The little boy I held in the beginning I soon found was named Salim. He’s 2 and a half and his mom just died of AIDS. His dad can’t take care of him or his brother (who also has AIDS) and so he was dropped off at the orphanage about a week ago. Holly says he’s gotten progressively more sober and whereas is the beginning he only ever wanted to play and wasn’t too interested in being held, now all he wants is to be held and loved and it’s hard to get him to play. It’s horrible to see the very beginning of someone getting institutionalized. Like, he’s a perfectly normal adorable little boy and I see him going through all this pain and becoming scarred for life and there’s nothing in the world I can do about it though I’d be happy to do anything in the world to help him. It’s kids like that that I can’t stand to be around unless I keep reminding myself to have an eternal perspective. Well anyway, so most of the time I took care of two babies at once. Sometimes it was Salim and Carlos. Sometimes it was Cosmina and Andreia and sometimes it was Carlos and Emmanuela. As soon as I could get a chance I held Matteo because Holly said that would probably make him happier. At first he would do nothing but cry, but he stopped after a while. When he stopped, I spun him in circles and he actually laughed! Carlos, too, has such an adorable smile. Cosmina, a beauuutiful little girl with Cerebral Palsy, gave the most intense stares I have ever seen. While we were there they moved Emmanuela and Andreia’s cribs into the living room, which was odd. At one point I was really proud of myself because I was able to get Salim to play a little. He was standing with his arms folded, leaning against the table, with his head in his arms, crying. So, I went and got one of those toys, where you have these round plastic doughnut shaped circles that you place in graduated order onto a platform with a thin cylinder coming up from the center of it. I’m sure that makes no sense, but oh well. Anyway, Holly said he liked it, so I went and got it. I started playing with it and acting like it was sooo much fun and being loud and excited and saying I needed help and eventually one time I specifically asked for his help and (he’d been watching me for some time now) he got the biggest smile on his face and tentatively came over and started playing with me! Such a success! Well, eventually he got distracted because one of the workers had chocolate and she saw him watching her and gave him a piece. I didn’t see him for a while after that because he was just behind the wall. Eventually I started wondering where he was so I got up and turned the corner and there he was…with chocolate alllll over. He had it all over his face and his hands too – so cute. At lunchtime I fed little Carlos, who is usually a horrible eater, but actually wasn’t too bad this time. I also stroked Emmanuela at the same time because she was crying in the crib behind me. Holly was feeding Matteo, so neither of us were looking and then one of the workers came in and started exclaiming a bunch of thing because apparently while we weren’t looking, Mihaela and Salim, who were sitting at a little table eating out of bowls, had switched their bowls! It was so cute! Speaking of cute, before that, when Matteo was upset, Salim got this bottle of the table that the workers always give to Matteo when he’s upset and he started trying to give it to him. He had this concerned expression on his face and just kept trying to comfort Matteo. That, right there, is when you know you are dealing with no institutionalized child. Well, anyway, so when feeding time was almost over Holly got a call from Mario saying that Cristi was coming over to fix our drain in like 5 minutes and someone needed to be there. Shannon was there, but was taking a shower, so she didn’t answer the phone, so I went. He’d already been let up by Shannon when I got there though. After a few minutes, all of which were taken up by the drain problem, Melissa came by to pick me up to go to the hospital and she wanted me to just come down. I would’ve, but we had to figure out who was going to give Cristi the key, so we had her come up. She still seemed pretty pissed from yesterday and finally I just decided to not let it affect me. I knew I wasn’t being difficult, so I decided to stop caring what she thought. We decided I’d give my key to Cristi, I made myself a sandwich, and then we left. As we walked out the door, Shannon realized that she need to borrow money, so we had Melissa wait again while we went to the ATM. After a few minutes of walking though, she took out her ipod and wanted me to tell her everything about her that was bothering me. We talked all the way to the hospital and for quite some time at the hospital, in Octavion’s room. It was both good and bad, but I guess on the whole it was good. It’s never going to be completely satisfying to have a conversation like that until you know someone comfortably enough, and I have no idea what she thought about it, but by the end, I was more ok with her. Well, when we were done she left me with Octavion. He was really sleepy, but I was supposed to feed him. At first I tried to get him to wake up and eat, but it would NOT work, so I finally just gave up and put him back in his crib. I sat there and read for a while. Occasionally he’d wake up for a short time and I’d feed him a few gulps of formula and then he’d fall asleep again. After I was tired of reading, I was just sitting there waiting for him to wake up, and I fell asleep for like 45 minutes! I didn’t think I was going to at all and when I woke up I was really surprised. Octavion was still asleep, so I just…got up and left! I’m sure the other mom in the room was like “she came all the way over here just to sleep in the hospital?” Next I went to the 6th floor, to the room with Vasilica, Radu and another newborn whose name I do not know. Jess was with Vasilica, so I took Radu. After a little while, the newborn woke up and started crying. I wanted to hold them both, but although it’s not that hard to hold two babies, it iiis hard to get the other baby into your arms. After awkwardly placing Radu in several positions, making a go for the other baby and realizing it wouldn’t work, quite a few times, I finally just put Radu on my legs and picked the other one up. After a while Vasilica fell asleep, so Jess took Radu. At the end we gave poor Radu a new outfit, since his was in rags and changed their diapers. Seriously, Radu’s skin is the saddest skin I’ve ever seen and I wish I could help it to heal. We walked halfway home with Melissa, Megan, and Bri and then Melissa and Megan went to drop Bri off while Jess and I went straight home. Once we got there, however, we realized that neither of us had keys! We decided to go try and head off Melissa and Megan incase they were going straight to the Palat (we weren’t going). Once we got home, I made the amazing pasta that my mom sent, read from “Each One a Miracle” which I really like, and wrote in my journal while cooking the brownies that Shannon had made. I was so proud of myself because it was the first time I cooked anything like that in our retarded oven and they turned out perfectly even though I can barely cook brownies right at home! Around 7 we all headed off to the Relief Society activity, which ended up being pretty good. By the end I really did feel like I’d had a good experience with the Romanian women and had a stronger connection with them. We did a few activities. For the first one we had a list of attributes and we had to walk around and talk to people and figure out who fit which attributes and write their names next to them. Then, we went around the whole circle and each person told a little about themselves. Cute little old Sora Maria just went off forever about the things she likes and though I was content to just sit there and listen to her, finally Sora Wright cut her off and had Sora Baker go. I wanna take Sora Maria home with me. After that, we just ate the refreshments and made Christmas cards. At one point I went in the kitchen and found Jess talking to the Relief Society president, Sora Maria’s husband. We tried to understand him together and did tolerably well. Then, when we all left, I was right next to a new Sora whose name I don’t know. She talked to me nonstop from the villa to to the gogosi stand where we hand to separate and I had no clue what she’d said the entire time. All I did was just say “Da” in various tones and laughed at appropriate times. I’m not quite sure whether she actually thought I understood her or whether she went home and laughed her head off at me, but I got quite a kick out of it. I sometimes wonder whether people just tell sit there and make fun of us because they know we’ll just be like, “da, da.” After we got home, I did some journals and then we all watched “Sweet Home Alabama” together, the four of us on Shannon and Melissa’s couch bed.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Last night I went to bed early because my eye was hurting really bad. When Jess and Megan came home from Outreach they woke me up to give me my package and to say apartment prayer. My package had my blue shirt, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, pads, taco seasoning and pasta mix. I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that my eye was swollen. I went back to bed, then woke up and decided not to go to the orphanage because I had a cough and a swollen eye and figured that they’d probably take one look and send me home anyway. Shannon wasn’t feeling well either (we probably got it from the kids) and so we both stayed home. I called my parents who gave me the number for Bishop Rice and he told me I probably have a virus and that it probably won’t go away for at least a few weeks and that I can’t wear contacts. So, I decided to try to buy some glasses instead since I should probably just have glasses anyway. Then we realized that my purse is at the orphanage and I wouldn’t be able to get it til later if I didn’t go get it myself and that we also needed the number for Dancu, so we called Holly and told her we were going to come get them from her. Well, when we got there she seemed a little frustrated at us which made us feel like total crap. Nothing worse than Holly being mad at you. We got home, called Dancu and were told that if we were sick we couldn’t come tomorrow either. Then I took a shower, made some faaabulous pancakes and read a little from “Each One a Miracle” before Shannon and I headed off to run errands. We first went to the glasses store and looked at those. The lady was really nice and spoke English, but I couldn’t tell what I wanted, so we decided to decide when I come back with the prescription. After that we went to the corner store and then to Hala and we finally had groceries! So exciting! When we got back Melissa was home and Shannon and I put away our groceries and then started talking about how to fix my messed up computer hours. Well, for some reason Melissa pipes in with something like, “why do you need to fix them, didn’t we figure it all out in the beginning?” And we explained how we didn’t notice certain things in the beginning when we first assigned them. Well, then she says something about how I could always just wake up and use the computer in the morning. I’ve been incredibly frustrated with that because I feel like she always says that to me and I always say “well, wake me up when you aren’t using it and if you are just wake me up at 7:30” and she almost always wakes me up at 7:30, so I just took that as either she was using it or she wasn’t and didn’t wake me up anyway. Either way, I haven’t gotten the opportunity. So when she said that I said, in a nice way, but nevertheless bluntly, “Well, I’d like to but I told you to wake me up if I can and you never do.” So then she responded really angily and in a very snappy tone how she does wake me up and I just don’t get up and stuff and so then I was really frustrated but said, “you know what, I disagree, but I’m not going to say anything.” Then she was like, “no tell me.” And I was like, “no, not when you’re mad.” And she was like, “I’m not mad.” That was just absurd to me, because it was soooo obvious that she was and I was like, “well you sound mad to me.” And she was like, “I’m not mad and you have something to say, so you should say it.” So then, I still didn’t want to say anything, but what do you do with someone in denial? So I was like, “fine, you promise you won’t get mad or offended?” And she’s like, “yeah.” So then we had this really frustrating conversation where she was both mad and offended and I was frustrated. She kept conceding things, then using them against me as if she hadn’t just conceded the point and I was like, “what the crap!” Finally I was just like, “you know what, you aren’t making any sense to me and I don’t feel the need to talk to you anymore and I walked out.” Shannon and I finished with the hours by ourselves and then I went to try and do my laundry. Well, while I was doing my laundry I was sorting clothes and I saw something on my jacket and was about to pick it up, when something stopped me and I pulled my hand back and then I realized that it was this big cockroach, lying on its back and just then its leg twitched! I was so traumatized! I seriously like couldn’t move! I’m glad I wasn’t wearing contacts, because I don’t think I would have been able to handle seeing it more sharply. And the thing that scarred me the most was that it was just lying there, in my clothes, and I didn’t realize what it was and just about picked it up by one of its legs. Something about that just totally creeped me out. Well, I, still in shock, went outside on the balcony where Shannon was. At first I just stood there looking terrified while she kept asking me what was wrong. It was really hard to speak and then finally I told her. She thought it was awesome and was really excited and took pictures and stuff. Then, she was really helpful and disposed of it for me and looked through all my clothes for more. Then, I even had her look under a pain of lone capris that were folded in the corner of my room and had been since I left for Budapest and low and behold, there was my watch! It was underneath the capris! Why it was so casually there under the folded capris I do not know, but it was! We decided that the cockroach was a blessing in disguise. Then, we had to get ready to leave really quick because we were running out of time. Then I went in the kitchen and did my dishes and just finished getting ready to go really quick. We ended up leaving Melissa because she said she didn’t want to go to Dacie (by the way, by this time my eye was significantly less swollen) and we just walked fast to the hospital and met Jenna there and took the tram to Dacie. Dacie went really well today! I brought 2 chalkboards and first made the kids wait before they played with them. It was only Mihai and Marian to begin with. I told them if they were good for a while I’d bring out the toys that I brought. So, they were, in fact, good and I did bring them out after a while. It went over really well because there was one for each of them and they played nicely. Mihai and I bonded while I showed him how to do some numbers and letters. Oh, I also told them they had to have the tv off while we played with the toys and I was pleased when that worked too! After a while they got sick of them and I let them turn the TV back on. About that time Costica and Viorel woke up and we played with them a little. Then, shortly after that Catalina and Georgiana came home and so they got to use the drawing boards because Marian and Mihai were sick of them About the time Viorel wanted to use them, Catalina decided she wanted to play with the bubbles, so I blew bubbles with her and Costica (who looooved them and was soooo adorable) while Viorel drew on the board. He was so cute and would show it to me each time he drew something. Time really flew by and before I knew it it was time to leave. I was really sad to go! Shannon and I walked Jenna home, which turned out great, because Marina had just finished making dinner and gave me some. It was this delectable chicken broccoli casserole. Then, Shannon and I walked to outreach, which went pretty well too. I played rummikub with Abbi, Raluca and Elder Hackett. Hackett and I wanted to play the American way, but Raluca and Abbi wanted to play the Romanian way, Hackett and I kept being bitter together. I walked home with Abbi, Bri, Holly, Shannon and Mihai and we met up with Rebecca along the way. After that I just walked home with Shannon and Mihai and that’s been about all.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

This morning I woke up at 6:45 to take a much needed shower and then was pretty much all ready, including making sandwiches for lunch, so I went back to bed from 7:45 to 8:15. When I woke up at 8:15, Shannon still wasn’t up, no big surprise. We were late again, but Christina and Dada were working, so that was good. All the kids were actually sick today, like we could tell. Petrica was really raspy and more tired than usual. Most of the day we just sat there and cuddled with them. I spent time with everyone but Iuliana. Also, around 11:30, the workers came in and started saying to clean up. I was all confused, but did it anyway. I gathered that someone was coming to visit, because at one point they looked outside and seemed to see someone arrive and then they started cleaning up even faster and kind of frantically. After cleaning I went in the other room with Shannon and Costica to be out of the way. The visitor ended up being the doctor. He inspected all the kids, then he and Cristina sat down and talked about a bunch of things, and prescriptions I think. Then the tree of the went in the kitchen and talked for a loooong time. At about 12:30, they still hadn’t come out and so finally we decided to leave. Luckily Dada came in right then, which made it easier, beause otherwise Iuli would have freaked out. Shannon told me she was going to go home before going nto the hospital because she needed food and after a long and frustrating time trying to figure out what to do, I decided to come too. My eye has been hurting especially bad and I was running on low sleep and also wanted to get things done and go to the store. At first I was still going to go, because I’m tired of missing hours, but then I decided that instead of not going to the hospital tomorrow, like I’d been planning I could just not go today. Shannon and I decided to drop by the corner store to get food on the way home, and I picked out all this stuff I need because Hala is out of all these essential things and I still don’t have my wallet back (just have a credit card), so I haven’t been about to get stuff. Well, when I went to pay, it said my card was invalid! I was so upset, I just wanted food! And I’d already gone through so much trouble to work out the plan for the day and it could only go just so or I’d be missing something essential and there it went! On the way home I was really upset, so Shannon tried to comfort me and told me she’d just give me some of her food and call it interest for letting her borrow so much. She was really great and told me to just go to bed when we got home. Then she woke me up when she left and fed me a balanced lunch then made me get on the computer so I’d get stuff done which made me feel a lot better. I got soooome stuff done on the computer, but mostly got sucked in by the cuteness of down syndrome babies and looked at a lot of pictures. I wish I didn’t do stuff like that! I also wrote Jim and emailed Roberta though, so that’s good. Now I’m on here, then I’m going to call my mom (because apparently my package arrived and the girls are going to bring it back from outreach) and to see if she can call the CC company for me! Hopefully I’ll get to bed reeeeally early! Anyway, well, that’s all for tonight!

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Wow, today was quite the day. What DIDN’T happen? So, we got off late to Dancu again. Shannon woke up when we were supposed to be leaving, and only then because I woke her. Dancu went really well. Before the professors came I first played with Petrica, but I also played with all three of the other kids at some point. I almost never take Iulia, but for some reason one time when she was throwing a fit I asked Shannon to get her, but then for some reason I decided to instead and without even saying anything just started being with her. It went REALLY well. Shannon said that was the longest she’s played with the xylophone since we’ve been back from Budapest. We were really excited for the professors to come over because then we felt like we’d have more people on “our side.” So, when they rang the apartment Shannon came running into the room smiling. Well, the visit went pretty well. Mario got the workers to be ok with the kids being on the floor if we could get a heat blanket, so we’re going to get one! Yay! And time goes by so much faster when you have distractions like that. Also, having them there helped us feel so much more helpful because we got to see us from their perspective and while they were and as we were telling them all about the kids and everything we do I actually came to the realization that, hey, we do know what we’re doing and we are doing a good job. Very good feeling. Not surprisingly, they really loved Mihai especially. While they were there we also were informed that Mihaela from Donald Duck is going to come to Dancu! Yeah, that is going to be insaaane. Mihaela is like 2 or so and she’s this tiny little adorable terror with attachment disorder worse than any kid I’ve ever seen. It’s going to change the dynamic of Dancu soooo much. Like, 1 kid who is super active in this little apartment with 4 other kids who aren’t mobile at all. We talked about it on the tram ride home and decided it’ll definitely be good and bad. Good for her and bad for the kids and the workers. It’ll be great for her because she’ll get more attention and she’ll have more stability and better workers and better toys. But bad for the other kids because they really need the attention that they already have and they’ll definitely not get as much. It’ll be especially hard to give attention to Costica and Petrica who don’t demand it and I am afraid for the kids when the next group comes because I’m afraid that since they won’t already have a connection with the original Dancu kids, they’ll never be able to form them and they won’t get much attention. Also, I just don’t know how it’ll work having Mihai, Mihaela and Iuliana all vying for attention! And I don’t know how much more progress we’ll be able to make with them. Shannon said something about how in Bro. Botts “Sharing the Gospel” class he always would say that instead of just coasting out the end of your mission, the best way to do it is to work harder than you’ve ever worked before and I think this’ll be the perfect opportunity for us to do that here as well. Anyway, after they all left and we were playing with the kids like normal again, Nut(z)i came in and gave us each this little scone thing that was soooo good. It was pretty much like an extra good gogoasa with nothing inside, sugar on top and straight out of the oven. I didn’t want it to end. We liked it so much that afterward I went in and praised it and asked if I could get a recipe for it. She seemed really really pleased and told us that if we waited a few minutes she’d give us pizza too and that she give us the recipe and I was like “oh, we’ll wait!” So, not only did we get amaaaazing food from workers who almost never feed us, but we had this amazingly positive conversation with them as well. Then, they let us stay extra long, so we didn’t actually leave til like 12:30 and as we were leaving Corrina told us that she’d get the recipe and bring it tomorrow. So, in high spirits we went to the hospital and talked about Mihaela along the way. We started off on the 3rd floor. Shannon went in with Iulia and I was about to play with Ilie, but first the doctors and nurses (who were all so nice) wanted pampers and while they were doing that, Megan and Jessica came by. We started playing with them while the two of them started talking about Tomesti and all the things they’d found out after the professor’s visit. While they were talking one of the nurses had us leave because they were feeding Ilie, so we went out and talked in the hall for a while. I stayed because I wanted to talk to Jessica and Mihaela. Well, after they finished, Jess and I first went to the 6th floor, where there were already kids with girls. Then we went to the 2nd to see Ionut. Well, he was in the play room, which we didn’t even know existed, so we went in there. One of the ladies that run in started talking to us and just talked to us like the entire time. She always said “I know” this and “I know” that, but a lot of the time she didn’t. Like, she was convince that we were part of Dan Ferguson’s program, which we aren’t anymore, but she didn’t believe us. And she kept bring up things and saying “American’s do this” or “American’s like that” and we’d be like, uh, no. She’d say things about Romania too that wasn’t true, like that they have great fashion and great water . Like, she wanted to know a lot of things and thought she did, but was actually just incredibly naïve and uneducated. She also kept trying to get us to do things we didn’t want to do and would get all mad at us when we wouldn’t do them. Like, she wanted us to go play with these kids who have moms because their moms don’t know how to play with then and we’d be like, “no, the orphans need us more, that IS who we’re going to play with” and she’d just keep trying to convince us. She was well meaning, but I didn’t like her. By the time we got out of there it was time for me to leave, so I didn’t really spend any time with kids at the hospital! I left early because I wanted to go home and get coloring books before going to Dacie. On my way there I met up with the Soras and talked to them for a minute. Then, right before I got home I realized that I didn’t have my key. I decided to go up anyway, just in case it was in my backpack or the door was unlocked or something, but no such luck. Then I decided I may as well at least drop by Hala for something to drink and it wasn’t til I was in the motion of swinging my backpack off my back to put in the locker that I realized, mid swing, that I don’t have a wallet and I just swung it right back up in one fluid motion. All I could do after that was just go to Tirgu Cucu and wait, except I didn’t have a watch. So, I waited there for what felt like forever, before I finally got worried that they’d left me and I decided to walk to Podul and see if Bri was home yet because I figured she’d walk with them. Well, she wasn’t, so I grabbed these plastic bowling pins that they have for Dacie, got some water and waited. Eventually, Marina, instead of Bri, came home and I rushed out, but they were already far ahead, so I just met them at the tram stop. Dacie actually went really well. When I got there Marian asked if I had toys and I said I did, but that they’d have to be good first and then I’d bring them out. Well, they were! And while they were good I got some great quality time with Costica. When I decided they’d been good long enough I brought out the pins. I had them wait, sitting a little ways away while I set them up (big step), then got them to take turns rolling the ball to hit the pins while they stayed in the same place. That is until Costica decided he wanted to just knock all the pins over. Not too long after that, though, Professor Nelson, Holly and Mario came over, which broke it up a little. Holly used to work at Dacie, so she’s great with the kids and it was good to have Mario there to translate. I love those kids. I think Viorel is my favorite. After that, I left early and went with them to Dacie 3rd and played with all of them too, which was fabulous. By the time we were going home I was sooo tired and my eye was acting up again. On the tram ride home this Romanian guy came and sat down by us and started talking to us, but mostly Shannon. He said he was a sailor and had been all over and to America too. He said he lived in Podul like Holly and when we got off he tried to get us to come with him. After Dacie, Mario went home, but Prof. Nelson came with us to our apartment, just to chat. Podul came over too and we did have a good chat. He’s a pretty personable guy and he’s just in his 30’s and easy to talk to. He’s also really smart. We had a great conversation about “mean girls” and parenting because he did a study on aggression in girls. We also talked about Romania and orphan stuff too. Oh, I forgot, Mihai from Dacie 7th and Maria, Mihaela and Catalin from Dacie 3rd are all getting fostered! That’ll be so great for them and hopefully it’ll leave room for some other kids to go to the apartments! I hope that due to the EU the Romanian orphanage system just continues to get better and better. Apparently it has come a reeeeally long way just in the last 6 years. Like, the early girls had a completely different experience and it was so much harder and the conditions were so much worse. We were also talking about how bad it was in the very beginning and about the videos that different news agencies filmed and even about how our orphanage was at the beginning. Apparently, there’s a worker there now who worked there in 89 and she said she used to have to keep her eyes up because there’d be dead kids on the floor. She also said that the bathroom had just tons of pipes in it and rats used to fall down on you while you were going to the bathroom. When I heard that I just imagine dead children on the floors of our orphanage and it gave me such a chill. How do I hear these things and not go insane? We also talked a lot today on how close we are to leaving. We only have a month left and the topic is coming up increasingly frequently. It scares me and I don’t like it. Holly talks about how some of us will get pretty weird and we just need to give people extra space, which should be interesting too. I can’t believe that it’s time to close up. I don’t know what Ill do when I can’t come back and it’s just over.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Well, if I leave on the 13th, it’ll only be in Romania for one more month. Weird. Well, this morning started off pretty bad. By the time I left the apartment I was just pretty frustrated. Like, one of those moods where you feel the whole world is converging against you. I told Shannon all about it and she bought me a gogoasa. She tried to cheer me up, it was only semi helpful. Dancu was no peach either. The kids weren’t aloud on the floor, AGAIN! They were “sick” again! And that stupid worker was there AGAIN! I don’t get it. I really just do not understand why. Yeah, so the problem is that I see no prospect of change. As far as I can tell, it will be this way the ENTIRE rest of the semester. So basically, our kids are unhappy and unable to roam and explore and we are unable to work with them on anything developmental, whatsoever. We didn’t get lunch either. At the hospital, Shannon and I started on the 7th floor with Ramona and Octavion. I was with Ramona. Partway through, Marina came in. When Jessica came up, Shannon and I went down to the 3rd floor and tried our best to make friends with Iliuta. We got a few smiles out of him, but most of the time he hated us and he screamed hard core when we left. We could hear him all the way on a different floor. We, unfortunately, had to leave the hospital early, so I didn’t get my full 6 hours. We walked home and together cooked fabulous egg sandwiches, then I used the computer for a little bit before we all met up with Mario and the professors to go to dinner at the Romanian restaurant. It was a really nice themed restaurant and the food was pretty good too. First we ordered, then we talked for quite a while and then we got our food after a loooong time. There were two tables and we pretty much just talked to the people at ours, which were Mario, Abbi, Melissa and Holly. The food I ordered was pork chops and mashed potatoes and it was all pretty good. I really love Romanian mashed potatoes. They also had some little sarmales for everyone and those were pretty good too. After that everyone else went to FHE, but I stayed home because my computer time was forfeited last week and today too because of the dinner. So, yeah. Since then I’ve just been computering it up!

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Wow, I really don’t feel like writing this journal, but ce sa faci (what can you do?)? Well, today was Shannon’s birthday. I woke up at like 7 and started using the internet. Shannon’s family called her at 7:30 and afterward she went to go use my computer and found that it wasn’t there. Jess and Megan went to school with Mihai today and apparently they took it with them and didn’t even respect me enough to ask first. Like, if they’d asked I would’ve been fine with them bringing it, but the fact that it’s my computer and they just took it and didn’t even ask first, as if they have as much right and control over it as I do. That really bothered me. Anyway, so that wasn’t cool. Dancu was pretty good though. Petrica was sooo good today. Like, he was showing a lot of interest in me and not being in his own world. First, one time when I walked in the room he looked at me and I moved in front of him and he followed me with his gaze. So then I moved a little closer and just said something to him, still not touching him and he smiled, then I moved even closer and just put my hand out in front of him on the couch and he put his hand on top of mine! So that was good, then later, first he was just sitting on the floor and then he actually crawled to me! Like, got from the sitting position to the crawling position (which he never does) and then actually started crawling without me instigating it (never does) and also just crawled toward me and not a toy or something (definitely never does). Like, that’s three great things right there. I almost couldn’t believe it when he did it, because it’s usually hard enough to get him wanting to crawl period, even when Shannon and I are both trying, we specifically place him in the position and we’re shaking a toy! He crawled to me and I put my hands on the floor and he crawled til he reached my hands and then he just put his hands on mine and I pulled him to me and just gave him the biggest hug! Also, along the same lines, he never crawls on the couch, yet today I was sitting on the opposite side of the couch from him giving Costica some attention, when Petrica actually started crawling across the couch to me. Yeah, pretty exciting day with Petrica all around. Other than that, I spent some time with both Mihai and Costica. I’ve usually been working on reading books to Mihai lately. He’s still a little impatient to turn the pages, but he’s getting more used to just having me go through the book page by page and me reading some of the words on each page and then letting him turn each page when I’m ready for him to. I just want him to get used to the idea. Also, usually with Costica I’ll just start off with rubbing his back or something low key like that. Then when he starts whining I’ll turn him. Then each time he wines I’ll do something else til eventually I’m like holding him and swinging him in circles or something. After a while I run out of things to do that make him happy. Well, today I decided to do it differently. Instead of doing something different when he starts crying, I’d just stop doing anything til he stopped and it worked! He definitely cried less overall and I didn’t have to keep coming up with ways to make him happy. After Dancu, though, I was sooo not looking forward to having such a long day, and I feel that way pretty much every Thursday, so I’ve decided I’m just not going to go to the hospital on Thursdays. So, I came home and so did Shannon. I took a shower and then a nap. The problem was that by the time I was out of the shower Shannon had already fallen asleep and so I couldn’t ask her to wake me up and I don’t have a watch, so I went to sleep and just figured since she was going to Dacie too, she’d wake up and realize I was still asleep and wake me up. Well, I guess she didn’t mean to fall asleep because she never set her alarm and didn’t wake up til right about when we were supposed to leave to go to Tirgu Cucu. I really did not feel like doing anything but sleeping, but ce sa faci? So I quickly got ready and went over there as quickly as I could. Since Shannon slept so long she didn’t get the things done she needed to do, so she didn’t go to Dacie. So, it was just Melissa at the 3rd floor and me at the 7th. It was hard. The kids were just rowdy and wouldn’t listen to me and all over the place and sometimes I just felt like “ahhh!” because I’d have 5 kids like right up on me, all of them either holding onto my scrubs or pushing each other and I’m trying to tell them not to do it, but the only thing I know how to say is “nu!” and that doesn’t work at all. They aren’t very good at waiting or sharing or listening. Like, much worse than normal kids, so combine that with me not speaking much Romanian and there being 6 of them and you’ve got a tough situation. Plus, the worker today is one that I don’t think likes us much. I feel like she thinks I do things with them I shouldn’t do, but she has never told me the rules and she’ll tell the kids not to do stuff but won’t tell me what she wants them not to do, so I never know. That’d be fine if I spoke the language and could understand what she says to the kids, but I don’t! I still love them though, even if they drive me a little insane. I can’t help but love Viorel’s sweet little smile and the way he is so enthusiastic about everything and so innocent. I always thought it was easier for me to love the normal kids cuz I thought they were cuter, but honestly, at Dacie, I’m finding that it’s so much easier for me to love Costica and Viorel, the two most behind and the ones that are the hardest are Mihai and Marian who are the most normal. Like, I can’t explain the love I felt today when I was doing “coca nani” with Viorel. Anyway, I was supposed to meet Melissa at 6:20 at the tram stop, but I figured the worker would have me leave by then, because they usually do, so I just waited til she said to leave. Well, when the girls had been home for quite some time I finally asked her what time it was and it was already 6:30. She wanted me to stay for 10 more minutes, but I had to go and I felt bad because Melissa had started to worry because I didn’t get there til 6:35. Well, we took the tram to the Villa and went to Outreach. I talked quite a bit to Raluca and Christina. At one point when Raluca and I were watching Hackett and some other guy play ping pong we found these crazy ugly huge thick glasses and tried them on, which was fun. At the end I talked to Mihai for a while. It was a pretty good conversation, but I felt bad because it was like, I understood what he was going through but didn’t know how to help him. Anyway, he walked us home. Megan made rice crispy treats for Shannon, so when she got home we all sang to her and at them. I’m kind of frustrated because I realized that my computer hours for today really just don’t work. Like, A.) I was scheduled for some time when I’m not even home and B.) I was scheduled for both computers at the same time!