College Football Drama

So this crazy system we have in college football has caused me, a Texas fan who bleeds burnt orange to have have hoped for OU victories two weeks in a row. Last week it happened, and amazingly Texas hopes for winding up in a national championship were reignited. This week we need a small victory over Ok State, just enough to keep the three way tie, but not enough to push OU ahead of Texas in the BCS rankings. Half time score- 21 to 13, OU in the lead. Keeping my fingers crossed.

In Yerevan

So tomorrow is World AIDS Day and today myself and other volunteers will be putting up posters and folding brochures to hand out to people, final preparations.

Tonight I will stay with some friends in the nearby city of Sevan, and then tomorrow will be back in for the big day.

Before I left for Yerevan on Friday, my counterpart at school mentioned working on a grant to help my school out with some new sports equipment, so I am really excited to take this project to the next step.

Will update after World AIDS Day.

Conference finished

Today we wrapped up our yearly All Volunteer conference. We had a great Thanksgiving dinner. I learned how to cut turkeys! The meal was excellant cooked by a team of Peace Corp volunteers who are excellant cooks. My small role was helping carve the delicious turkey.

Today I, and some other volunteers who are intersted in HIV/AIDS awarness, are going to hand out flyers for our World AIDS Day event which will actually be on World AIDS Day, Dec.1st.

Worlds AIDS Day progress

The last couple of days I have been in Yerevan working on getting ready for World AIDS Day in Armenia. Things are coming together with a few hitches. We got funding to rent one of the two movie theaters in the country to show a film about HIV/AIDS and to make and print a bunch of informative pamplets with the most important facts about HIV/AIDS, but the funding won't here for a couple more weeks. So we will probably delay our event. But the entire month of December is World AIDS Month so we still have plenty to of time to do our event.

Also volunteers all over Armenia are doing HIV/AIDS contests. I have one submission, which is less than I hoped for but one is better and than none. And I did do lessons to make sure that my students have accurate information about HIV AIDS, which is the most important part.

Sunday I will be going to Yerevan for our yearly ALL VOL conference. We will have a nice Thanksgiving meal and all the volunteers which will be great.

AIDS Lessons

This saterday I did a couple AIDS lessons at my school, and I was very impressed by my students. I went and spoke about the World AIDS Day writing contest for 10th and 11th grades. The 10 and 11th grades were very knowledgable about the basic, and most important, AIDS issues. They were aware that there is no cure and that AIDS is spread through body fluids, primarily via sexual intercourse and drug use. Now hopefully they will apply their knowledge and put together some great essays about HIV/AIDS/

Book Recomendation

I recently finished William Easterly's "White Man's Burden", an incsive critique of Western foreign aid and intervention. Easterly, for many years a World Bank economist, tears apart much of what he did as a working development economist. Easterly, now a professor of economics at NYU, uses his considerable economic acumen to pick apart the current state of foreign aid and the philosophy behind it.

"White Man's Burden" is buoyed by Easterly's extensive on the ground experience working in developing countries, as well as his already metioned economic expertise. I also found Easterly's writing style outstanding. I have enjoyed a lot of good nonfiction by journalists who have a knack for narrative and put that together with great research to write a great book. Michael Pollan is a prime example. But Easterly happens to be an economist with a knack for narrative. Devlopmental economics is not a topic that Easterly researched, or something that his publisher suggested because it is en vougue with the American public. He combines a lifetime of work in the feild of development economics with his great narrative voice. That is what made the book so outstanding for me. In Easterly we are lucky to have a great writer and erudite expert in one person.

I do not agree with everything Easterly argues or all of his conclusions. But the writing and thinking in this book are clear and convincing. If you disagree it will be at the least an entertaining and thought provoking read. If you do agree it will change how think about foreign aid. I was in the middle. And I recomend you find out where you stand for yourself.

what I am working on at school

Currently at school I am teaching health, english, and doing an AIDS writing contest. Generally I do English after school for the students who want to, and are willing to stay after school for more English practice. That way I generally get students who care and are well behaved and eager to learn. I call these English Clubs.

I do my health lessons in classrooms. In this way I get to reach all the students. I do these lesssons in Armenian, so I always have to do a lot of prep, but generally they go well. When I do health lessons in the classrooms I get to teach all the students, so the students are generally less behaved, but I get through it. My current health lesson is game about the nutriotional components of food that last time the students seemed to enjoy.

December is World AIDS Month and Dec.1 is World AIDS day, so I am doing an AIDS writing conatest and lessons to go along with it. The contest is for 10th and 11th grades, and hopefully I will get some good submissions.

Thats a brief summary of my work at school. It keeps me busy.

Vacation officially approved

Peace Corp officially approved my vacation so I will on American soil in about 5 weeks!

Winter is here

Winter has arrived. Yesterday we had our first snow. It was a very beautiful moment, and I called Lily so that we could share it. While the snow is beautiful, that also means that the weather is very cold. I am having difficulty typing this because my fingers are so cold. I wish I could type with gloves on, but that just doesn't work.But my body is warm. I have several layers of clothes on and nice big, thick wool coat. And plenty of wool socks to fortify my feet.

Some of the snow has melt away today but the higher mountains are covered and will stay that way till probably April or May. Mount Ararat, at 15,000 has permanent snow coverage. When I go into the capitol(Yerevan) I have a great view of Ararat if it is a clear day.

I expect Jermuk to be completely covered by snow by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, and for it to stay that way till April. Longs winters, but the snow is beautiful and I'll get through it.

Relaunching my blog

So it has been a while, but I am coming back to the blog. I was doing well until summer when my schedule got way off due to going to America and summer camps where I largly did not have internet access(the summer camps that is, as you know there is pleny of internet in America).

I will try to do at least a post a week, that is reasonable. I want to be a better writer and this is a cost effective way to do it.

I will for sure do another post this week.

Be back soon.