Wednesday, June 2, 2010

A Return

As was recently brought to my attention, I have lapsed in updating this blog. I shall, therefore, endeavor to return to it with greater regularity, though I have another 2 weeks of travel coming up at the end of this month.

I have just returned from a few days spend in Kzlorda, which is in the far south of Kazakhstan, and West of Shymkent. It is the furthest I have traveled from Petro so far, not counting my trip to India, and was the longest travel I have ever made.

The way down the 60 hour trip was broken by spending 12 hours in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. That 12 hours was just about enough to see everything that the capital offered, although we couldn't find the museum in a convenient period of time.

The main site is Baiterek, which is a golden ball on top of a bunch of white sticks. It symbolizes the egg of wisdom that was deposited by a bird on top of a poplar tree. At the top, as one expects from a tree of wisdom, is a pedestal with the signatures of a number of religious leaders from around the world, and a golden hand impression of the first and current president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev. I have a picture now with my hand in his. I hope to get it at some point.

Other than that, the main attraction of the city is the architecture of the government section of the city. Overall I was favorably impressed. Many complain that although there are many fantastic buildings, they are all empty and shoddily built. While I can't disagree, they are still pretty cool, and the section as a whole does seem very well designed with subterranean parking structures that would be very nice if US cities would copy them. It does seem to be based loosly on the Mall in DC, except with the President's Palace at the head of the Mall, and Congress off to the side.

There was also a traveling exhibition of the Love Bears, or something. A bunch of painted bears, one for each country. Some were very well painted, others looked like a bunch of school-children smeared them with paint. Unfortunately both the US and Irish bears were rather unimpressive. I can't remember the nationality of most of the ones that impressed me, though Kyrgystan was much nicer than I had expected. I think there will be pictures later.

Anyway. After Astana I went the rest of the way to Kzlorda for the National Association of Teachers of English in Kazakhstan (NATEK) conference. They show up in a different city each year, and this was the second year I was able to go. It was a good conference, and I gave a presentation on sources online for native English in written and audio form. I focused mostly on Project Gutenberg and the BBC Learning English section.

I have decided not to apply to be a trainer for the new group of volunteers because it would require me to move into a host family near Almaty that might not have Internet, and a lot of the things I am currently working on, like getting a job, require the Internet for searching as well as calling the US via Skype at all hours of the night and very early morning. I'm also hoping to take an online class on accounting to see what I think of it. If I enjoy the class I will be pursuing a job in a CPA firm, or secondarily as an accounting clerk, Accounts Payable/Receivable once I get back to the US. Ideally I will be able to get a job offer before I leave Kazakhstan.

Connected with that, I'm trying to foresee how much money I will have/need once I do get back to the US. That's leading me to scale back my initial plans to travel extensively after the Peace Corps. I still want to go to Russia since I'm so close, and my Russian will be fresh, and if I'm going home that way anyway, I would like to try and swing through Ireland to see family, but I will probably cut out Germany and other countries.

I am also considering requesting an extension of 30 days or so at site to finish the semester, and close out a few projects I hope to be working on at the time. My ideal time to return to the US would be end of December, which would give me a week or two over the holidays to readjust, and then I would be able to start work after the New Year.

I am growing some plants in my apartment this summer. My tomato plants seem to be doing well, and I'll start a few more this week, I think. I'm also growing parsley, dill, basil, in addition to some flowers which will hopefully be pretty.

The school year is over for this year, so my work will turn to summer camps and summer classes that I will run at my school and the library. The library is already scheduled at Thursday and Friday, and the stuff at my school will be scheduled (probably) this week.

Things are well, I am healthy, and I hope you all are also!