To Whom It May Concern:

It snowed here yesterday. I went with the University Group to the Lake for a picnic and it snowed and hailed, and was generally pretty cold. I also made Spanish rice, and I think it may have given me indigestion. Oops.

I have also decided on a new apartment. It is closer to my school, though it is further away from the rest of the volunteers than my current location. It is also further away from the library, but it looks good, is a reasonable price, and the owner is known to my CP.

I have pictures of food, and I hope to post them once I charge my camera batteries. Not much else of interest. I am going to try to budget myself for 12K tenge per month for food, which is about $80. That probably won't count the special food items I buy in various other places in KZ where certain items are cheaper. I want pine nuts, for example, but they are very expensive in Petro since there are no pine trees. I'm hoping they are less expensive in Karaganda since there are pine forests there.

My summer is also filling up more quickly than I had expected.

I was awarded a grant by PC to give a presentation at a national teacher's conference at the end of May, then I have a summer camp, and a language camp for the next two weeks. After that I will prepare projects, I think, then go on vacation to Kyrgestan, then another summer camp, then maybe an English seminar thing in Almaty, then finalize plans for classes and my schedule before school begins again on the 1st of September. In the middle of all that I'll study Russian. I hope to get a history textbook directed at very young students and try and read my way up to more advanced stuff.

I hope you're all well and living the life you had always dreamed you would.