PC update: moving forward & will have an interview next week- things are moving along quite smoothly. I'll be able to interview on the U of M campus with a representative there, so I won't have to travel to Seattle, as I had initially thought might be the case. Other good news is that I got my letter of acceptance (take two) into the Intercultural Youth and Family Development grad program & am considered an in-state resident. I was able to provide all the necessary documentation to have them consider me an official Montanan :) I'm still not sure if I want that label or not.
In other news, I've been doing a lot of mentally preparing for what lies ahead, in this next year as well as in the year after grad school, when I'll be going abroad, either through the Peace Corps, or through another organization. I still have a lot of thinking & praying to do for where I'm meant to go, and what I should say in my interview when we discuss regional preferences. It's a big decision and where I go will determine a whole lot of things.
Lately, so many things have been reminding me of my year abroad last year. It's usually smells that get me reminiscent of that time. I think my top two favorite smells that I can connect with my time in LT & KG were 1.) The smell of bandeles (breakfast pastries) from my favorite bandele shop walking distance from my flat. I would walk there when the weather was nice enough & pick up a bandele or two sometimes with a friend and get a cup of coffee while sitting on tall stools against the window people watching. Today I came downtown Helena, parked my car a distance from the bakery & walked to get a croissant & cup of coffee. The weather has warmed up quite a bit lately, getting up to 40F. It was funny how all these memories of getting kava su bandeles- coffee with bandeles rushed into my mind. When I was standing in line in the bakery, I found myself reminiscing, staring at the ceiling & walls, with memories flooding into my mind. I was spaced out when the cashier interrupted me in my train of thought and I, embarrassed, proceeded to order.... in English.
The second smell that always causes me to reminisce my time abroad is the smell of wood burning stoves. There are a lot of houses in the area that heat their houses with wood stoves & every time I smell it, it's almost as if I'm put into a portal and go back in time to be placed in one of the villages of Lithuania which I traveled on my road trip or in Kyrgyzstan. Oh, what I would give to be back there. I distinctly remember driving through KG with my friend Altynai & her brother (he let me drive...) and smelling those wood stoves as we traveled.
So lately I have been studying Russian through Rosetta Stone, and it's going quite well, except for one small thing. There's just one letter in the alphabet that I can't pronounce. If there's any Russian speakers out there that can give me, a native English speaker, a key for how to pronounce the soft sign, please let me know, as I'm really struggling with it. I'm more than half way through level 1 which is really exciting. As I'm working on my computer in the public library, there were two women, one Russian speaking and one English speaking, and I was just so excited to hear her speak, it reminded me of all so many people and students I worked with last year.
There are so many smells & sounds that remind me of my time abroad, and almost a year later, I'm still working on processing how to bring those lessons, memories, and relationships with me wherever I go.
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