Well, I did it. I completed my first 5K race. I’ve been running for some time now, with most of my running on treadmills. I did take a “5K buildup” class from a trainer at the Wellness Center at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which involved running outdoors. That was a big help. But… Read More »
I’ve been in service for some months now, so it’s time to update everybody on what I’m doing. For those who are new here, I’m a community development volunteer in the Peace Corps. I’ve been assigned to two workplaces: the Language Center at South East European University and the Center for Equal Opportunities “Mollëkuqja” (“Ladybug,”)… Read More »
I stopped running back in September, shortly before I left for Peace Corps staging. I didn’t do it during pre-service training, in part because I was planning to use the gym at the university (one of my workplaces) after I completed training. I learned embarrassingly late that the university doesn’t have a gym. Since it’s… Read More »
Here’s a word that seems to be awfully confusing to native speakers of English, Macedonian and Albanian: “corps.” If you are starting a new organization or agency, I’d urge you to avoid using the word “corps” in its name because I guarantee a lot of people will get the name wrong. I’ve witnessed many instances… Read More »
An interesting thing about Albanian is that the names of occupations all seem to be gendered. (At least I haven’t yet learned of any exceptions.) A teacher or professor is “profesor” if male and “profesoreshë” if female. An accountant is “kontabilist” if male and “kontabiliste” if female. It got me thinking a bit about how… Read More »
Until my swearing-in on Dec. 7, I’d been studying Macedonian exclusively. Now I’m studying Albanian, which is the main language of the area where I live and work. It’s a challenge. There are a number of issues that create challenges. For one thing, I was getting about 16 hours of instruction in Macedonian each week… Read More »
Well, I made it. It took more than three years after I first accepted an invitation to serve, but this week I took the oath and officially became a Peace Corps volunteer. And now I’ll share some information about how I got this far and what you should do if you want to do it… Read More »
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in an Albanian-speaking area of the country. So far, all my language classes have been in Macedonian, which presents some challenges. For one thing, I don’t get practice in the language I’m studying; for another thing, I have trouble understanding the words spoken around me when I go out. I… Read More »
OK, this is weird, but I finally understand why people in many countries are amazed that Americans don’t have electric kettles. Shortly after arriving, I got a small pot that I could put on a hotplate to heat up water. I poured that water into a mug with some instant coffee in order to get… Read More »
Studying Macedonian isn’t easy, but I’m making progress. Most weeks, we have four days of classes, usually about four hours a day. Our classes meet online via Zoom, which is less than ideal, but it’s working fairly well. One major challenge is the alphabet. Macedonian uses a Cyrillic alphabet, so the letter forms are like… Read More »